Food Porn

Food porn. Sounds dirty, and can be (you know who you are, banana/cucumber aficionados), but in my family? It’s not about “getting off” in the traditional sense. It’s about a flavor orgasm. Or “flava” as the cool kids say. Too many quotation marks in the first paragraph? Consider each instance of punctuation a flavor orgasm and embrace it, prudes.

Take my brother Danny and me. That Cinnamon Toast Crunch we ate? Delicious. Know what made it more delicious? Admiring the beautiful, lick your lips-inducing photos on the cereal box. But that was just foreplay until we moved on to the dessert section of a cookbook. But not just ANY cookbook. The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook my beautiful grandmother, Frances Sifers, gave me on my 12^th birthday (the proof is in the note on the inside!). Just look at it! It’s gorgeous! LOOK AT IT!

Considering how long I've had this thing, still looks pretty good. Like it's had cookbook botox.

My grandmother always wrote a note in books she gave me. She kicked some serious ass when she picked this book.

Look at those desserts. Sure, the food styling is dated, but screw it. I would dunk my face into any one of those desserts.

Just like the pages of a Playboy stick together after being thoroughly “reviewed,” the pages of this glorious cookbook are bonded together (but hey, we read it for the recipes, not the photos…wink, wink). This poor Good Housekeeping cookbook has been assailed by the nubby fingers of hungry kids like Danny and me, turning the pages with one hand while the other hand does the dirty stuff (shoveling food into our mouths…duh, you pervs).

In the Bauer household, food porn goes beyond the kitchen table. It’s also prevalent in the bedroom. All of us like to eat in bed – usually the sweet stuff. Soooo naughty. Hiding candy and cookies in our bedrooms like they were paraphernalia was a regular occurrence for us kids.

Take Danny, for instance. This ADHD typhoon of a child would steal the sugar bowl – yes, the entire sugar bowl – and hide it under his bed like it was a Hustler magazine. But that’s not all. He would take all of the candy and sugary goodness we had in the house and stow it away in his closet when room under the bed was taken up by things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures, Lego landscapes and of course, the damn sugar bowl. When all was said and done, he had transformed his closet into a candy bunker rivaling Charlie’s Chocolate Factory, sans the chocolate river and the creepy ass tunnel. But we did, mind you, have younger brother Brent, who made a fine stand-in for an Oompa-Loompa.

Danny also (and I’m still pissed off about this) stole my entire inventory of Girl Scout Almond Roca Cookies, the little sugar nympho. Pretty sure he still owes my dad money for that. Sidenote: Girl Scouts of America, if you ever bring back Almond Rocas, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT sell to a lanky guy who looks like this because he WILL have a full-on sugar relapse. He will probably murder someone for a box:

Danny may be the picture of health, but Almond Rocas are his kryptonite.

Fast forward 18 years. Today, I get my flava orgasms from the vast abundance of TV shows focused squarely on food (all hail the mighty Food Network!). Some folks watch TV to fill their shorts. I do it to fill my belly. These days, you’ve got cooking shows in HD, with LOTS of full-frontal close-ups. Might have to go change my skivvies just thinking about it. My massive bowl of spaghetti is good, but turn on some Giada and Mama Mia! My limp-noodled spaghetti is now erupting with authentic Italian goodness…while at the same time I’m marveling at how Giada stays so thin cooking all that pasta. Pretty sure she’s equipped with some sort of boob-powered fat vacuum, because that’s the only part on her body that’s big. Bitch.

Jesus H. Christ. It's just not fair.

 Anyway, I could go on and on about food porn, but really, if you want it, you can find it. Sure, it doesn’t come mailed to you in a discrete tan envelope, but that’s what’s so great about it – it’s discrete simply because it’s food. Take your mediocre plate of food, turn on the tube or thumb through an illustrated cookbook and you’ll see how much better your meal tastes. Hell, hide food under your bed like Danny if that’s what gets your tongue wagging (to eat, you filthy people). Whatever you decide, I support it, because it’s America, and nothing says freedom and the pursuit of happiness like food porn. And I’m spent. Excuse me while I roll over and go to bed.