Mmm… Porn

Hide your wives!/Hide your kids!!

I have a confession to make. It’s been my dirty little secret and something I’ve tried to keep hidden from you for a while. I’m not proud to be telling you this. And I totally understand if you never want to talk to me ever again. You remember those nights I’d be home, alone, “too tired” to go out? Yeah, I was tired all right… Exhausted from my love for something so mesmerizing, so carnal, so incorrigible… I can’t believe I’m telling you this. I’m obsessed. I’m hooked. There’s no other way to say it – I’m addicted.

You see, there’s something growing on the internets and it has already invaded your TVs. Spreading faster than both you and I can ever imagine. It’s perverse. Exploitative. Depraved. Utterly Insatiable. Starving for your attention. It’s hungry. If you don’t stop it now, it’ll turn you into a fat, disgusting, heavy-breathing slob. Yes, I’m talking about the growing phenomenon that is porn. Food Porn.

While this addiction may not be sold on the corners of the ‘hood or in the restrooms of truck stops, this vile compulsion brings just as much pain. Like heroin, crack, opium, and crystal meth, no good can come out of it. Some will argue that you should embrace this movement. Don’t believe them. They call themselves foodies. They’re addicts. And that’s how addicts talk. I would know. I used to come rush home, lock myself in my kitchen, and log on to my favorite blog; hoping to violate my senses into submission with images of salted meats, over easy eggs, and puffy pastries. I couldn’t stop. I was a fiend. Itching to satisfy my growing appetite. Once I was on, I could spend hours glued to screenshots of super-stacked grease burgers, sugar-coated crepes, dripping wet baby back ribs, and fleshy cuts of delectable lamb chops. (Stopping only to wipe my hands. ) Nothing satisfied me quite like those shots of medium rare filet mignons… not even the real thing.

It wasn’t long before my addiction started devolving into more sadistic, fetish-like territory. One ground beef sirloin patty was no longer enough. I needed five. With Pepper Jack cheese. And a fried egg. And some chipotle sauce. On grilled cheese sandwiches as buns. I was into threesomes… foursomes… food orgies in my mouth. Orgies were cool for a while. They fed the fat bastard in me, but I eventually got tired of it. Once you’ve seen a KFC Double Down, you’ve seen it all . Pretty soon I was moving on to different deviances, maneuvering my way around into more exotic territory. Like deep fried grassphopper… smoked foie gras… and fermented casu marzu. Game meat, that was a hot four weeks. It wasn’t like anything I’d seen before, but it looked so damn good. Smoked rabbit was my favorite. We had a good run. But like everything else the love affair didn’t last for too long. Soon, I found myself on the amateur scene. This was like heaven on earth for me. It was full of so many possibilities and unlike everything I’d seen before, they were within my grasp. There wasn’t anything pretentious about their presentation. They were dressed down. Seedy but still undeniably alluring. I could have made those dishes. And I would’ve treated them so much better. God, if only they knew. If only I got one bite. I know I’d devour them… Savor them… Let them rock my taste buds.

But the deeper I got, the more delusional I became. I stopped going out all together. Content to spending time with my “favorites”. Nothing was going to stop my self-destructive behavior from completely taking over. Not my friends. Not my family. Not even my sagging waistline – I lost 20 pounds at the peak of my addiction. I’d be so consumed with consuming that I forgot to physically eat what I was craving. It also hurt that I couldn’t cook two shits. Ever meet anyone who couldn’t cook eggs? Yup, guilty. It was like I was cursed to admiring from afar. Forced to live in my own sort of hell on earth, where my greatest desires stayed just out of arms reach…

And that’s when I realized I had a problem. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery and boy, was I spending a lot of time fantasizing about perfectly cured meats. “Oh, why hello Mrs. Applewood Smoked Bacon. I didn’t expect you home so soon. Oh haha. Why yes, I have been working out. I’m so glad you noticed. What was that? You want me to take a bite… out of where? Oh you tease. Mmm. Well if you insist. Nom. Nom. Nom.” Yeah, a lot of my Saturday nights ended up looking just like that. Pathetic? Yes. But could you blame me? I was sick. Addiction is a disease, after all.

Once I realized that behind its perfect lighting and photoshopped effects, that there was real dish underneath, I began my slow crawl to recovery. Underneath it all was a lonely dish just waiting to be eaten. It wasn’t like the dish would be stuck in that pose forever. Eventually someone was going to cut into it. Stab it with a fork. Chew it up. Swallow it. It is food after all. And that’s when it hit me. Fuck. I should be out eating that, instead of fantasizing about eating that.

Because there’s nothing like taking that first big bite into a juicy 8oz. burger.

Nothing like shoveling that last spoonful of Hoisin soaked noodles into your face.

Nothing like licking the grease seeping out of that overstuffed chipati off your fingers.

Never anything quite as good as the real thing.