LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth

CAMP Out

Friends, as you read this I am on my way back to Rehoboth from my very first Olivia cruisea week in the Caribbean.

But I hardly needed the outsized (bad choice of words) eating/drinking fest that cruises encourage. This holiday season took the cake (that which wasn't in my mouth) for the most calorie-laden, liquor guzzling, reflux-inducing stretch of bad gustatory behavior I have ever been a party to. Or to a party. Dozens of them.

I'm not complaining. Rehoboth is such a geographically small spot and there are so many community events it's possible to enjoy several in a day.

Calculate a trio of buffets times two and a half weekend days, times four weekends in the season and the magnitude of cookies, egg nog, red and green M&Ms, spiral hams, and Swedish meatballs I consumed is staggering. Don we now our big apparel.

In our house, the holidays started with Hanukkah Matzoh Balls and potato latkes to launch the December bloat period. Fast away the old gas passes, fa la la la la, la la la la. On Thanksgiving weekend we bought a recumbent exercise bike, vowing to start our regimen immediately to keep pace with Christmas cookies.

The first thing Bonnie did after plugging the thing into the wall was trip over it, breaking two toes. Exercise out, comfort food in.

As for me, I view exercise like drinkingnot something to be done alone. Bring on the figgy pudding.

So there were cocktail parties, Bin 66 wine tastings, Christmas dinners, and Harry & David goodies. See the grazing fool before us fa la la etc.

And of all the wretched holiday excess I subjected myself to this season, a pair of events, like my thighs, loom large.

One Sunday we enjoyed a fantastic brunch at a friends' home with Mimosas at noon, Mimosas and entrees at 3:30, and more Mimosas well into the evening. Following this alcohol marathon, I'm proud to report no hangover at all from the 8-hour champagne binge. I did however have a raging case of Acid Reflux from the f-ing orange juice. It's a sad commentary about aging.

A second memorable holiday event was the Apple Pie Thrown Down. Not being a Food Network foodie, I figured we were going to throw apple pie down our throats, not unlike the rest of our seasonal meals.

Turns out a Throw Down is a pie baking contest. At a party of about 25 people, four contestants took the challenge. As someone not domestically partnered with a baker, I was included among the judges.

Lobbying us, Baker and the Sous Chefs performed a cheerleading routine. A second baker noted her rich familial history among pastry chefs. Still another bragged she hadn't baked a pie in two decades (would that be humble pie?). The fourth claimed home field advantage.All to no avail, of course, as the pies had been whisked from their makers and labeled alphabetically for a blind taste test. Wine withstanding, some judges were blinder than others.

To universal shock and awe, the winner was the person who had not had her paws in pie dough since 1988 and whose culinary repertoire consists of assembling field greens. In fact, there was suggestion of a vast right wing conspiracy, finally debunked, suggesting Super G collaboration.

Following the pie throwing came New Years' Eve (O'er the fields we go, eating all the way) and more gluttony. Should old intentions be forgot and never brought to mind? Just how many Tums can a person take without calcifying? 10? 9? 8? 7?

Happy New Year! Let's drink a cup of Maalox please and sing of Auld Lang Syne.

Bonnie and I resolved just about the same thing everyone else in town resolved: back to sensible food and drink consumption. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. We hope.

And our vow was strengthened last week when were up in Philadelphia. Leaving an appointment, we stepped in front of a bank of elevators, pushed the DOWN button and waited. Soon, the wide doors opened to reveal several people already aboard. We stepped in.

As the doors closed, a booming recorded voice warned: "The elevator is now full."Now THAT was humiliating.

I'll get back to the stationary bike and lean cuisine after we get back from the cruise. Of course, that's right before Valentine's Day, followed by the Chinese New Year buffet at Confucius, then the Rehoboth Chocolate Festival and let's face it, I should really have my jaw wired shut. The only Throw Down I should enter is if it's my fork.

Fay Jacobs is the author of As I Lay Fryinga Rehoboth Beach Memoir and Fried & TrueTales from Rehoboth Beach. Contact her at www.fayjacobs.com.

LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 18, No. 01 February 08, 2007