Fat Quote

I have a favorite fat quote.

What’s more, I believe everyone should have a favorite fat quote.

As a little girl, I remember sitting at the breakfast table with my family. I was always seated to my Dad’s left, and my Dad is an avid reader. His reading tends more toward the “on the go” variety rather than the “sit and soak” sort. For example, my Dad reads newspapers and boxes and things like that… but I’ve never seen him sit down with a book of poetry. On this particular morning, he was looking at the side of the Corn Flakes breakfast cereal. On the side of the box was a black and white picture of a bright-eyed young woman.
“Isn’t she pretty?” my Dad asked.
“Yeah,” I said, because I never disagreed with Dad… Dad was always so very right, I was SURE of it.
The Sweetheart of the Corn was reprinted on the side for Old Time’s Sake.

“Look at that,” he said, “Look at her… see how she’s a little plump? She looks good. That’s how they used to have their models -with more on ’em. It looks good.”

It looks good? It was such a foreign thing for me to hear, and Dad probably didn’t even think twice about saying it. But I remembered that conversation forever. What a message to be sent to a growing girl’s ears… firstly, that beauty was not defined by thinness (which at that point I was starting to believe it was) and second that eating corn products makes a woman lovely.
I’m sure Dad DID mean to ingrain the “corn makes ladies lovely” into my brain because, aside from loving and serving us corn and grits (and Corn Flakes, apparently) pretty frequently, he had us planting, weeding, and harvesting hearty-sized fields of waving corn.

After that conversation, my mind was broadened a little… that maybe there was more to beauty than size… that maybe beauty had more to do with WHO I am and less of WHAT I am or what I had to offer.
Dad raised me to be hearty -his very own personal Sweetheart of the Corn (I had to say it, Dad… and I’m laughing so hard I’m crying).

I also found this quote by J.K. Rowling last year and immediately fell in love. After I had my third baby, my outlook on my body and beauty REALLY changed.
My body is amazing… it’s done some miraculous stunts (including but not limited to herding cattle, creating babies, and 1/8th of a P90X yoga video -cheers to whoever has made it any farther).

That’s why this morning I fed it well. I adapted a healthy recipe and made it country (read: added actual sugar and oil) and served it to my family. Despite the sugar and oil, it was hearty and healthy and so darn filling that no one even finished ONE waffle without some amount of groaning.
Carrot Cake Waffles!

I took this recipe and quadrupled it, in case you’re wondering where I found it.

Alice and Trenton made sure I had Music to Cook By (mp3 will be made available soon) (jesting).

After breakfast, I sat down and read my favorite “fat” quote.
I hope you like it as much as I do.

“Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her.

I mean, is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I’m not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain…

I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn’t seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!’

‘Well,’ I said, slightly nonplussed, ‘the last time you saw me I’d just had a baby.’

What I felt like saying was, ‘I’ve produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren’t either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?’ But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate!

I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.”

― J.K. Rowling