COMMENTARY: TV Compels Culinary Confessions

I was watching The Food Channel the other day when I saw a show about cupcakes. (Hey, it was halftime. Don’t judge.) During this particular episode, someone ate his cupcake by breaking it in half, horizontally, sticking the bottom, cake-y part on top of the icing and devouring it, sandwich-style.

First I thought, what a ridiculous and disgusting display of complete food decadence and extravagance. And then I thought, actually, that looks pretty good.

Most of us have enough of a sense of decorum or at least a great enough fear of ridicule that we can handle ourselves fairly well while dining. But all of us have our secrets. I call them the Over The Top Things We’ll Eat When No One is Watching.

So here are some of my favorite OTTTWEWNOW’s:

Dipping your pizza in Ranch dressing - Because greasy Italian sausage and gobs of cheese aren’t nearly enough of an artery clogger. Besides the fact it’s incredibly good, it does off er the advantage of helping to prevent one of the worst food-related injuries. Which brings to mind the question: what’s worse, Icee Brain Freeze or having hot cheese slide off your slice and give you a third-degree burn on your chin? Tough call, but at least the Icee doesn’t leave an embarrassing scar and cause you to have to decide between physical damage to your mouth or spitting half-eaten food out in front of your friends.

Serve-yourself yogurt places - The whole concept of yogurt is it’s sort of supposed to be good for you. So you can kind of fool yourself into thinking you’re doing something healthy by getting it for dessert.

However, you do somewhat negate that when you add a half gallon of hot fudge, M&M’s, whipped cream and Gummi Worms. Gummi Worms? Really?

The great life lesson from serve-yourself yogurt places is that we as humans may have an amazing capacity for kindness, generosity, reason and love, but we have absolutely no self-control.

Particularly when it comes to those chunks of Butterfinger.

Hey, that little cherry on top? That counts as a fruit, right?

The “hot” light at Krispy Kreme - Look, I’m here for you (or I’m an enabler,depending on your point of view). I can help you justify just about anything, including a reaction to seeing the “hot” light indicating fresh donuts at Krispy Kreme. I can look at a steaming hot, chocolate Krispy Kreme and say “Grain, milk and eggs.

It’s a perfectly balanced breakfast!” Of course, I can also look at myself and say, “you know, you’re not really a bad dancer.” So you might want to take my opinion with a grain of salt. Or a dozen glazed. You know, for the kids.

Fries and … - French Fries are the world’s perfect junk food, combining as they do fried stuff and potatoes.

And any attempt to church them up by saying they’re packed with Vitamin C or some such nonsense reminds me of a line from one of my favorite movies: “Don’t spoil the beauty of a thing with legality.” But as someone who has, on numerous occasions, tipped the McDonald’s container up into my mouth in an attempt to get every single crumble, I can say you’ve truly given in to the Dark Side when you start to accessorize your fries. Seasoned salt and fries.

Fries smothered in cheese and bacon. My personal favorite, fries covered in cream gravy. I’ve heard stories of people in far-away lands (OK, Pittsburgh), who actually put fries on their sandwiches. These are brave souls, who apparently have better insurance plans and a healthier family cardiac history than I. Or who want to cut out the middle man of having to jam a bite of hamburger and a fist-full of fries in their mouth at the same time. Own your issue, man. Own your issue.

The Big Snickers - Every Halloween I find myself asking the same question.

What is it, exactly, about a half-inch piece of candy that makes it “fun?” When it comes to Snickers, fun size for me would involve having to back up a truck. I saw a Snickers in a novelty candy store that under the right circumstances you could use to pole vault. That’s just about right.

Anything Served at the Texas State Fair - Generally speaking, any time people in Texas start thinking, we should all probably get a little nervous. But whoever had the idea to fry a Twinkie should be turned loose on the Middle East. We’d finally have peace in our lifetime.

And little paper plates of warm, cream-filled, battered awesomeness.

And that cupcake thing?

Really works. Trust me.

GARY SMITH IS A RECOVERING JOURNALIST LIVING IN ROGERS.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 05/02/2013

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