Soul Food

It's always nice when you're invited round to a friend's place for dinner. Especially when the company is all girls, and the atmosphere intimate and informal... You just know by the time the corks out of the bottle that the conversation is going to resemble a therapy session - on speed. How is it that we ladies are able to manage our thoughts, talk at a million miles an hour, and listen to our friend who is doing the same, all at the same time? It's a part of being of being female that I just love.

And then there's the dinner.

While I firmly believe that we diet foremost for ourselves, we often relish the results for the impact they have on our other femme fatales... If we're honest, boys are easily pleased and most call us stupid when we start counting calories. Our girlfriends on the other hand praise our efforts, and honour our style... Get us in a room full of food, however, and the diet's out the window and a binge-fest takes its place.

Last night I was party to a lovely social gathering for four. Our host offered up healthy carrot and capsicum sticks with dip for starters, and then fresh burritos (with lots of spice to jump-start our metabolisms) for our mains. For dessert we were treated to grilled peach-halves with melted marshmallows, and a tub of Ben & Jerry's Fossil Fuel was placed in the middle of the table... At first we showed restraint, helping ourselves to a small scoop and savouring every delicious sugary-mouthful; but when our bowls were empty we eyed that tub like it was Brad Pitt on a platter... and the spoons came out again.

Gone was the ice cream and out came a spread of chocolates, ginger slice, mini brownies and Italian shortbreads - and we girls went to town!

Suffice to say we rolled out of our host's living room, and I waddled to the bus stop, feeling decidedly full but emotionally weightless. Like all good girly-get-togethers we'd managed divulge all our dirty laundry and reassure one-another of our intrinsic goodness - and consumed a few thousand calories. Really, there's nothing sweeter.