The best place to eat a cupcake

The snow is falling, if the experts are right we’ll be getting a lot of snow in NYC today. I’m inside, here with my Vaio and a cup of Harney mint tea. Earlier today, before the snow, my husband, sons and I went to Brooklyn. We had the pleasure of attending a birthday party at Wollman rink in Prospect Park. Everyone there knew the storm was coming, so why not skate and celebrate before heading indoors? And so there was skating, hot chocolate, pizza and cupcakes from Buttercup bake shop (for husband and sons). I had the pleasure of watching the son, of my best friend for a million years, blow out a Darth Fader candle on his blue frosted cupcake at his 6th birthday party.

Soon enough the party started to wind down and I helped my best friend for a million years clean up. It was then that I noticed something. My tall and skinny friend was packing up cupcakes for guests to take home. After all, she isn’t skinny for no reason…actually she sort of is one of those skinny people who eats anything…but that’s a post for another day. My friend remarked “I have no issue eating the cupcake at the party but taking a dozen home with me is another story.” And then I thought about what she said and realized it was similar to a conversation I had with a client on Friday.

My client had been having a massive craving for toffee. She ignored this craving for days and eventually caved and purchased toffee after a bad day at work. She went home and it wasn’t pretty. This client said “I have been thinking a lot about what you say about treating yourself in public and I think it would have been better in this case.” To fill you in, I feel there’s a big difference in social eating versus the eating we do in private. If my client had purchased a reasonable amount of toffee and shared it with a friend at work, she would have satisfied her craving and been able to move on, guilt free. Instead, she raced through the toffee, finishing all she had purchased and felt a little embarrassed. She shouldn’t feel embarrassed though, this is exactly the type of eating we can all do behind closed doors. This is the type of eating my tall and skinny friend was trying to avoid.

So I’m not here to advocate a diet of cupcakes and toffee all consumed in public. However, I think there’s a difference between a treat and a cheat and that difference just may lie in where we eat our cupcakes.

What are you doing on this snowy day? Any treats or cheats involved?