As this year goes, it’s been a pretty horrid one, culminating in an even more extremely blah birthday.

Yes, I had some calls from my wonderful friends who’ve been around me for 20 and 30 years. It’s always a delight that they remember. Most of them are 10 hours drive away. If I could afford to fly them all up and we could go out and do daft birthday things.

It was my 50th when we were all last together. A riot of a party with a Middle Eastern theme and I did a beached-whale-belly-dance in full (but modest) costume! It was more than fun and fabulous. It all went a bit downhill from there. I miss them but I know I could never live back in Sydney. Too busy, to crazy, too everything for me.

Of my other close friends, 1 died early this year and 3 more are overseas with only 1 returning later this week, 1 over there for a few years and 1 coming to visit for 3 months, but nowhere near me.

Birthdays have morphed into days that I take stock. The more psychologically challenging stock-taking is still being mulled over.

Of the more mundane stuff…  What fashion item, shoes or makeup do I now need to throw in the bin because it has ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ written all over it? When do I have to get my hair cut short because I’m over 50? When do I have to go to bed at 10pm, have an afternoon nap, and have a fibre-filled breakfast?

When will I accept that the wrinkles and sags are here to stay and that I’ll probably never fit into the kind of fabulous clothing my 21 year old daughter wears, let alone look ok in it? (Oh, how shallow! Right?)

As I write this, I’m channel surfing and happened to land on the Fashion Channel. It always makes me want to throw up or cry. Wow those girls look fantastic! I was probably never that reed-thin or that gorgeous, but 20 years and more ago, I could certainly wear almost anything out of my mother’s clothing boutiques and get away with it.

Now count me in with weight-gaining insulin, post menopausal pounds and a penchant for good food and you get beached-whale – almost. Not quite in the BMI obese category but hovering and at times, falling in.

These days, I can’t wear heels (sore feet and lack of balance), and designer clothing is made in one size either way of reed-thin and often priced out of my league, so that’s out too. In fact, this past week, I’ve been hobbling around with a fractured toe on my left foot (the middle one), wondering why I still don’t have a car with automatic transmission (because they’re always $2,000 more than I can afford) or special shoes for broken toes.

But there was one good thing amongst a few others today – cake!

I was going to makeanother Persian Love Cake, but yesterday, time got away from me. Here’s the one I made last year for my husband’s birthday.

Theoretically, if you have insulin, you can eat whatever you want. On the other hand, theoretically, if you have diabetes, if you keep the carbs down, you can control the diabetes much more easily and blood glucose spikes can be reduced. Both theories are true. I like a combination of the two.

If your diabetes is out of control, lower the carb intake to start with. It goes a long way to help the control.

On birthdays, all that flies out the window.

I have cake-eating with insulin-taking down to a fine art. And while a store-brought piece of cake doesn’t come with carb instructions, I’m pretty good a guestimating after the first bite.

So, tonight my fancy was taken by what was labelled as a Jaffa Chocolate Cake. Yes indeed – carbs multiplied by carbs!

The first bite was heaven. I could taste the dark chocolate, orange and the surprise of coconut. It was unexpectedly moist, with a measurable layer of thick chocolate ganache on top.  As cakes go, this one took the cake!

With an insulin pump, if you get the carb-guestimate right, it’s so much easier than trying to manage a fat-laden (read: long-absorbing), high carb slice of heaven with injections, although certainly it can be done.

A combo bolus over 2.5 hours did it. At 4 hours post ingestion, I was a tad high at 9.0 mmo/l (162 mg/dl), but all things considered and without an exact carb amount per slice, I think I did ok. A quick correction bolus and I was done.

Maybe it wasn’t such a bad birthday after all! Did the cake make up for the absence of close friends? Um.. I think the right answer is ‘no’, but my honest answer is… kinda… yeah it did, for a few scrumptious chewing and tasting minutes!

Eating a Mediterranean diet rich in fish, olive oil, legumes, fruit and vegetables may strengthen the heart but the cost strains the wallet and may deter healthy eating, according to Spanish researchers.

They’re not kidding! While a healthy Mediterranean diet has more carbs than a low-carb diet, try doing low-carb on a tight budget!

Don’t you love how doctors with six-figure incomes can sit there and pontificate about what we should and should not be eating. They haven’t a clue or any advice about how some people are going to afford to do so.

Consider a loaf of bread, often the whiter the cheaper, at say $2.50. Add to that some cheap toppings. The bread and the toppings most likely can last several days for lunches. So say $7 for all that. I’m dealing in Australian dollars, but would equally apply anywhere.

Consider a large bowl of salad. The lettuce alone would be $2-$3. The whole salad could easily cost $15-$20. Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, parsley, witlof, bell peppers, pea sprouts and more. No root vegetables. Or I could make a high-carb potato salad for a few dollars.

Add to that meat, chicken or fish, and you’ve got a very expensive meal. Multiply that for other meals in a week and you’ve got a healthy diet that is definitely too expensive.

If you’re on a pension or are a low-wage earner, trying to feed a family, it’s totally impossible.

Instead, it’s fine for governments and medical insurers to fork out millions in trying to fix the problem instead of being proactive and preventing it in the first place. Not sure what the answer is, but food production somehow needs to be subsidised. It’s getting far too expensive to eat well.

Not to worry, we can atone for our eating sins (amongst others) at Yom Kippur, just 10 days later, with a 24 hour fast.

It’s also no secret, however, that I’m a bit of an atheist, despite my background, my involvement with my local Jewish community (on the board), and my very sentimental tie to my cultural if not religious heritage.

Rosh Hashanah is traditionally accompanied by lots of sweet food, so you’ll have a sweet year. That’s the theory, or close to it. It’s nice to have an apple dipped in honey, and challah (bread, sweet at this time of year), also dipped in honey, and carrots drowning in honey, or kugel with a double dose of sugar and honey.

Almost everything you eat on Rosh Hashanah is ether dipped in or drowned in something sweet. Just a bit of overkill. Seriously folks, did the Rabbis not ever consider people with diabetes? It’s all just not the same with Splenda!

My mouth waters just thinking of the food that will be laid out tonight in a community event for Rosh Hashanah, that expects around 150 people. I had a hand in preparing some of it today and will continue tomorrow afternoon. Not sure my aching legs can take any more but there’s no way I’m not going back to that kitchen!

Oh what a hypocrit I must be – a Jewish Athiest who cooks for and partakes in traditional Jewish Holiday meals? You know what? I don’t care! Call me names but I love it all! I love the craziness around this time. I love seeing people I might not have seen all year. I love the spirit of community and the happy flavour (excuse the pun) of the holiday. I especially love it when the Israelis all start to sing, much to the delight of the rest of us who are too shy to get into such merriment.

Weighing up options is a fact of life with diabetes. I can let my BLGs go to hell in a handbasket, (insulin pump or not – there’s no way I can account for every last carb) or I can sit there like Miss Goody-Two-Shoes and pick a piece of dry chicken and some nutrient-free lettuce and maybe a tomato.

Maybe I don’t have to do all-or-nothing. Maybe I can have it all, in very tiny portions?  My carb-load will probably still go to blazes but it’ll be slightly easier to manage. Missing out totally is a very poor alternative.

What would you do?

Gorgeous food! Seafood and vegetarian. Clean, fresh food, generous portions, Asian influence, spicy.

Recommend: Calamari – either tempura or grilled

Outside tables on a slant – can be bothersome (lost one point in the rating for this)

Rating: 9/10

This category is about food I love, restaurant reviews, recipes, interesting food links and more. I have been cooking since my early 20s. Always willing to learn and experiment, my style is mostly European and Middle Eastern. No vegetarian or tofu for me thanks!

Favourite dishes include:

Veal Schnitzel with Bratkartoffel (fired potatoes & onions)
BBQ Lamb in olive oil, rosemary, lemon or lime rind, sea salt, cracked black pepper

I will, however, make a comment that in nearly 10 years in Byron Bay, I’ve yet to find a restaurant that is awesome, reasonably priced, has good service and is somewhere that gives me mouth-watering thoughts when I plan on going there. Pity.

Yes, a few restaurants here have won awards, but as a general lower-carb eater with European tastes, the chili and corriander that pervade so much of what is offered, along with the carb stodge, leaves me searching the menus with a magnifying glass.