I have a cat named Scampi. I didn’t set out to name my cat after a butter sauce. It just kind of happened. My sister-in-law went on vacation to England and brought me back a tea towel with “The Cats of Canterbury Cathedral.” One of them was named Scampi. I thought it was an adorable name for a cat so I named my tuxedo kitten Scampi, with full appreciation of the irony. In fact, I am not only digestively intolerant of the sauce for which he is named, I am allergic to shrimp – the protein often served with Scampi the sauce. But it worked out just fine. Scampi the cat is delicious and soothes my soul and he and his brother Schuyler (named after the sisters in Hamilton without any touch of irony) rarely cause me agita and never any digestive concern.
That I would name my sweet little cat after a dish that would make me sick is not surprising to me. I seem to be drawn to the things I can’t have even though I can’t have them. I am a huge fan of cooking shows and my love for the ones featuring desserts has not diminished at all with my inability to eat sugar and dairy. I call it the “Christina Tosi factor.” For those unfamiliar, Christina Tosi is the Chef and Owner of Milk Bar, the sister bakery to the restaurant Momofuku in New York. She is a frequent judge on MasterChef and I just love her. She is the perfect combo of sweet and smart to balance the male judges on that show and she knows more about desserts than all of them put together and they gladly concede it. I love listening to her talk about desserts I will never eat. And the Great British Baking Show? When new episodes come out it’s like a holiday for me, knowing I will soon get to hear Paul Hollywood wax eloquent about sponges and how long to let dough prove. I can’t even imagine how many grams of sugar that man must eat in a weekend but when he extends his hand to one of the contestants for one of his famous handshakes, I squeal too. Don’t even get me started on my new favorite “Is it Cake???” where baker/sculptors bake cakes to look identical to everyday objects and C list celebrities then guess which ones are real and which ones are cake.
I’m sure that this is some form of coping mechanism. I still get some satisfaction from the visual sensation of looking at a beautiful dessert. I also enjoy hearing about what it tastes like and how good it is. I can on some level “taste” it by imagining the flavor based on the description. It certainly has fewer calories this way!! But I wonder if other people feel the same way or if others say “if I can’t have it I don’t want to look at it.” I have heard some people say they don’t like to watch cooking shows because it makes them want to eat too much. It sometimes makes me want to cook, to try to make new things, but thankfully it doesn’t make me run to the fridge or the cupboard for a snack.
I am truly grateful for this phenomenon. I feel like it gives me an outlet for sugar and dairy cravings that I would not otherwise have. Ironically though it has not yet led to me become an avid baker. That really should be the next step and perhaps this blog will lead me in that direction. Now that I think of it, that same sister-in-law recently gave me a Momofuku cookbook as a gift. There are some bread and dessert recipes in there and I’ll bet Christina Tosi had a hand in those. Maybe I will get ambitious, and I will try to make some of them in dairy-free/low sugar versions. I will let you know how it turns out. I’m sure there will be quite a bit of trial and error involved but hopefully my efforts will not leave anyone asking “Is It Cake?????”