Another day, another three million calories

Lunch out at a favorite Mexican stand-by, cheese dip, Allyn's birthday party, great burgers and dogs, wonderful gelato (yes, I tried a little of each of the seven flavors), fabulous chocolate cake--these are the ways I count my calories today. At my current rate of expansion, I will be suitable for colonization by humankind long before the Earth can die--provided, of course, that we can find a way to get my fat butt into orbit.

Perhaps I will have some ice cream and ponder the problem.

Food as art

My fascination with food extends beyond mere appetite. Through eating at a wide variety of good restaurants and then dining at a fair number of the nation's best restaurants, I've come to appreciate that at a certain level of inventiveness and skill dishes become more than just food; they become art. Similarly, chefs become more than cooks; they become artists.

This realization is hardly new or unique to me; I do realize that fact. I mention it because people sometimes ask me why I bother to spend all the money to eat in these places, why I'm interested in great chefs, and so on. It's not simply because I love to eat, though of course I do; it's to appreciate their art, an art I get to view, smell, taste, and feel as I literally consume it. Wonderful stuff.