The last Christmas meatball

He may not look so attractive in his little Tupperware coffin—especially next to that pile of meatball schmutz in the corner—but he was as delicious out of the microwave today as the day he first came out of the oven. And he and his little dead brethren have given me a week of holiday-fancy leftovers for lunch.

Now I'm on a strict diet of low-sodium soup, steamed broccoli and pre-cooked chicken breasts. Because three weeks from today we leave on an Atlantis cruise through the Caribbean. There will be sunshine. There will be swimsuits. There will be the disdainful smirks of gay men. So there will be very few sweets or fats between now and when we return to port on the 26th.

Then all bets are off.