How do you beat a mezze platter?

Every month or so a group of girlfriends get together to drink wine and have a good catch up under the guise of book club (usually books get discussed for about 20 mins... max).  Friday night was the first book club of the new year and dinner was a feast of a mezze platter... hummus, cheese, olives, rocket, baba ganush, rice crackers, ciabatta.... delish!  Absolutely delicious, but also my complete undoing.

This delicious image isn't our mezze platter, but looks almost as good.

Note to self: take photos of fabulous feasts of mezze platters and the like to share here

After a week of very healthy living, restraint/portion control went right out the window when this collection of fabulous dishes was placed on the table.  I find it impossible to stop (my mouth is watering now just remembering it!), even when I know I'm starting to get full, as everything looks and tastes so good!  And there's always the "oh just one more bite" moment which turns into five more bites.  So naturally when I got home that night I was chock-a-block full to the brim (you know the kind when you just want to lie on the floor and rub your belly?).

So how do you beat a mezze platter?

I'm going to try to employ a delay tactic.  Instead of rushing in and tasting everything, I'm going to try to sample more slowly and consciously (very hard to focus with such enthusiastic conversation going on around you), and hope that although I will be eating for the same amount of time, the volume will be less.  I tried this out with dim sum on Saturday at lunch time and it seemed to work...

Upsides for the week:

• I am proud of myself for savouring my three glasses of New Zealand pinot.  I would usually have four... or five!  Baby steps, baby steps.
• Great two hour walk around MacRitchie Reservoir today (about 15km maybe?)
• Four delicious and healthy home-cooked meals (two by me).  Cooking after work is such a great way to relax...doing the dishes, not so much.

P.S. We are watching Band of Brothers at the moment - especially poignant after visiting Omaha Beach (Normandy, France) between Christmas and New Year.  If you haven't seen it, you definitely should.

P.P.S. In case anyone is interested, book club books for the next three months are:

1. Room by Emma Donoghue (read this over holidays, short-listed for Man Booker, really really good)
2. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
3. Nourishment by Gerard Woodward