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Signs of cooking obscession

post #1 of 41
3/10/02 at 7:33pm
Thread Starter 
Hi Foodies. We all know why we are here. We love food or work with food or wish we could work with food or wish we could love food more and all that. But do you think about it too much? Do you wile away with thoughts of you next great meal or anxiously await the sequel to your favorite cookbook? I was cleaning up at the restaurant today and pondered some of the symptoms of the truly cooking obscessed.
1. You remember significant events by what you ate or prepared on that on that occasion. By the same token you meet someone for the second time and don't remember their name, but can remember that they don't like mushrooms and are allergic to tomatoes.
2. You keep cooking utensils in your car "just in case". Or if you are like me, you can't understand why everyone doesn't go camping with an espresso maker, wire whip with copper bowl and a nutmeg grater.
3. You come in to work and tell your co-worker something like " I went home last night and did'nt really feel like cooking. So I whipped up a little Rissoto Milanese and Clafloutis, a bottle of Chianti Reserva and called it good".
What a relief! To find out after all these years that I'm not crazy. I'm just culinarily divergent...
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post #2 of 41
3/10/02 at 7:40pm
I'm a combination of numbers 1 and 3!

I would also adhere to your camping style if I could...at hubby's dismay :lol:
K

«Money talks. Chocolate sings. Beautifully.»
«Just Give Me Chocolate and Nobody Gets Hurt.»
«Coffee, Chocolate, Men ... Some things are just better rich.»
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post #3 of 41
3/10/02 at 8:19pm

More symptoms........

You're thinking about lunch while still eating breakfast.

Trips to the grocery store excite you.

Cookbooks have replaced novels on top of your nightstand.

You plan your vacations around food not locations.

You check the posts on Cheftalk more often that you check your e-mail.

You spend more money on groceries, kitchen appliances, cookbooks, and kitchen utensils than you do on rent each month.
Svadhisthana

http://www.musa.org/
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post #4 of 41
3/10/02 at 8:59pm
How about if you aren't satisfied with one perfectly nice cooking forum and so go start one of your own? Now spending hours trying to balance your life with your need to find interesting new recipes?

Very cute guys. Peachcreek...I thought I was the only person who takes my espresso pot camping. At least I'm sure I was told that I was.
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post #5 of 41
3/11/02 at 4:48am
Wow! Our very own "Cooks Anynomous". Hi. my name is Pete. And I am a cooking addict. It started innocently enough at age 3 when my mom first let me help make cookies. My addiction blossomed by age 10, when I started preparing whole meals for the family. By the time I was in my late teens, my addiction was running my life. Cooking at home was no longer enough, so I went and found a job doing it. Even that wasn't enough. I eventually went on to spend thousands of dollars to satisfy my cravings, and go to culinary school. To this day my addiction controls me. I take vacations to "food destinations". I plan meals and party menus weeks in advance. I lie awake at night contemplating new dishes. I drive miles out of my way because so-and-so has the best German salamis or this person has the best produce. I spend more time surfing the web looking for food related websites than I spend with my wife (sometimes, until she threatens to hurt me). Cooking has taken control of my life!
From Man's sweat and God's love, beer came into the World-Saint Arnoldus
http://www.onceachef.com/
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post #6 of 41
3/11/02 at 5:10am
Pete,

Lets hook your wife with my hubby!! :eek:
K

«Money talks. Chocolate sings. Beautifully.»
«Just Give Me Chocolate and Nobody Gets Hurt.»
«Coffee, Chocolate, Men ... Some things are just better rich.»
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post #7 of 41
3/11/02 at 5:25am
I have trained my hubbie so that whenever he goes to some grand poo-bah event that I can't attend for whatever reason, he memorizes the dishes, what they tasted like,and brings me a menu if he can!
__________________
"Like water for chocolate"
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post #8 of 41
3/11/02 at 6:21am
Hi, my name is Wendy and I have a baking addiction.
"Bakers are born, not made. We are exacting people who delight in submitting ourselves to rules and formulas if it means achieving repeatable perfection", Rose Levy Beranbaum
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post #9 of 41
3/11/02 at 7:32am

GREAT THREAD!!!

ALL OF THE ABOVE, plus:

Planning DINNER before I can get out of bed in the morning.

Giving hubby a list of places to eat at when he travels, so that he can bring back menus. (such a dear!)

Computerizing the list of what's in the freezer, fridge, and closets, so that I can rotate better.

Markets count the same as museums when traveling.

The previously-mentioned 500 cookbooks.
"Notorious stickler" -- The New York Times, January 4, 2004
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post #10 of 41
3/11/02 at 7:02pm
Someone went on a trip, ate out. All you want to know is how was the food.


Of all the addiction one can have, food and cookbooks is my favourite.


Please don't try to cure me.
When I get a little money, I buy books. And if there is any left over, I buy food.

- Desiderius Erasmus
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post #11 of 41
3/12/02 at 6:13am

Top Ten Signs you're a cooking addict...

10. You can't pass a cooking catalogue without picking it up and immediately thinking, "Where is my credit card?"

9. Every conversation to which you are a contributor, one way or the other, sooner or later, turns to food.

8. You find yourself regaling someone about a meal or dessert you prepared in the past, then realize you're talking to your probation officer.

7. You flip through the channels (and with satellite, this can take awhile) in search of an overhead shot of a saucepan with something in it simmering away.

6. You watch a show broadcast in a language you don't understand because it's a cooking show.

5. Television Food Network is in your tv remote's "favorites" menu; along with PBS, Discovery and HGTV (they occasionally run a cooking show).

4. Your computer bookmarks all involve either cooking, where to buy cookware, or where to buy ingredients.

3. Your pulse quickens when you anticipate cooking for a special someone or a party.

2. "Field trip" to you means visiting a gourmet store or a kitchen supply store.

1. You watch Martha Stewart and think, "Enough of this gardening ****, get in the kitchen, woman!"
Food is sex for the stomach.
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post #12 of 41
3/12/02 at 11:05am
When watching a cooking show you talk back to the screen when the T.V. chef does something incorrect.
Svadhisthana

http://www.musa.org/
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post #13 of 41
3/12/02 at 8:16pm
my tribe!!!
except for not having a personalized parole officer I fit everything so far....oh yeah I don't computer catalog my shtuff, but I know what I got....welll the majority of it.
When my boys were in scouts we had garlic bread, sirloin, sauteed onions/shrooms, green salad and crisp of some sort...lot of drooling from Dads who brought cans of bleck. Shoot I made shiitake risotto for 200 on camp stove....or porcini tagelltel....etc....
It amazes me when people won't go to a much better grocery store because it's a few more minutes away.
I set up a market just to insure that gorgeous produce remains available.....that is obsession.
cooking with all your senses.....
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post #14 of 41
3/12/02 at 10:00pm
And the ultimate proof that you are truly addicted to food...

Folks recruit you to be on their trivia contest team as soon as they find out that food is a category. Out of ten questions, the only one I couldn't answer was how's an In and Out burger cooked if you order it animal style? Hey, but now I know.
SmartGirl to the rescue!
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post #15 of 41
3/13/02 at 3:52am
Svadisthana - Yes, yes, yes! especially when it's Martha Stewart!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D
__________________
"Like water for chocolate"
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post #16 of 41
3/13/02 at 5:29am
I have to admit that I exhibit many of symptoms listed in this thread. Just this weekend, I was surfing the "favorites" list on the satellite television, which includes chiffonade's food channels plus DIY Channel which also has some cooking programs. Found myself moaning and "rebuking" Tracy Griffith as she par-boiled baby back ribs in order to prep them for grilling. My wife came in the room and inquired as to whether I was ill. I said "no, I'm just talking to the TV Chef." In retrospect, I was and am sick.

For the rest of the addicts, E! Entertainment and the Style channel carries the "Nigella Bites" cooking show (channels not otherwise on my favorite list because of the lack of food related content).
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post #17 of 41
3/13/02 at 6:04am
I LOVE Nigella Bites! The only reason IMHO to watch E!.:D
Svadhisthana

http://www.musa.org/
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post #18 of 41
3/13/02 at 8:58am
For lent, you pledge to give up 71% chocolate and eat only the 65% variety.
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post #19 of 41
3/13/02 at 9:38am
You cruise slowly through the grocery aisles listening closely just waiting to hear someone utter the phrase "what can I do with this"? or "what's that thing" and waiting to pounce with an answer.
My latest musical venture!
http://myspace.com/nikandtheniceguys
 
Also
http://www.myspace.com/popshowband "I'm at the age when food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact I've just had a mirror put over my kitchen table." Rodney Dangerfield RIP
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post #20 of 41
3/13/02 at 10:46am
Your best friend comes to ask what she is going to wear to a dinner with a person she was after for months and you start lecture her on what to order in the restaurant.

The next day, the same friend comes to tell you about her date and you start ask her what she had , if the steak was as juicy it suppose to be and if their baklava was better than yours :D:D

The above are true stories :)
"Muabet de Turko,kama de Grego i komer de Djidio", old sefardic proverb ( Three things worth in life: the gossip of the Turk , the bed of the Greek and the food of the Jew)
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post #21 of 41
3/13/02 at 10:51am
when traveling, you always stop early enough that you can cruise through the local grocery stores before they close. Hey, think of it as sociology trip... seeing what other parts of the country consider normal.

making shopping lists of what you need from grocery stores that are in other states...hey, it's a long way to Minn. from VA.
Try not to let your mind wander..
It's much too small to be outside on it's own.........
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post #22 of 41
3/13/02 at 12:26pm
Yep! Fit most of these especially knowing someone by their food habits, "you remember that guest, he's the one that eats cayenne on his melon and his wife loves eggs benny with lime hollandaise" -- and am probably one of the few B&B owners that concludes their directions to the "X tourist attraction" with, "...and on the way home, there's a really cool market...." --

recipe, presentation ideas are on the back of every single paper on your desk, purse, business card, every page of the calendar.

even your pets have food names....

...you go on a buying spree at the mall and the CC company calls to check and make sure that it's really you making the purchases because there wasn't a charge at Williams Sonoma...
Sweet Dreams!!
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post #23 of 41
3/13/02 at 1:12pm
These are so true... In my case, I try to get my kids invited to neighborhood kids birthday parties just so they can tell me about the cake! " But, Mom I don't want to go! That kid hates me!" Poor kid she'll mention that in therapy someday!lol!

Beth
No, I'm not pregnant....CAKES in the oven!
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post #24 of 41
3/13/02 at 2:25pm
Thread Starter 

Condo Fever.

Heres' another sign. How many condiments in your fridge and cupboards? 100? Maybe more? I know I get nervous when I get down to ONLY 6 different mustards......And no, I don't think it is trivial to need 2 different truffle oils....
What a relief! To find out after all these years that I'm not crazy. I'm just culinarily divergent...
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post #25 of 41
3/13/02 at 3:33pm
Man! We are a pretty sad group!!! LOL:bounce: :p :p :bounce:
From Man's sweat and God's love, beer came into the World-Saint Arnoldus
http://www.onceachef.com/
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post #26 of 41
3/13/02 at 6:06pm
:bounce: I'm not the only one!!!!!!!!!:bounce:
Svadhisthana

http://www.musa.org/
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post #27 of 41
3/13/02 at 7:04pm
Thread Starter 

Shopping cart black box

I look at other peoples' groceries and try to figure out what I would do with them .....
What a relief! To find out after all these years that I'm not crazy. I'm just culinarily divergent...
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post #28 of 41
3/13/02 at 9:28pm
Me too! :lol:
K

«Money talks. Chocolate sings. Beautifully.»
«Just Give Me Chocolate and Nobody Gets Hurt.»
«Coffee, Chocolate, Men ... Some things are just better rich.»
Reply
post #29 of 41
3/13/02 at 11:06pm

Obsessed people have legal rights

LOL I guess that this is typical. Just don't forget to mention this to the doctor LOL

Well I want to tell you something. I have just checked and the world "Obsession" if it is used against you may cause legal actions :D
So, in case someone calls you "obsessed with food" when you stare at his groceries in the super market , when you give advices to the cook that cooks something on TV, if you have 100 different mustards in your fridge and common and normal things like that ,just whistle ;)

We will sue him/her :D
"Muabet de Turko,kama de Grego i komer de Djidio", old sefardic proverb ( Three things worth in life: the gossip of the Turk , the bed of the Greek and the food of the Jew)
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post #30 of 41
3/14/02 at 5:16pm
When the cashier, fish monger, cheese and produce guys know you by your first name and ask how the .....was? or when they suggest that your groceries are a test for the new checker cus nobody else buys that varied amount of produce.
cooking with all your senses.....
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