I never run out of those “two kinds of people” lines. Two more kinds of people: those that eat to live, and those that live to eat. This one is more of a continuum, though.
I am entrenched on the live to eat camp. I love food, and I love pretty much the whole continuum of food, from greasy spoon breakfasts to multi-course feasts. It is a minor miracle that I do not weigh twice as much as I do, because I can’t stop eating. It’s an unhealthy compulsion, especailly considering I never had to clean my plate as a kid.
I have a couple of hang-ups though. The biggest, and probably weirdest, is that I won’t put butter on bread or toast. Cooking with butter is fine, but I always order my toast dry — all I notice is a sort of greasy texture that gets added rather than flavor. There was one place that served infused butter and I did smear that on breadsticks, but I think I was mostly tasting the chives or whatever.
The next is sausage. Meats in casings, or meats that look like they’re in casings, weird me out. The origin of that is simple: I saw a kids’ TV show where they went to the hot dog factory, and I saw the little sausages getting filled up and tied off in a rapid fire fashion. Completely creeped out. Still shuddering a little as I write about this.
I eschew the weird fake meat stuff herself gets from the religious grocery store. It comes in a can, and some of it is in some kind of sauce. Tinned meat and meat-like products are a non-starter for me.
I love food, I love hearing about food, I love dreaming about food. I do not love cooking it. When I cooked for myself, it was usually pasta. Easy to shop for, easy to prepare, and easy to clean up. No planning involved and little multitasking. Anything complicated quickly overwhelms me — I can’t manage two parallel cooking processes at a time.
I have no will power when it comes to food, either. I indulge my gastronomic cravings more than anything else. Diets and budgets don’t work for me because food is my drug of choice, and I’m probably an addict. I dress in lame clothes, do without vacations, and am perfectly fine with an old TV in the living room. We’re usually out at dinner instead of watching it anyway.