All posts by Eve Ogden Schaub

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About Eve Ogden Schaub

Serial memoirist Eve O. Schaub lives with her family in Vermont and enjoys performing experiments on them so she can write about it. Author of Year of No Sugar (2014) and Year of No Clutter (2017) and most recently Year of No GARBAGE (2023). Find her on Twitter @Eveschaub IG or eveschaub.com.

A Year Of No Sugar: Post 67

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We all have some funny coincidences in our lives. Personally, I happen to have a lot of birthday coincidences: my husband and dear friend Katrina share the same birthday… three of my bridesmaids were all born in February… my younger daughter was born just one day after my mom’s birthday… and so on. Perhaps the oddest coincidence of all is that in August my dad’s birthday falls just one day before… my mom’s boyfriend’s birthday. Ahem. Now, I don’t know much about astrology, but it seems to me that there is something going on there.

So this year the girls and I traveled to celebrate both of these birthdays, and fortunately for us my mom and dad don’t live too far apart for that to be possible. But if you’re like me you’ve already realized the unique conundrum this posed for us this year: birthday cake.

Dad's Dextrose Poppyseed Cake

Yes, what would be our August dessert? I pondered this. My brain resounded with the immortal wisdom of Highlander… “There Can Be Only One!!” What would we do? Uh…could we eat a half a piece of cake at each celebration? Would we skip dessert at both celebrations? Certainly we couldn’t shun dessert at one birthday- that would be like choosing sides, and worse… be tantamount to Birthday Treason. (They might be forced to read us our Birthday Rights- “You are under Birthday Arrest. You have the right to remain loud and silly. Anything goofy you are photographed doing can and will be used against you on Facebook…”)

I mean, these are two people I love in very different ways. They are apples and oranges. I’m grateful at least that their birthdays had the decency to fall one day apart so I always have the opportunity to celebrate everyone- but this cake thing presented a new, unprecedented problem. For the first time in our entire Year of No Sugar I had a choice to make: whose birthday got celebrated with sugar, and… whose did not. Ack!

Ultimately, I used my understanding of the two birthday honorees to figure it out. My dad is pretty adventurous when it comes to food, and always willing to question tradition in the interest of trying something new. I know he is interested in our family’s No Sugar project- we’ve had a series of conversations on the subject of what-the-heck-we’re-up-to.

On the other hand, John, who has been with my mom for the last twenty-five years or so, is more of a person who knows what he likes and likes what he likes. For his birthday dinner, for example, we were going to the Italian restaurant that has been his favorite for the last few decades. He also has a very live-and-let-live philosophy- he is entirely neutral on the subject of our No-Sugar adventure.

Then there’s my mom. Like Dad, Mom is supportive of our family project in spite of the fact that I’m pretty sure she’s worried I fell on my head before coming up with the idea. Mom’s the one who reads all my posts practically before I can even press “publish.” Yet, she’s also the one from whom I got my love of celebrations, and my implicit understanding that there are just certain things you do to celebrate a birthday. You have a special meal. You have decorations and presents and sing the birthday song. And you have a fabulous cake.

So it was decided that Mom would order a fabulous cake with a New Orleans theme, and that would be our *official* August dessert. Meanwhile, I was planning to make dinner for Dad at his house, so I would make him his longstanding favorite for dessert: poppy seed cake.

With dextrose.

God help me if it turned out awful. I know Dad wouldn’t mind, but I’d feel terrible.

But you know what? It didn’t turn out awful. Dad loved it. Everybody loved it. I was astounded. No one even asked if there was sugar in it! Afterward I told everyone that there was, technically speaking, no fructose/sugar in the cake at all. It was Dad’s turn to be astounded. My seventeen year old brother’s reaction was along the lines of “uh, yeah, whatever.” He didn’t care. Does it taste like cake? Must be cake. What I cared about was that he had eaten the whole piece- everyone had.

Now, truthfully, the cake wasn’t quite as “floofy” (that’s a technical term) as usual, but I think playing with the amount of dextrose might fix that. And while we’re being picky, the cream cheese frosting seemed, if anything, a bit too sweet to me- another thing which could be tweaked. All in all, I counted it a success.

John's Real Deal Cake

And of course, the next night we had cake- again! Except this time it was the real-sucrose-deal. We picked up the gorgeous confection from the Riviera Bakery where they are famous for fun things like Dr. Seuss-inspired shapes, edible candles, and cakes that look like giant hamburgers. John’s New Orleans cake was a vision in purple, green and gold, complete with white-chocolate Mardi Gras masks, and Fleur de Lis. Inside, three thin chocolate layers were interspersed with “cookies & cream” filling. It was literally a work of edible art.

Perhaps predictably, it seemed overwhelmingly sweet to me. I was surprised to find that I couldn’t finish my slice, and then noticed that neither could the girls. It was very good, but good in the way candy is good- you only need a few bites and it’s enough.

So in the end we were able to participate fully in both birthdays… apples and oranges. And we certainly got our fair share of cake. Thank goodness.

A Year Of No Sugar: Post 66 – Jack LaLanne

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Jack LaLanne was a man ahead of his time… do you think we’re healthier now than when he made these broadcasts?

A Year Of No Sugar: Post 65

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This week a dream of mine came true. I didn’t go skydiving or meet the Dalai Lama or get better at hacky sack. No- I’ve spent the entire week in Putney, Vermont learning to weave.

It was all Katrina’s idea; Katrina, of course, is my DFFFF (Dear Friend and Fellow Fiber Freak.) Consequently, she and I have been on the campus of a private boarding school, living a college-like existence: dorm rooms, communal bathrooms, dining hall meals. Once-upon-a-time a decade or two ago I recall being vaguely impatient with such circumstances, longing for my own first apartment, my own private bathroom, my very own kitchen to cook in. This week however, I’m older and wiser, and I’m definitely not complaining.

Here, instead of being “mom,” I’m the one being cooked and cleaned for, the one being asked “What would you like to do?” and “Would this be fun?” People give me emergency cell phone numbers to call in case I need anything. (!) All day long the choices I make aren’t which errands are the most life-threateningly in need of getting done, or which rooms of the house are so dirty that we should just shut the doors to them and pretend they don’t exist anymore, or whether putting in another video for the kids so I can write will mean I will win the Bad Mom Award. Instead I wonder: should I read?… Or go back to the weaving studio? Then again, maybe I should knit.

I’m feeling very luxurious and pampered here in my dorm room (in which nothing is overflowing, lost, or mouldering), with my communal bathroom (that I don’t have to clean) and the dining hall that provides balanced meals three times per day like clockwork and requires no clean up on my part! Now this is a vacation.

But wait, there’s more! The food? It’s good. You might already know this since I’ve been enthusiastically tweeting about it all week. Turns out Putney School food is not only exceptionally good for what is- essentially- a high school cafeteria, but is remarkably easy for No-Added-Sugar-me to eat. And the reason why is simple: they make virtually everything here.

They get milk from cows on the campus. They have an imposing brick oven for baking wonderful homemade bread and foccacia. They make all their own salad dressings. They make their own rolls and sauces and desserts… all the danger zones one encounters in other public eating situations in which the people who work there have no idea what is in the food.

Let’s stop and think about that for a moment because I think this very bizarre concept bears repeating: many, if not most restaurants, cafeterias, delis, snack bars and diners have no idea what is in the food. I know because I’ve been asking all year long. The reason they don’t know is because much of the food you’re getting in these establishments is being bought from someone else in huge quantities, in bulk packaging, with dozens of ingredients in them. You can bet sugar, in it’s myriad forms, is in there in all kinds of places we wouldn’t expect, as well as a lot of other crap we’d rather not think about.

Not here. Elsewhere, my sugar questions are often met with strange looks, and my hopes of eating a particular item are usually dashed when they do check on it in the kitchen. Here, the chef’s assistant inevitably laughs good-naturedly at me.

“The cream sauce? Sugar? Naw! Here’s what’s in it…” And he then proceeds to rattle off five or six ingredients, all of which are actual, normal food items you’d actually recognize.

Want more? Okay, one day they offered an alternative dessert: plain yogurt with blueberries. Wait- a dessert, not at home, that I can eat? Shut up! Really? Yes, it’s true. Remember how we saw this same dessert offered repeatedly in Northern Italy? Then I was in awe of the Italians. Now I am in awe of the Putney KDU. (Short for Kitchen and Dining Unit, of course.)

So needless to say, I’ve had fun, lots of it. And when I haven’t been enjoying the free time, independence and good, homemade meals, I actually did learn to weave too. But I’m happy to report that food can still be a simple, delicious, straightforward matter of fresh ingredients prepared well. Even in a high school cafeteria. Really.