My mom’s mazetti is a family favorite comfort food, one of those vintage Campbell’s soup concoctions that it’s way too easy to eat way too much of.
I don’t need a huge scoop of such a high-fat food; just a taste would be best. The trick is convincing myself that a dainty spoonful is a treat rather than a rip-off or a punishment.
Finally, this past Sunday during dinner at my parents’ house, I came up with a satisfying solution: a small scoop atop a large serving of salad. Marketers use all kinds of sneaky tricks to divert our attention from downsized packaging; this was no different. The small scoop looked bigger perched atop the salad than it would’ve appeared on my plate, all alone and isolated.
Moving from the cheesy, creamy taste into the crunchy, more refreshing part of my “mazetti salad” helped me switch gears without feeling sorry for myself.