Sitting in a hot dog shop with my best friend at the age of fifteen, we made a pledge to move in with each other when we were old and our husbands were dead (age sixty, we figured) and eat as much as we wanted, all of the time, until we died happy.

Sad to say, we’d already put in years of dieting. The short, curvy stature we shared required vigilance and self-control. Our guiltiest pleasure was to imagine overdosing on ice cream and chocolate. Continue reading →