TimWoolery.net Documenting the Journey and the Learning Curve

Death to the Foodies

Why can't this happen to Paula Deene more often?

I'm sorry - I don't know why this upset me as much as it did but I gotta get this off of my chest.  The Food Network, people like Rachel Ray, Paula Deene and the Neelys - please go choke on a coriander-infused, pan-seared marinated fig and die.  Die trying to cough up your cream-cheese and orzo salad ... be buried under ten metric tons of donated ham.  Better yet - lose your gig at the Food Network and be forced to try to make your horrible recipes after working to make ends meet for 70 hours a week.  That's right, you really should use fresh herbs and sea salt from the Adriatic sea but when you're eating the chili mac last night for leftovers, it's time to reach for the Morton's Iodized.

What is wrong with people?

I was prepared to let most of this go five years ago when you started hearing about 'foodies' but it just keeps getting worse and worse.  Julia Child and Martha Stewart weren't enough for us - now there's an entire cable channel airing 168 hours of content devoted to the topic of cooking.  Could you imagine - when you dreamed about the future as a child - that this would be how people would spend their time?  When you thought about what life was going to be like when you grew up, did the idea that people would get this anal and fad-happy about food?

Let the following be a cautionary tale to the modern-day Foodie: We've seen your kind before.

Back in the 70s, you were killing us with your hippy-dippy arts and crafts nonsense.  You were choking us with macrame plant hangers and drowning us in fondue.  Like I said before - the crowd that's first to pick up the fad and first on the cool-to-hate bandwagon.  We've seen you before and now that you're done sucking the fun out of almost everything else there is in life, you're trying to kill food.

I guess I can't enjoy a steak anymore - it isn't Kobe beef.  I can't enjoy some chicken and pasta unless we've added 3 sticks of butter and "eeeh-vooo".  Garden salads that aren't tossed with cranberries and pine nuts are worthless.  Everything has to be 'infused' - everything has to be combined with something else before we can enjoy it.  Thanks for taking every aspect of our lives that didn't need fixing and then 'fixing' it.  Set your watch kiddies because the clock is running - with the tightened economy people are starting to re-introduce themselves to comfort food like meat loaf and instant potatoes.  It's only a matter of time before the backlash and we have to endure the endless 'we didn't need that, anyway' parade.

Again - I have to wage a daily war to keep my life as manageable as possible.  I've done that by disciplining myself to remove the unnecessary clutter and that includes getting so wrapped up in one aspect of my life that all other parts are excluded.  I think it's crazy that people insist on making things so difficult to enjoy that whatever pleasure they were hoping to experience was lost.  They maximize and so tightly pack their experiences that they can't really focus on the single, simple details that make golden moments so precious.  So enjoy your food, foodies - the funny thing about being a foodie and being wrapped up in what you eat is: you'll always be hungry tomorrow.

Congratulations and stand by for next year's fad:  designer toilet paper and artisan cleaning products.