My husband is having an emotional affair. There, I’ve said it.
Actually, if we’re being perfectly honest, it’s THREE emotional affairs and they’re all with cooking show honeys. I will refer to them as the Southern Sweetie, the Pioneer Person, and the Italian Temptress.
It all started when Olof had minor surgery in 2012 that went really wrong. For a month, he lay in bed sipping his liquid diet and incongruously watching the Food Channel. I guess it was eating by proxy.
You’d think that would all have changed once he could eat actual food again. But I know for a fact he’s still cruising cooking shows. Other people try to sneak a look at someone’s cellphone or email but I’m trying to get a peek at Olof’s DVR. Which I would if I could figure out how to use it.
Of the three, the one that really worries me is the Southern Sweetie. After walking in on the show some twenty times, I was dismayed to learn that the total number of episodes in the series had been…six. There’s not a whole lot of deleting going on here, a classic sign of food porn addiction. But I soon discovered that the problem wasn’t a fixation on the food.
Inga: “I didn’t realize you liked Southern cooking.”
Olof (transfixed to the screen): “Is she cooking?”
No, Olof is completely infatuated with this young hottie’s 100-watt smile, her big blue eyes, her blond hair, and her southern accent that is thicker than the maple syrup she uses in her pumpkin scones.
Every time she says “mah” (my), Olof falls deeper under her spell. When she starts creatin’ a casserole, or “buildin’ mah bourbon pecahn pah,” Olof’s eyes go completely out of focus. When she looks right into the camera, flashes that killer smile, and says (hopefully of the pah) “it’s super moist,” Olof has gone to another dimension.
The premise of the six shows is that in each episode, she’s teaching some clueless codger who has never even boiled water how to make a “romanic” meal for some lady love. She is all encouragement as she coos at the codger with her drop-dead smile, “You could be a little more vig-rus with yer whiskin’.” Olof would love to be a little more vig-rus with HIS whiskin’, believe me.
She may have her blond hair in a demure pony tail at the nape of her neck but I’m sure Olof is fantasizing that the second that camera is off, the pony tail comes out, the blond hair cascades down the back, and she and the codger are locked in a hot embrace over the curried cauliflower florets. If this show returns, I guarantee you Olof will be first in line for the codger casting call.
As for the Pioneer Person, I’m sorry to say that as attractive and appealing as we both find her, what Olof is really lusting after is the cheddar. I swear she must have a skip loader backing up to her house every Monday with 500-pound palettes of cheese and butter, i.e. all the stuff our primary care doctor, Dr. No, won’t let us have. I get that she is feeding ranch hands in addition to her own family but a typical recipe starts with a roux of flour and six sticks of butter, followed by whole milk or cream, and a couple buckets of shredded cheddar all melted into a decadently gooey sauce that is poured over a vat of pasta and served alongside individual two-pound steaks. Given that this is a cattle ranch, you kind of suspect that you saw the steak in a different form in a previous scene.
As for the Italian Temptress, even I agree she is drop-dead gorgeous and has a radiant smile. (Olof is a sucker for smiles.) She’s also suspiciously thin. This isn’t the saturated fat fest of the Pioneer Person but it isn’t exactly diet food either. I’m guessing that off-camera, she spends seven hours a day on a Stairmaster interspersed with kale cleanses. It’s the only explanation. Fortunately for me, she doesn’t have time for Olof with all that Stairmastering. Besides, she’s got a husband who may or may not be Italian. You don’t mess with those guys unless you want to end up as an ingredient in a tray of Party Perfect Lasagna.
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