Rhody Eat Beat: Confessions of a foodie

04/23/08 - As this is my last column, I feel it is the appropriate time to make a few confessions. As a foodie, people have high expectations of my taste in food. Despite this, there are some things which, despite an intellectual understanding of their inferiority, I cannot help but love. My first big vice is macaroni and cheese, and not the homemade kind. In fact, I don't particularly like homemade macaroni and cheese. My preferred brand is Stop & Shop, specifically the spirals. Always looking to improve a recipe, I throw in a slice of American cheese when I'm mixing the powdered cheese into a quarter cup each of milk and butter.

Not only do I love boxed macaroni and cheese, but I am also frugal. I discovered that you can make fake Hamburger Helper - not that you probably want to - using boxed macaroni and cheese, which is much cheaper than Hamburger Helper, but appears to have similar ingredients (low quality pasta and orange cheese powder.)

To make things worse, I don't eat beef, so my fake Hamburger Helper is actually fake ground turkey helper. Although I'm sure you're not all running out to the store to try this recipe, keep in mind before you judge me that I'm a poor college student, and sometimes I'm just too lazy to cook real food.

My next confession would have to be that I eat at Wendy's. Although I don't often find myself dining at Burger King or McDonald's - in fact I can't remember the last time I was at a McDonald's - I will confess to stopping at Wendy's on occasion, and by on occasion I mean a couple times a month.

Say what you will, but when I'm out all day running errands and I'm starving, a chicken sandwich for $1 seems like a pretty good deal. And on the subject of the Wendy's vs. KFC chicken wrap debate, KFC's is better. Trust me.

My next confession is a confession not because I think it denotes a lack of taste, but because it sounds un-American. Here it is: I hate Hershey's chocolate. I think Hershey's milk chocolate bars taste weird. The ridiculous part is that even I, as a despiser of the chocolate, could not resist stopping in the store when I was in Hershey, Pa.

I have to say that it was disappointing, and I didn't have high hopes to begin with. I expected a real factory, but all that remains is a fake factory style publicity building. The closest thing to a factory is a ride you can go on that takes you through lots of fake factory set ups and even includes singing cows!

Don't take my previous confessions as an admission that I despise all chocolate - in case you were planning on sending me a box - I actually love chocolate. And just in case you were wondering what kind I'd like . I'd accept a box of Ocean State Chocolate's Rhode Island-themed truffles if you just happened to be in North Kingstown and wanted to swing by and get me a box.

And on the subject of wine I must also confess, I like really, really bad wine. Give me a glass of white zinfandel and I'm happy, even if it came from a box or jug.

So why risk losing all respect I had gained by confessing to all the crap I like to eat? Because I think that even though food is a huge part of our lives, you shouldn't take it too seriously. But then again, it is possible to not take it seriously enough - as is proven by many of the current health crises in our country - so I guess we should just shoot for a happy medium.