There is a point in the novel Ice Charades when the protagonist, Sue, carries a croissant in her purse to wolf down as soon as the *weigh-ins are over. Even though eating a croissant or even a hamburger probably wouldn't make you one pound heavier, one hour later, it's the psychological feeling that weighing in when the tank is completely empty gives you the best result.
It's an ongoing theme in the book.
Things don't go as planned during *weigh-ins and that croissant gets
smushed before the end of the day. Not smashed, but
smushed. I like the sound of
smushed much better. See photo above ... although that's a clean, direct smush ... not like the half-smushed, partially-torn greasy-napkin-bleeding-onto-Sue's-wallet croissant I envisioned.
Then this weekend, it dawned on me that my new, favorite breakfast treat for the last three months is ALSO a
smushed croissant, called the franzbrötchen schoko. (chocolate french bread)
They have
smushed it on purpose. And then - it seems like to me - they fry it with a chocolate glaze and dust it off with powder sugar. Wow, genious. All you need to do is shove a stick in there and you've got the next State Fair sensation.
I never knew of this delicacy from Hamburg, in all of my days touring with Holiday On Ice. That's probably a good thing, since making my set weight was hard enough with the regular croissants and struedels and good ol' baguettes and Swiss chocolates etc etc, coming my way. But in writing about the state of Sue's pastry back in 2007, it's as if I always knew.
** weigh-ins: Subjecting a skater to a (usually) weekly weighing to see how much they weigh above their set weight in order to fine them or even fire them occasionally.
