I’m being totally honest … I’m food-obsessed. My family and friends might be disappointed about this but they don’t show that outwardly to me. I appreciate that and it is one of the reasons why I love them. They accept me and realize, on this subject, there’s no changing me although we’ve tried. While they gently encourage me to broaden my horizons, they understand that can be a stretch for me. But for people who don’t know me, when I say something that reveals my food-obsessed-self they laugh nervously (instead of saying “You’re joking, right?”) and their body language is judgmental — shakes of the head and frowns. Nope, I’m not joking.

I wanted to join a book club but one that reads only books about food. The people I’d like to meet are in the food world — chefs, food writers, nutritionists, farmers, and cooking school instructors. Vacations do not entice me unless they include delicious food that I’m guaranteed to have the time to eat. When someone passes away, I think of what food to make their loved ones; flowers are not my first thought. I’m selective about movies, I only go if they are about food or have a lot of food-related scenes in them. And if there is no popcorn at the movies, I’ll watch it from home. Museums … I prefer ones with a café so that I can reward myself for being such a culturally curious person. If I had to choose between taking a tour of a city’s historical highlights or the city’s farmers markets and specialty food markets, you can guess which one I’d pick. I enjoy visiting historical sites, but even more so if there’s a bakery or coffee shop nearby. When people visit me, I fall asleep at night dreaming what to cook for them, which restaurants to take them to, and how I can care for them with food. If someone is ill, I ask them which of three options (matzah balls, rice or orzo) they’d like with the chicken soup I’d like to make for them. Special occasions are memorable to me for the food that was served, not necessarily for the reason behind the occasion.

When I was dating my husband, he would invite me to spend the day skiing with him. If you asked me which I looked forward to more — spending the day with him or the pit-beef sandwich at the slopes, it would be an equal draw. That sounds terrible. The question I didn’t want to admit asking was what would I do if there was no pit-beef sandwich stand at the slopes? Today, I’m sure my husband would understand the ethical dilemma this line of internal questioning put me in. Back then, if I expressed this out-loud to him, the word “husband” might not be in my current vocabulary. Not to worry, it all worked out. My boyfriend became my husband. And I always remembered, of course, even if there wasn’t a pit-beef sandwich stand surely the ski resort surely would have replaced it with another sandwich place of equal deliciousness. Crisis averted!

I understand, objectively of course, this is a character flaw. But a zebra can’t change its spots. What’s a girl to do?

Pixie – March 2018