I've been meaning to write this essay for quite awhile now. My outrageous obsession with food is a huge part of my life and I really don't feel like my webpage is truly complete without a honest essay about it. So because I just sat here and ate a frozen pizza, some tater tots, and like 9 pounds of orange chocolate bunnies, I am very inspired to write about this ridiculous passion.
          It really is obscene how something as pointless as food can have so much control over my life. Well maybe food isn't pointless - I mean after all, it is required to live! But at the same time, I feel like I take this idea of needing food to survive to a whole new level. It's definitely above and beyond a level of obsession. There are days when I plan things entirely around my meals.
          Let's take a normal day. If I oversleep, I would rather eat breakfast and get to work late than skip breakfast. Going through a morning without food in my stomach would totally kill me. My brain would just chant, "Food! Food! Food!" over and over and over until I ate something. Then there's lunch: lunch is my savior. It is my sanity. It is my break every afternoon from work (or if it's the weekend - my first meal of the day!). Lunch is great because if I want to eat something really fattening, it's OK because I'll still have the rest of the day to burn it off, and I'll still have dinner to eat something relatively healthy. And dinner's always the fun meal, because I become more experimental - falafel pitas, pastas, soups, veggie burgers, etc. Or sometimes I'll go out to eat, which is even better. Usually, at each of my favorite restaurants, I'll have one specific thing that I order every single time I go there. So it will usually boil down to me craving a certain food so bad that I have to go to that one particular restaurant that carries it.
          Along the lines of craving, snacking rules my life as well. Like, if I'm sitting at work, working on a website, and suddenly I decide that I need a fudgicle from the vending machine, I absolutely cannot work until I have one. There was one day where I had no money on me and I had to borrow $1.00 from Dave and $.25 from Eileen in order to get my ice cream bar. Without it, I know I wouldn't have gotten any work done that afternoon. Thank god for that ice cream machine. Other snacks that will attack me like this include Sun Chips, York Peppermint Patties, and occasionally cookies. But lately, at work, fudgicles are my nightmare. Without them, I am doomed.
          Sometimes I'll go on kicks with food where if I find something I love, I will eat it day after day after day until I can't eat it anymore. For example, there was about a four month period in High School where I came home from school every single day and made homemade garlic bread with cheese. I became completely obsessed with it. Every day, I couldn't wait to get home from school so I could make my garlic bread. And you can imagine how this began to drive my family insane! The house constantly reeked of garlic. My mom told me that even while I slept, the garlic would just seep out of my pours and stink up my entire room. Isn't that disgusting? I coudln't even smell it; I made so much of it. I honestly couldn't help it though! I was an addict!
          And then there was my chocolate milk phase. (That one was shared with Aubrey.) And my English muffin pizza phase. And my frozen pizza phase. And my cereal phase. And my veggie sub phase. And my calzone phase. Oh my life has been full of food phases. Will it ever end?
          I honestly don't think so. Sometimes, I doubt that anything can truly make me happier than food. If I make a pan of brownies, I will pick at it for 2 or 3 days until it's gone. And with every bite of every brownie, I will let out an "mmmmm" of satisfaction. I remember my mom used to mock me out when I lived home because she would whip together a quick meal of grilled cheese and tomato soup, and I would sit at the table going, "Mmmmmmm…" with every bite. She'd always say, "Jaime, you sure are a cheap date!" It's true though. Give me a slice of pizza and I will love you forever.