Snack Tips from a Type 1 Diabetic

So, thirsty scholars, are you looking for a tacky taste treat made from stuff you just have hanging around the house? Well you've come to the right place, because I am, too, and I'm a type-1 diabetic so you know it's gonna be good! Today's recipe: Root Beer Whip-Its. This is a fizzy, creamy beverage that will soon be the next national drink. What you do is you get a pint glass out of the cupboard, then retrieve some Diet Root Beer from the fridge. Pour some of the latter into the former, then go over to the freezer and get some Cool Whip out of that thing. The Cool Whip will not be totally frozen but it will be hard, so just carve out a few ice cream shovels full of it and padonk 'em in the glass. Then plunge a bendy straw into it and hark, the stars will align, angels will sing, and you'll be young and beautiful again, standing there with your golden locks cascading down your shoulders and holding in your hand a creamy, fizzy sweet beverage that will tingle your taste buds and cause your friends to openly laugh at you when they realize what you spend your time doing.

You know, sometimes you just want to drink something weirdly delicious that's also fun to look at, and this beverage hits both targets. And don't worry about the Cool Whip, diabetix: it only has 1 gram of sugar per two tablespoons, exactly the same as half and half. Sure, there's some fat up in there, but you're going on a long bike ride later, so you'll burn it off, easy.

So drink up!

Dept. of Duh: Paula Deen, Fried Chicken, Krispy Kreme Donut Cheeseburgers, and Type II Diabetes

Oh, Paula. What a bummer, that Type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Who could have predicted that? Certainly not me or any other living sentient being whose brain cells have not been deep fried and dunked in a chocolate fondu. You eat so healthfully! But you know what is also a bummer? You keeping this diagnosis a secret for three years before telling your many many fans, who wait with baited breath for every masterful recipe you come up with for Twinkie-infused, caramel-smothered, deep-fried sugar-blasted carbohydrate pie. It's... unseemly.

Now don't get me wrong. I LOVE Paula Deen. I went to her Savannah restaurant last year with my mom and sister and we ate like hawgs. (Not like hogs. Like hawgs.) But when you deliberately keep from the public the fact that you've been diagnosed with a disease that is directly related to the culinary lifestyle you are a purveyor of, that's like eating a hot dog and leaving off the hot fudge: just wrong.

As some of you may know, I'm a type 1 diabetic. I was diagnosed when I was 15 after my pancreas just stone cold walked off the job of producing insulin, which my young body needed in order to not die. My diagnosis, as us Type 1 diabetics like to smugly point out, had nothing to do with my lifestyle, my diet, or my love of sugar-coated everything. Type 1 diabetes is a mysterious beast and if it chooses you, there's nothing you can do to stop it from turning you around, bending you over, and sticking it to you good and proper, over and over, for the rest of your life--or, rather, forcing you to stick yourself (usually sitting upright, though not always), sometimes three or four times a day.

But Type 2 diabetes is an altogether different plate of Double Stuffed Oreo Crumble. Like Type 1 diabetes, Type 2 has a hereditary component to it. If you have either of these two in your family, there is a chance you will be chosen by the Diabetes Fairy to wear the crown and sash. But while Type 1 diabetics are shit out of luck when it comes to prevention, those in danger of becoming Type 2 diabetic can actually intervene and lower the likelihood that they get the disease. The key is to reduce your risks: if you have diabetes in your family and you are overweight and eat like a hoss (Hi, Paula!) then you really need to make some changes, like not eating corn dogs wrapped in chocolate chip almond creme truffle pancakes and washing it all down with a mug full of Boston creme all day, every day, forever. And it would be helpful if, when you are told you have the disease, that you not hide this fact from an audience that depends on you for its fix of crusty-toffee-white-chocolate-cherry-chunk-orgy-of-death by chocolate cake recipes. You might think of, you know, educating your flock about the dangers of eating cholesterol directly out of the bag with a soup ladle.

And now Paula has masterfully transitioned to a brand new gig as a Novo Nordisk spokeslady*. Novo Nordisk is the maker of a diabetes drug that will now be the likeliest diabetes drug to be on the tip of Paula's millions of fans' tongues. That is, when their tongues aren't too busy making their way through an entire Wilmington Island Marsh Mud Cake. Ninety-nine percent of these fans will be receiving their Type 2 diabetes diagnosis in 5... 4... 3... 2....

Well played, Novartis.

*corrected

Diabetix Gone Wild: Tour de Cure, NYC

There aren't many days when being diabetic gets you a free sexy spandex bicyclist jersey, but last Sunday was one of those days, because it was the Tour de Cure, hooray! The Tour de Cure is an annual (?) bike ride through NYC (and other cities?) that raises money for diabetes research, which is very important these days because almost 99% of this fat nation has type 2 diabetes by the time they are 13. I'm one of the classy type 1 diabetics cursed with diseased genes, so I was never a big fatty who ate cheeseburgers and Ben and Jerry's for breakfast. No, no, my diagnosis was just blind luck, hitting me like a falling piano when I was just a skinny dumb 15-year-old.

But I'm a team player! And I love riding my bike! So along with my friends Geetha and Alyson I decided to raise some cash for what momma calls "dah-bee-tease."

Even though I was totally psyched about my free red jersey, I was a little bummed that I would have to ride around NYC for hours with the message "I Ride With Diabetes!" plastered across my back. Because what am I, 3 years old?



It was a beautiful day to ride, and we had 30 miles to cover, so things got started early, with some ceremonial screeching, about America.

We queued up for the big start, taking our place among all the other riders.





Then we were off, riding up the west-side bike path and north toward Harlem and Inwood, both of which should be renamed "Bunch of Danged Hills." And did you know that New Yorkers--drivers and pedestrians alike--have a visceral hatred of bicyclists, even ones wearing sexy red jerseys and riding for f-ing charity? The sneering animosity was palpable, and quite off-putting. Sure, I bike to work every day from Brooklyn to the west side of Manhattan and somehow avoid being killed by careless cabbies and mean-spirited bitches in Escalades constantly, but for some reason I figured there would be at least a modicum of good will on offer for those RIDING WITH DIABETES! But no, there was very little of that to be had, because of seething hatred and, sometimes, homicidal mania.

Anyway, because of all those dang hills, I needed a snack to repair a blood sugar plunge before we even reached the first break location. Here I am enjoying the hell out of a Snickers bar.

The cue sheet for the ride was long and was also on paper, not on a app like the Jetsons used, so we had to tape it to our bikes like the Waltons always did in order to lessen the likelihood of dying while figuring out where to go. (This was still very likely!)



And a short 5 1/2 hours later, in I rolled to the finish line, triumphant and ready for a cure to diabetes once and for all so I can realize the American dream of starting my days the way the Founding Fathers intended: with a large bowl of Peanut Butter Cap 'n Crunch and Nutella-smeared toast on the side.



Tour de Cure, yaaaay! To be honest, I raised some money but not as much as I could have because I just decided to do this five days before the ride. But you can still help me out, just go here and relieve yourself of all your money.

I'm Worried About What Life Will Be Like When This Jar of Dark Chocolate Dreams Is Gone

As a type 1 diabetic for over twenty years, y'all, my biggest fear—besides having an insulin reaction while hang-gliding in the Amazon and crash-landing into a pterodactyl's nest—is having an insulin reaction ANYWHERE and not having any sugary food-type thing I can stuff into my mouth to get my blood sugar up to a normal level. In this nightmare I have, I will be alone in the dark—in a forest, in a linen closet, in a fallout shelter, in the hatch on Lost—and I will slowly, sweatily expire as I search in vain for a sugary snack. It could happen!

To make it less likely that this awful thing will ever happen, Jimmy and I always make sure to have plenty of treats in our cabinets. These include Nutella, Little Debbie Zebra Cakes, and/or some cake icing. And ice cream. But I came home two nights ago to find a new treat that Jimmy had bought at the fancy grocery store in Williamsburg: Peanut Butter & Co.'s No Stir Natural Dark Chocolate Dreams. This thing I just typed is so much more than a great title for an awesome porno. It's, in fact, a soft, creamy mixture of peanut butter and rich, lush dark chocolate.

I knew this thing was going to be awesome when I first opened the jar and saw that Jimmy had already eaten at least one third of the contents. That's usually a good sign (though not a guarantee--Jimmy likes eggplant, after all). So I spooned out just a tiny little taste of the Dark Chocolate Dreams and damn if this chocolate/peanut butter spread isn't one of the most delicious things I've ever put in my mouth. And I've put a lot of delicious things in my mouth!

But you know how you discover a new food item, buy it, and immediately start worrying about when it will be all gone? That's where I am with this snack now. Even though I know that the next time I have a low-blood-sugar I will be able to Nosedive Right into Dark Chocolate Dreams (also a great title for an awesome porno), there will come a time when the DCD will be gone. Sure, we can buy more, but that means having to leave the house.

What's worse: Zebra Cakes and Strawberry Cheesecake Haagen-Dazs are no longer good enough for me. My insulin reactions demand more. They Demand Dark Chocolate Dreams. (Also a great title for an awesome porno.)

The Bad Diabetic. Today: Cheese Straws and Hershey Bar Pie!

Folks, you know when you're hooked up to a bunch of wires at a sleep clinic on a Friday night and there's only one channel available on your room's teevee and that channel is Oxygen and they're playing Steel Magnolias on a loop all night? Heaven, am I right?!

Anyway, it was during the wedding reception scene when Dolly Parton is talking to Olympia Dukakis about an old woman shakin' it tragically on the dance floor that I had a brilliant idea. The ladies were having this interchange:

Dolly: Well, I haven't left the house without lycra on these thighs since I was 14.
Olympia: You were raised right.

It was at that very moment that I thought: I wanna make cheese straws tomorrow!

Now, I worked at a bakery in north Raleigh when I was 16 called The Coterie that had the best dang cheese straws I've ever put in my mouth--and I've put a LOT of cheese straws in my mouth. I don't know what it was about them and I never was able to get a gander at the recipe we used, but if time machines existed the very first thing I would do would be to troll on down Leadmine Road to Greystone Village and get a cheese straw specimen so I could recreate them in the here and now.

I've tried to make them before and have had a small degree of success. The last batch I made were more like small cheese scones, but they were ok. But this time I really wanted to go for it. Make 'em real cheesy and biscuit-like. I searched for good recipes on the internet and couldn't find anything decent and then I thought, hey, I have Amy Sedaris's cookbook. Surely she'll have something retarded in there.

Sure enough, she has a cheese puff recipe. But it called for swiss cheese, which is lame. I wanted to use sharp cheddar. So I made some adjustments to the recipe and ended up with the most succulent, mouthwatering, and buttery batch of cheese biscuit thingies I've had since the Coterie days. They still weren't up to the Coterie's standards, but they were a close second or fourth. Hey, here they are:



Don't you just wanna eat 'em?

While I was at the store buying the cheese I decided, hell, why not go ahead and make a pie? So I decided to make another one of my famous Hershey Bar Pies, which are so easy to make and which are better than they sound, so shut up with your dismissive judgments. You just mix two giant melted Hershey bars with a thing of Cool Whip in a bowl, add some nuts or something, pour it into a pie crust (make sure you cook the pie crust, dummy), and then put it in the freezer. When the pie has set, top it with some more Cool Whip and then maybe some chopped nuts and/or crumbled Heath Bar or Peanut Butter Cups or some shit. Then have a photo shoot:






Don't forget a close-up with a slice cut out so you can see the delicious gooey insides.



Then check your blood sugar, have your insulin pen ready, and maybe even plan a bike ride for later. Those blood sugar levels aren't gonna come down to acceptable levels by themselves!

One Good Reason for Google to Stay in China: Beijing's World Chocolate Wonderland Theme Park

Communist dictatorship has never looked so delicious! I just wanna take every one of them terracotta warriors, dip 'em in a big ole glass a whole milk, and then eat 'em.

Apparently this theme park, which opens on January 29, also has chocolate versions of the Great Wall, luxury bags, and sports cars, so you can get some exercise, be fashionable, and be a douchebag while enjoying your chocolate. Also on hand is a chocolate toilet you can hurl into to make room for the giant, five-story chocolate Mao Zedong heads.

---------

Everything this woman is wearing is made of chocolate, except for the nipples.
----------

When does NYC get one of these? I wanna eat a big chocolate Pauly D.

Obama Announces Country's First Openly Type 1 Diabetic Supreme Court Nominee

We all look to the justices on the Supreme Court to reflect our own lives, passions, and/or dreams. This is obvious, and it's why I'm not a little bit disappointed that Obama didn't choose Susan Boyle or Harry Hamlin from Clash of the Titans for this highest of high offices. Of course, I'm used to not seeing myself in the Alitos, Scalias, and Kennedys that recent US Presidents have been appointing to the bench. After all, what could I possibly have in common with a gaggle of non-diabetic old men who have never had a dick in their mouths (except Scalia)? Not much! But now that is all changing, thanks to one Sonia Sotomayor, who made history today by being the first openly type 1 diabetic person to be nominated to the Supreme Court.

I obviously have a lot in common with Ms. Sotomayor: the childhood in the Bronx; being a Latina; circuit (court) parties. But the most important thing we share is insulin dependency--and, I have no doubt, a pathological need to eat Little Debbie snack cakes when our blood sugar goes low. It doesn't matter if it's Nutty Bars, Fudge Rounds, Star Crunch, Devil Squares, Zebra Cakes, or Oatmeal Creme Pies; if the glucose dips below 60, we'll be at Little Debbie's house, eatin'.

This is a huge step forward for Type 1 diabetics across this great nation. But not for Type II diabetics. They're still fat lazy slobs.