“Are You Going to Finish That?”

I love food and the act of eating it probably more than anything. Except maybe reading. Maybe.

Being on a healthy-eating regimen again, I’ve noticed I have a very strange relationship with food. As in, not possessing any semblance of normal. As in, I am possibly most likely definitely an over-eater. A picky over-eater. Perhaps an epicure as well. And a total weirdo nut-job.

I remember as a kid I was always starving. It didn’t matter if I’d just eaten, I always had room for twelve Oreo’s after lunch. My parents most certainly did not deprive me of food – I think it was just a side effect of growing about six inches every year. I was a ginormously tall and skinny child. This perpetual hunger always kept me on the lookout for more food, more food, like an invisible radar hidden in depths of my enormous brain (I was born with the hugest head in the State of California, so I’m assuming that means I have a big brain). Preferably this food would be cookies or some type of bread product.

These kinds of habits die hard. I still find myself overly concerned about eating; primarily, when am I going to get to eat and what am I eating. Gotta admit, I get a little panicky if I forget my lunch and go to work without a game plan of how food will be in my mouth no later than one o’clock. I know, isn’t that disgusting? Why this fear that I’m going to go hungry? I’ve never been even close to starving, except for that year I purposely starved myself to lose forty pounds. Don’t ever do that, kids.

I also have what I ingeniously refer to as “food phases,” where I insatiably crave a specific food and then eat that food everyday, for months at a time, sometimes for years. My freshman and sophomore years of high school, I brought peanut butter sandwiches in my brown bag every day. No jelly, just peanut butter and bread. Everyday. For two years. Junior and senior year, I ate salami and crackers everyday for lunch. After school, Oreo milkshakes. Yum. This is EVERYDAY, mind you. How I stayed so skinny in high school is a question for the ages.

After going to France, I ate a croissant with Nutella and a cup of coffee every afternoon for a solid ten months. I thought of it as my “tea time,” only with less tea and more saturated fats. I went through a cheese phase around that time, too. Lately, I can’t get enough of all-natural almond butter on apples for lunch (a much healthier choice – see, I am capable of learning good habits).

And I will never, ever, EVER go without coffee in the morning. I haven’t done so since 1997, when I discovered this sparkling liquid nectar. I will slit throats if I don’t have coffee within fifteen minutes of arising from my pillow, as Mike sadly found out early on in our marriage.

No, I didn’t slit his throat, but only because he pried the dull razor from my maniacal grip and then sated me with a caffeine drip. Do you remember that chick from The Ring? I was way scarier.

As if these peccadilloes weren’t bizarre enough, I also am highly susceptible to food suggestion and its mighty power. If I come across a delicious sounding food in a book, it will capture me and make me crave it with great force until it finds its way in my belly. I remember coveting the island cheeseburgers described in The Firm while reading it in high school. After reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, I wanted Turkish Delight something fierce. It sounded much more delightful in Narnia than it turned out to be in reality. During the entire time I read Rebecca, I wanted scones with clotted cream.

Mmm. Now I’m craving a scone.

I’m not really sure what the point of this post was, unless it was to showcase all my eccentricities. Mission accomplished. Although in all honesty, y’all probably didn’t need much more evidence of my lunacy.

At least I don’t crave weird food, like pickles in ice cream or chalk. And I really don’t get the bacon fad. Seriously you guys? It’s just bacon. Let it remain a delicious breakfast food or additive to a casserole – we don’t need bacon ice cream and bacon-wrapped Twinkies or whatever is the current hot ticket item.

So what are your weird eating habits? Now that I’ve broken the ice, I’m sure you’re all dying to share about the french fries dipped in milkshake phenomenon.