So. Let's talk about food.

Let's talk about food (bay-bee).

Too often people eat without thinking about it. I don't mean in as much as they aren't concerned with what's sandwiched between the top and bottom bun of whatever they picked up at their fast-food joint of choice, moreso that they eat because it's necessary without actually thinking about what they like about their food.

Take the prototypical fast-food cheeseburger. Its ubiquity belies its construction - such a burger is a work of genius.

In its most fundamental form, you've got a bun, some beef, a slice of cheese, onions, ketchup, mustard and pickles. Not exactly rocket science - I could make some variation of that burger at home in 10 minutes flat that would have the added advantage of not having lived under a heat lamp for any length of time. For reference (and to give me the chance to show off a little) it'd look like this:
The purpose of the fast-food burger is to provide a buck's worth of caloric intake in its simplest form. Of the seven ingredients, the omission of any of them leaves you with something less than ideal: Forget the pickles and you lose the crunch; lose the ketchup and you lose the sweetness necessary to support the tartness of the onions and the bulk of the beef. Not a penny is wasted in its delivery. It's an intricately thought-out, edible wonder which, in my head, deserves the same level of thought on its eater's end as was expended in its construction.

I like to talk about food, and food prep, and food theory. I like thinking about why I like what I eat, why I cook how I do and how I can make my cooking better. I'm not about to tell you that you shouldn't go to Wendy's. I love Wendy's. But it's probably worth stopping every once in awhile and thinking about why you occasionally wake up a 3am in the throes of a vanilla frosty craving.

Or is that just me?