f/c

Those who know me well, and I'm fairly open with my friends, know that I have a theory for just about every incidental thing that comes along.

There's the Pez theory of anxiety, the tunnel theory of procrastination, the Chinese Boy Syndrome (a theory of guilt assumption).

One of my theories is the Theory of Deciding Whether to Eat Something that May Be Fattening. It's shortened as "f/c," which is read as "flavor to calorie ratio."

A case in point: Sour Cream-Orange Cake.

You may or may not think this sounds good. I, for one, think that anything that has a starch base and contains the word "orange" is worth committing any number of selected felonies for. Getting fatter, though, is a dicier proposition.

The Sour Cream - Orange Cake I was looking at, one of Mollie Katzen's more sinister compositions, has as its dairy ingredients a cup and a half each of butter and sour cream. This is of course not including flour, eggs and sugar. And this is all in one standard-sized cake.

Oh, did I mention the syrup?

What I'm getting to (yes, I am!) (eventually!) is that this very, very delightful food has essentially the same flavor-to-calorie ratio as tap water and celery sticks. It's not that it doesn't make you fat, it's just that it's worth it.

So there are foods that have a high f/c, such as pretzels and sushi, and low f/c, such as (for me -- no hate mail please) shortbread. I make a lot of shortbread, but I don't really eat it. It just doesn't have enough flavor in it for me to outweigh all those calories.

Forgive me please for getting off the subject of knitting and on to the subject of dessert math. I am getting close to finishing this Fair Isle sweater and if I can figure out how to take a decent photograph and post it, I will. Varian Brandon created this pattern and she's one of the best, IMHO.