As I laid in bed last night watching my third consecutive hour of the Food Network (Iron Chef America: Battle Octopus),I found myself thinking about several things.
1. Why the f was I laying in bed eating grapes and cold pasta when there were delicacies like fried octopus calamari with papaya sauce, octopus seviche with fresh salsa, octopus carpaccio, braised tuscan octopus, pressure cooked octopus with rock shrimp, and slowly grilled octopus skewers to be had?
2. Octopus sausage? Really? I don't know, Chef Kaysen.
3. When did obsessing over food, food preparation, and the chefs who prepare it become a socially acceptable thing to do, a hobby reserved not only for trained culinary specialists and the morbidly obese but also for your average, normal BMI, unskilled college student?
I first discovered my immense and inappropriate love for food via the Bravo hit Top Chef, which I caught by accident after a Project Runway finale and have ever since seen every episode of. Since that fateful moment two or three years ago, I have further expanded my food interests to include a personal (read: non family, delivered to my dorm room) subscription to Food and Wine magazine, frequent perusing of FoodNetwork.com recipes, ending every weekend in Kitchen Stadium, stopping to read every single moderately interesting menu I see on the street, daily research of new lunch spots on Citysearch (today's pick: The Green Table), watching Rachael Ray re-runs on mute (her voice makes me want to slit my wrists, but the woman can cook), and reading famous menus the way many people watch famous pornographic films.
And I am not even close to most fanatic of my friends. In the past decade, avidly following celebrity chefs, culinary reality TV, and "designer" restaurants have become a huge phenomenon in popular culture. Names like Rachael Ray (ugh), Wolfgang Puck, Paula Dean, Alain Ducasse, Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain and Bobby Flay have become as well known as those of Paris Hilton, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. Ray, the highest earning celebrity chef, makes $18 million a year on her Network show. Puck, Dean and the rest follow with similarly unbelievable numbers.
Any why not? If Americans can watch a show about a brain-dead couple and several other D-listers fighting it out in the jungle, and another about a fame-whorrific couple and their adorable plethora of half-Asian children, why wouldn't we watch a show--or a dozen--about a crictical life need--food?
Lucky for me, the Food Network's glorious headquarters are just around the corner from my summer internship. And in between "working," perusing menus on the internet, and g-chatting with stunning speed, I will continue to camp out in the Chelsea Market basement until I get the opportunity to seduce Bobby Flay into becoming my personal chef/husband.
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