DEAR ABBY: My wife insists on baking chocolate chip cookies as a "thank you" for an older couple next door who have been very nice to us -– giving gifts to our 2-year-old daughter and generally being great neighbors. The husband is overweight and diabetic.
I say it's insensitive -– even cruel -– to give food like that to someone we assume is trying –- or should be trying –- to stay away from it. I say we should just send a thank-you note instead. My wife insists it's the "thought" that counts, and that they sometimes entertain grandkids who can eat them, or they can give the cookies away if they don't want them. This question has come up before with other overweight people to whom we've owed a thank-you. So who's right? -- QUESTIONING THE GESTURE
DEAR QUESTIONING: You are. While I agree with your wife that it's the thought that counts, the gift she's giving reflects no thought at all. In fact, it could be considered diet sabotage.
A more suitable gift might be a book, CD or a lovely plant. But if she's determined that it be something from her kitchen, she should pick up one of the American Diabetes Association cookbooks and use it to prepare something that her neighbors can both enjoy. (And because diabetes can run in families, that would include the grandkids, too.)