The Food Temptations of Summer

We're huge baseball fans around here, so we were thrilled when my husband's boss treated employees and their families to luxury box seats at a game this week. Not only were we seated practically on the field down the third base line, but the luxury box experience also included a delightful assortment of ball field favorite foods: Burgers, hot dogs, popcorn, chips and, of course, ice cream. I wish you could have seen the look on my son's face when he spotted that enormous bowl of popcorn.

That got me thinking, of course, about managing food temptations, especially as summer kicks into high gear. Here in New England, frozen lemonade (it's sort of like slush) is a summertime favorite, as are ice cream, iced coffee drinks, toasted marshmallows by the backyard campfire, and the usual family cookout fare. Fortunately, I love fruit and since it's in abundance during the summer, I use it to make my own frozen fruit-and-yogurt parfaits, smoothies, and low-fat "cheesecake" pies. I also eat lots of fruit as snacks (ever try frozen grapes?) and add it to protein shakes, too.

A writer colleague of mine lives in Minnesota and every year, we have great fun hearing about all the new "foods on a stick" that she encounters at the state fair. Since it's Friday -- and we all need a good laugh by now -- check out the interesting offerings in this video. Happy summer!

Comments

[MizFit]

man Id forgotten about all the fair foods when I lived in NC.

*drool*

that was some fun and funny carnival in the mouth time.

[Sagan]

Not a huge fan of the frozen grapes. Frozen bananas, on the other hand, I love.

But the foremost thing on my mind right now is CHEESECAKE (the word "cheesecake" is magnet enough:)). Do you happen to have any good and somewhat healthy cheesecake recipes? I HEART the cheesecake.

[WeightingGame]

drinking a cherry limeade slurpee right now!

[Dara Chadwick]

"Carnival in the mouth" -- that's pretty funny, Miz.

Sagan, my "healthier" version of cheesecake involves low-fat whipped topping and fat-free cream cheese. Mixed together they almost taste like the real thing.

A cherry limeade slurpee sounds great to me, Leslie!