I neither love nor hate sweets. I appreciate a good dessert, or a sweet snack, once in a while, but am more likely to be seduced by garlic than by chocolate. Illustrative anecdote: While in temporary hormone famine last year, I took to heart the advice of a few hot-flashin' sisters and laid in a prophylactic supply of emotionally reparative candy bars -- maybe five or six good-sized slabs of chocolate. They outlasted my three-month prohibition against HRT.

That said, there are times when I do find myself afflicted with a short-term sugar jones. Had one of those today; I'd run some errands on my bicycle, I needed a place to hang out until rush hour was over, and I was a bit low on energy for the necessary hill-climbing on the way home. So, I stopped at the nearest coffee joint, ordered a stiff Sinking Ship (coffee + espresso), and decided to indulge in a double chocolate raspberry cookie. I mean, the cookie looked so good -- two kinds of chocolate chips with a raspberry jam topping.

What I didn't realize was that the civilized-looking jam ripples and dark chocolate chips concealed not only a veritable sugar bomb, but submerged white chocolate chunks that could have sunk the Titanic twice over. A few bites and I started to feel a little strange. By the time I was done with the cookie, I thought my head was going to come off. Not even a stiff (and unsweetened) coffee drink could balance the amount of sugar in that thing. After the last bite, I was queasy and shivering, and craving nothing as much as some anchovies and Gorgonzola to take the taste out of my mouth.

Fortunately, twenty-five minutes of hard bicycling seems to have taken the edge off the sugar buzz, and I'm feeling better now, but I don't think I'm going to be able to handle either chocolate or raspberries for a while -- pity, since I just bought some really good raspberry jam yesterday. Oh, and if you see a quivering lump of tissue whimpering in a Kalamazoo street, it's my pancreas. Please ask it to forgive me, and then send it home.