On one hand, it’s pretty great to be marrying a woman who has discovered a sudden passion for baking, and is in fact quite good at it. On the other hand, my Balance Board keeps scolding me for missing my weight deadline targets. I am torn between love and guilt.

I even feel guilty when I’m not eating; this morning I woke up to Cat baking buttermilk biscuits. I did the necessary thing and said, “No thanks” — which wasn’t terribly difficult, to be honest, aside from the fact that I felt lousy spurning the fruits of her early morning kitchen labor. I’m not really a fan of biscuits. They seem like a really cruel thing to do to innocent bread.

Cranberry shortbread, on the other hand….

Yeah, I can’t really say no to that.

Shortbread is one of those things I don’t eat often, partly because I only learned to love it a few years ago. I always preferred softer, cakier dessert breads growing up. But a good shortbread — all crisp, crumbly, and slightly buttery — is irresistible. Bad shortbread, I’d rather eat the wax paper it’s baked on. But done right, I love it.

Unsurprisingly, Cat does it right.

She somehow even managed to make dried cranberries plump and moist, a trick I’ve used to make Thanksgiving dressing one sad year when all the fresh cranberries were sold out… but not quite this well.

I think she’s a little disappointed that the shortbread turned out so crumbly that you can’t really eat it without a fork and plate, but to me that simply indicates that this is quintessential shortbread. I mean, shortbread is meant to be crumbly; this stuff crumbles if you merely look at it; ergo, this is the definitive shortbread.

Also, it tastes great. That makes this a plot twist the Balance Board will not approve of.