On Food

I just wasted two hours on Chowhound. I guess this makes me somewhat, well, OBSESSED with Chowhound. But what can I say, I LOVE food. And eating (mostly eating). (It also makes me bored at work. Clearly.)

It doesn’t hurt that I’m surrounded by people who ALSO love food. One of my best friends is a food journalist, another best friend is dating someone in culinary school, my boyfriend counts cooking as a hobby (and has taken lessons), two of his best friends are also dating food journalists (one is even a food critic — best. job. ever), and just about everyone else I know has an expense account. In New York City, an expense account is the GOLDEN TICKET to eating well.

So we talk about food. A lot. We go out to eat. A lot. We cook. Er, enough.

Said food journo friend and I are taking a road trip this weekend. She’s researching the best highway pit stops in Middle of Nowhere, PA. And I think this is totally reasonable. (Though I have to say — road trips are the only time you’ll catch me eating in a fast food joint like McDonald’s or Pizza Hut. That stuff? Is nasty. I don’t care what anybody says.)

When I first graduated from college, I always wanted to be the Girl in the Know … that person who knows where you should go on a first date, where you should take a client, where you should have your birthday party, and so on. I think I’ve come pretty close.

… But since almost everyone in the five boroughs fashions him or herself a foodie … well, no one asks my advice anyway! (Except on Chowhound. Now, there is a place where I feel the love …)

Red Meat

I recently started eating meat after being a vegetarian for more than a decade. My boyfriend, who once had a strict no-vegetarians dating policy, counts this dietary shift among his greatest accomplishments. I hate it when he’s right, but he was right: I missed meat. Meat, in fact, is delicious.

I still can’t eat more than a few bites or I’ll get sick. And I’m still pretty picky about what I will and will not put in my mouth. But, in general, I will eat meat if it passes the following tests:

1) It’s high quality — the fancier the restaurant, the more likely I am to eat it. Ditto if my boyfriend or my dad grilled it in the backyard (yes, that counts as high quality).

2) It comes from a cow. I still have ZERO desire to eat poultry or pork again. In fact, I often blame chicken for why I gave up meat altogether. Chicken? Chicken SUCKS.

3) It’s relatively well-done. I don’t like to see my food red or bleeding. Call me crazy.

4) It’s lean and well-seasoned.

I’m still the girl who has to bring her own food to a barbecue. And more likely than not, I describe myself as a vegetarian when people ask (though I’ve always eaten fish). But lately you’ll see me pulling on my boyfriend’s arm as he’s about to bite into a big, juicy burger topped with ketchup, mustard, and all the trimmings, mouth wide, motioning, “Give me a bite.” And he does. Because he’d love to see me eat meat again. And, for the moment, at least, I’ve been happy to acquiesce.

(Update: Bateman just sent me this article about how girls are reveling in their macho sides by eating red meat on dates. I didn’t even realize he read the fashion section of The New York Times. What’d I just say about him trying to convert me?)