My Food Porn Addiction
By Sun Jung
I watch porn.
Not the kind that involves egg-sized nipples and 9-inch dicks. The type that involves colossal 15-inch churros glossing with sugar that thrusts into the dulcet caramel dip. And as it emerges, the dark chocolate syrup shoots it, penetrating deeply into the majestic layer of crunchy sponginess. Interflavor love scene.
I once missed the first 30 minutes of a movie because the guy beside me was eating nachos. Watching the diced jalapeños embedded in melted cheddar cheese that were gliding on the crispy goldenness…oh Cheesus!
The photographic ratio of selfie:food in my phone is 1:30. If you check my browsing history, it’s filled with cooking blogs, Pinterest, Yelp, Tumblr, and Google images of food. Maybe my Internet time should be devoted to something more important like reading all the intellectual listicles my friends share or the enlightening Instagram quotes of their hopes and dreams. But every time I try to fulfill my online friendship duties, Oreo happens…and my mouse bids adieu to mes amis. Broreo, Oreozza, Oreokie, Oreonut, Oreosagna, Oreobbler…there is simply not enough time for cyber human compassion when Oreo culinary porn is two clicks away.
For a food porn enthusiast, Pinterest is surprisingly not my El Dorado. It’s actually Yelp. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pinterest! It’s like looking at Luke Evans. Eyegasmic, but unattainable. The recipes usually call for more than a dozen ingredients and anything that exceeds five ingredients is the equivalent of a smoking hot gay guy.
But Yelp! Oh Yelp, how do I even begin? It is the sacred library of realistic alimentary pictures that are within my geographic range. Lamb chops dripping tzatziki sauce on top of stonefire pita bread…just 1.5 miles away. Triple grilled cheese perfused with sour cream…only 3.2 miles away. Fried shredded coconut chicken dipped in curry hummus…the 6-mile trip to happiness.
Yelp is nearly perfect. There is just one glitch in this majestic sanctorum of foodporn that can ruin tongue masturbation. Pictures. Of. Random. Ass. People.
I’m happily roaming through photos of blue velvet pancakes, green tea tiramisu, sweet potato pies, and BAM! Gap-toothed Joseph is celebrating his birthday. Press next. Drunk Juan is “conquering” the mighty waffles. But where are the waffles?! I only see Juan’s face widescreen IMAX. Lauren is celebrating her post-menopause life with donuts. Alright, time to check e-mails.
Sometimes in restaurants it is my wish to enter the kitchen and watch the magic happen instead of sitting across whoever is half-assing through a dinner conversation while doodling on his or her phone. Just imagining the cook’s fingers rubbing the venison meat with olive oil while sprinkling the bay leaves that hit every right spot of the flesh…then placing it into the pan, letting the heat unlock the juices that emit an odor soaked in seasoned exquisiteness.
Forget lawyers, doctors, tenured professors, CEOs, Nobel laureates, or any professional endorsed by the Asian-Jewish United Mothers of America (AJUMA). I want to marry a CHEF. Go ahead, call me a food whore. But between unlimited live food porn and everything else, I kiss le chef.