Cake, Ice Cream and Potato Salad - Oh, My!

I fell a bit off the "diet" wagon this weekend what
with having a birthday party yesterday. I piled my
plate with a huge piece of cake, ate 5 bites and gave
the rest to my cousin. Same with the ice cream - I
ate less than half of what I had plopped on my plate.
I have this thing where I give myself permission to
eat as much as I want, fill my plate, and then just
eat as much as I REALLY want. If I had just put a
baby piece of cake and a dab of ice cream on my plate,
I know I would have had seconds.

What did I indulge in though (you just know there has
to be something)? Well, on Saturday I made a huge
bowl of potato salad - MY MOTHER'S potato salad -
which is pretty famous in my family - and I admit to
eating two (large) helping of it and then I had a bowl
of it for dinner. Nothing else, just potato salad for
dinner. My potato salad rocks.

Of course, everyone else makes their own "special
potato salad", just like their mom's or grandma's.
And most of them taste weird to me because they have
olives or radishes or (blech!) celery in it or they
use dill pickles or pimento. shiver with disgust.

But, really, they can make it any way they want and
put anything into it that they want BUT the BIGGEST
MISTAKE people make is in the initial prep when they
DON'T SALT THEIR POTATOES WHILE THEY'RE COOKING. I
can handle anything in the salad except for raw,
unseasoned potato taste, which you can't disguise
because adding salt while making the salad can never
completely cover that raw potato taste - the ONLY way
to successfully season your salad it right at the
start - dump a tablespoon or so of salt right into the
water with the potatoes and you can't fail. Add
anything you like after that.

I don't know if the people in the restaurant
downstairs in our building make their own potato salad
or purchase it from Costco or something, but it is
extremely bland - unsalted potatoes in the cooking.
I'm telling you.

Oh, (back to the Project) Ken went to Wendy's Saturday
evening and I said "no thanks" when he asked if he
should bring me something - and Wendy's in one of my
favorites! - because I thought I should eat some
yogurt and a bagel instead. I felt so virtuous.
(Right now I'm thinking I'd kill for Wendy's but
there's no one here volunteering to go fetch it so
I'll just live with it......)

I'm still hoping for 60 pounds lost by the end of
August - today's the 14th and, as long as I didn't
gain any potato salad-pounds this weekend - I had a
good start with 4 down by last Friday. Just 8 more.
I think I can. I think I CAN. I THINK I CAN.

Oh, and one last thing. Would you believe that NOT
ONE PERSON in my family has noticed that I've lost
weight? At least no one has said anything. NOBODY!
They better say something by the time I've lost 90-100
pounds (December - fingers crossed) or I'm bopping
somebody upside the head.