Dear diary,
you know what i like? food. There's nothing greater than X; and food is X.
i used to hate food, when i was younger. I was always so anxious and high-strung that the sight & scent of food would only nauseate me. but then, in my mid-30s, i allowed myself to try sipping a mixture of gin and vermouth. Before that time, i was always too scared to let beverages made for adults become part of my mind, because my biological guardians taught me that both sides of our family are susceptible to alcoholism, and therefore it's better if i simply and entirely avoid all inebriating substances. So when i first dared to defy this order, i was already an elderly chimp. Long story short, this mixture, popularly known as the dry martini, relaxed me enough so that, for the first time in hell, i developed an appetite! thenceforth i fell in love with edible food. I'm even a little fat now; tho not in a morbid or disgusting way: I just have a pot-belly and firm breasts like a typical writer.
Yes, now i'm passionate about food. I daydream about food. I even pray to god to help me quit eating. "Please lord," i cry, "solve my addiction to food so that i can become The Hunger Artist that i used to be." Because, at heart, i'm still a control-freak.
Also one thing that makes me sad is how the animals are treated in the places that fatten them and slaughter them. It's not the fattening and slaughtering itself that bothers me: i know that dining and dying are but chapters in The Good Life, & honestly i'd rather be part of a society that would slay me when i reached a certain age, after feeding me plentifully thereto, as long as the cuisine is tasty & my age of expiry coincided with the point when an average human's health might be expected to decline; also on condition that the act of killing is quick: no pain, no anticipation; just "Place your head in the guillotine, monsieur bryan, and you'll hear a brief whooshing sound; then you'll be in heaven."
My point is that i'd like to feel less guilty about daydreaming about eating ribs dripping with succulence, & thick steaks & pork chops & fried chicken & summer sausage &...
But because i know that the people who work in the giant corporate torment-farms perform every manner of evil upon their livestock daily, i feel like it's not even moral to enjoy the THOT of sucking a hot dog out of its bun.
However, i never liked hamburgers. I never liked ground beef. I still don't like such substances, to this day; even tho i'll eat a hamburger any time and enjoy it immensely: i just mean, by the word "dislike", that i rank hamburger patties as less satisfying than all other meats. The texture & flavor of ground beef are subpar. At least the type of hamburger meat that my family always procured seemed subpar to me. Cheap meats like baloney taste better; even tuna tastes better.
More than meat, however, I enjoy consuming condiments & sauces. I suppose my admission here applies more to inferior meats than to meats of quality. I'm not sure i've ever eaten any meat of passing quality. Thus, to me, meats are fundamentally excuses to indulge in various dipping expeditions. Especially the chicken strips that they sell at fast-food restaurants: i like to dip them in honey, mustard, honey-mustard, ranch, barbecue sauce, and sweet-&-sour sauce.
My goal in life is to sit before a series of troughs filled with all of the above condiments, and dip from one to the next with each new bite.
Again, however, i feel guilty about the maltreatment of the animals, so i almost never indulge in flesh consumption. I'm not a vegan or even a vegetarian, but i eat meat extremely sparingly. Only when i'm a guest at someone's house, and mammals or fish are served for the feast, do i permit myself to indulge. I call such occasions strokes of luck: for these events are in god's hands; and the god of this universe loves playing dice. So i favor the idea of chefs learning to mimic the tastes of meat-based cuisines by way of vegetable substitutes.
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