Back - For (a few) seconds?

All I do is eat. And think about eating and think about buying groceries and think about trying harder to not eat so much and not to spend so much money on groceries. Sometimes my obsession with eating is healthy and interesting and other times it's the same-old, hum-drum, lifted straight from an Oprah magazine sob-story piece about fat women who spoon White Chocolate Macademia Nut Raspberry Haagen-Dazs straight from the tub when they're feeling sad.

My biggest trouble with food these days seems to be my simultaneous obsession with claiming that I want to be a food writer and my extreme refusal to sit down, focus, and write any coherent thoughts on the matter. Now that I'm down to my very last day of unemployment and am feeling tremendously guilty for not having spent my free-time winning a James Beard award, I figured I'd give it yet again another shot.

I have this new boyfriend who has done everything to distract me from my flimsy efforts to move food away from the center of my existence. The first night we spent together, I, half blurred by booze and half in post-coital disarray, told him about the time I slaughtered a goat. He was impressed, we talked about steaks, we made out a little more, and we went to sleep, unaware of the high-calorie meals that awaited us in the future. Since then, we've been ransacking the folks at Elk Trails at the Union Square Greenmarket for grass-fed bison steaks and marrow bones, getting Niman Ranch pork cheek and belly delivered by the box-full, talking about, dreaming about, planning, cooking, and spending money on meat.

I've had some pretty impressive meals lately and it'd be a shame to go on without sharing them. This week, then, I'll make hard efforts to recount my favorites.