I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I go overboard.
Being born with an impassioned gene isn’t really all that bad, though. It allows me to focus on things so acutely and really dive into subjects that might otherwise not have interested me. It allowed me to learn how to rollerskate in the 70s, leaving all the other kids biting my dust (or maybe it was my purple satin shorts, which for a 7-year old boy is probably the fast track to neighborhood ridicule, but so what, I ask?) It’s kept me interested in my job for this long, helped me wrangle and eat my own snails, and allowed me to learn how to play a handful of musical instruments.
It’s also the reason I have found myself up to my eyeballs in pears.
Now, a pear isn’t something you always have around like an onion or a lemon. They’re a truly seasonal fruit and best enjoyed when mother nature tells us they’re ready. And because of this I don’t really think of pears throughout the year. It’s not like I find myself grilling in the middle of July and then suddenly scream out “OH MY GOD THIS RIB SOOOOOOOO NEEDS A PEAR RIGHT NOW!” If anything I’ll scream out because my cocktail is empty. But that’s a whole ‘nuther blog. But my point is this: when I taste that first early fall pear I know I’m on a collision course with that powerful strange facet of my personality.
A few years ago I started a poll on Facebook. I wanted to know what
possessions make people feel wealthy that aren’t expensive or fancy.
Like toilet paper. When I have ample rolls of toilet paper I feel
strangely satisfied. And pens. When I have a lot of pens I feel very,
very rich in a weird way. I just love to not have to go searching high
and low for them. I like bundles of them in the office and kitchen and
living room and a few in the bedroom even. I know it’s weird. I know.
Let me just say it right here, with the internet as my witness, "I have a serious addiction to potatoes." There, my secret is out.
I first heard of flavortripping last summer. I read an article in the New York Times
about a substance that altered tastes of reality. People were going to
underground parties for the experience. At these parties they would
consume 
I admit it. I’m a tomato junkie. But not just any tomato. Heirlooms. And how this came to be I’m not completely sure. It’s not like I grew up on a farm. And I know it’s not because I have romantic notions of plucking tomatoes off vines in some hazy late summer yellow-lit garden. But when summer rolls around the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, my body goes into automatic mode and my thirst for heirlooms sends me into a frenzy–all rational sense gone. I’m not afraid to admit it: I am an Heirloomaniac.