Sometimes it becomes too much. <br /> <br />I like sweets. I like offensively tall cakes, syrup-laced cinnamon rolls that have no business being considered breakfast, and fudge with bacon in it. <br /> <br />I love all these things, so much so that I’ve even convinced some people to pay me to make them, even though I secretly think it’s all a lie, and I’m going to be told as much through a pecan pie with a note at the bottom reading “you’re an idiot.” Thankfully that hasn’t happened yet. <br /> <br />Despite the love, all those beautiful baked and cooked and chocolated goods (and I mean goods in the most literal way I can muster) are heavy. They can and occasionally do overwhelm, and not just in the “Oh God, I ate too much, I’m gonna lie down” way. <br /> <br />You pay a toll to yourself after these things, and the toll is convincing yourself that what you just did, what you just ate, isn’t that bad. Maybe you pay it before you do the baking, and you run a bit on a treadmill or lift something heavy or some such thing. Maybe you pay it by having a truly, decisively bad day, and that’s why you’ve earned that extra cupcake. Or maybe you wait until after and do the old “it wasn’t that bad” dance like always. <br /> <br />Either way, the toll is the toll. And it’s a good thing and a bad thing. I don’t believe in guilt, and I don’t think it has any place in enjoying good food, but it also is quite possibly the sole thing that keeps us from brownie-ing ourselves to death. <br /> <br />The toll caught up with me this week, but as I said, I get paid for this, so I gotta make a living. So I made Lemon-Thyme Granita with Blackberry Balsamic Syrup so I could get my paycheck and not viciously assault my BMI at the same time. <br /> <br />And so I can pay the toll.

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