Food is an obsession. Let's face it, it's pretty good stuff. The Japanese seem particularly fixated on the stuff. At any given moment there's a food show on at least one of my whopping six channels of broadcast television. Note that I didn't say "cooking show". The cooking is eshewed almost completely in favor of the culinary money shot, the eating. In a way, this is unfortunate because I'll never know if there's a Japanese Alton Brown. On the other hand, them there eatin' shows are pretty funny. They usually star a few hungry gents who drop by a local restaurant. After some chat with the chef, the real star of the show enters, stage left. Steaming rice, charred fishheads, and bubbling egg concotion are all presented at a zoom ratio so absurd you'd think they brought an electron microscope along. This is accompanied by the obligatory narrator guy raving like a lunatic about how delicious it all looks. Eventually, the eating begins, a chorale of "mmm"s, slurps, and satisfied grunts. And as suddenly as it began, it ends.

The parallels to porn are pretty clear - the thin plot, the camera work, the grunting - so I hereby dub the sub-genre "food porn".

I'm ashamed to admit it, but food porn has had a profound effect on me. I used to love cooking five-star meals for myself, and I must say, I had the fucking knack. A few of my lesser-known creations:

Roasted Baguette with Legume Frappe and Fresh Fruit

Grease car's interior with shortening to ensure smooth entry. Bring internal combustion engine to the boil by kneading the accelerator firmly. Infuse cashier with the words "one cheese quesadilla, one grilled stuft burrito with steak, and one large mountain dew." After 30 seconds of baking, remove from drive-up window and make sure they didn't fuck your order up. Promptly cool engine in parking lot and eat.

But upon arrival in Japan, something strange happened. The more food porn I watched, the more skewed the delicate balance between cooking and eating became. Within a week, I'd given up cooking completely. Ultimately, food porn killed my love of the culinary journey and made it all about the grub. And you know what? I liked it.

For eight months, I ate out every single day. You name the place, chances are I ate there: Mos Burger, Miyoshino (a gyoza chain), any number of japanese convenience stores, anywhere I didn't have to cook.

Until now! About a month ago I had a strange itch to investigate the cooking applicances in my apartment. I soon noticed that my rice cooker was broken, so the lovely Sapporo Board of Education bought me a new one, which I received last Friday. Functional rice cookers must be food porn kryptonite, because I've cooked for two straight days! Shazam! Last night I made curry rice (which is more like curry-colored flavor sludge with some rice and vegetables - nothing like genuine Indian curry, but tasty in its own special way). Tonight I made picture-perfect onigiri, like the one pictured below (letterboxed for maximum dramatic impact)!

Who knows what I'll make tomorrow night? Oh yeah, I'm going out for Indian food. What? You can't expect a guy to go cold turkey.

[Note: I'm not making much of this up. I really didn't do any cooking in Japan prior to the day before yesterday. Crazy thing is, I've lost 10 pounds! I'm guessing the lack of Taco Bell has almost everything to do with that.]

Or maybe it's not so much the lack of T-Bell as it is the hiking around New Zealand, snow-boarding like a crazy person, etc.?

yup, Taco Hell has a lot to do with it- and so apparently does corn syrup, which is probably a key ingredient in all Taco Hell food:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/health/cst-nws-fat26.html
Stupid Americans.

Nice looking rice balls, baby.