Since we had a simple fish dish for dinner tonight and the homemade baked bean recipe that I tested over the weekend still needs to tweaking, I’ve decided to put my pride in the backseat for a bit and make a confession or two regarding my undying love for junk food.  That’s right, I love junk food.  In my vocabulary, the term “junk food” encompasses things like fast food, sweets, processed foods, and basically things that are very bad for you and carry almost no nutritional value.  But, as you can see, I have little or no shame regarding my affair with the dark side of the world of food.

I could sit here and try to make excuses as to why I love junk food.  I grew up poor and these kinds of foods were the only indulgences my family could afford;  Some of the only family bonding my brother and I did with our mom was with us staying up late on Saturday nights watching scary movies and pigging out on potato chips;  I use food for comfort and the sweets tend to provide the most comfort for me.  Those are all excuses and I don’t firmly stand behind a single one of them.  The one golden fact that I can offer is that I just love them.  Just because.

-White Cheddar Popcorn:  This is something that I don’t get very often…..because I will actually sit and eat the entire bag.  I pop my own popcorn every now and then and sprinkle a white cheddar flavoring over the top, but it’s not as sinful as the stuff in a bag.  It’s just soo good.

-Puffed Corn Cheese Snacks:  I love Cheese Balls.  I love Cheese Curls.  I love Cheese Puffs.  I can restrain myself and eat a handful or so at a time, but I still love them.  I have such warm and fuzzy memories from my childhood of eating bologna sandwiches with a side of cheese puffs.

-Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion Potato Chips:  This is probably my all time favorite snack.  I really like potato chips of all different flavors, but this particular brand has been my unchallenged favorite since I was a child.  I still like to buy a bag every now and then and see if I can make it last the whole month.  These go great crunched into a turkey sandwich.  That’s not weird!

-Animal Crackers:  As you know, these are more like a cookie.  When I was little, every now and then one of my attending grown ups (parent, grandparent, etc.) would buy me one of those tiny boxes of Barnum’s Animal Crackers.  It was a treat I had maybe a handful of times in my entire childhood.  Well, when I was pregnant with my son, I was at a Costco and saw a huge tub of Organic Disney animal crackers.  I ate the entire tub in about 2 months.  Now I always have one of those huge tubs in my pantry so that I can snag a couple when I need a little pick me up.  I love them!

-Donuts (or Doughnuts, if you prefer):  I love donuts!  My favorite are the original Krispy Kremes.  I also love chocolate glazed, powder sugared, cream (not custard) filled, jelly filled, fruit filled, cheese filled…..oh I could go on and on.  Again, this isn’t something that I allow myself to indulge too often, but when I do I really enjoy it.

-Soda:  Yes.  I love soda.  I drink diet soda so as not to completely destroy what little bit of a figure I have, but I cannot go through my life without soda.  I’ve tried quitting.  I’ve gone a year before without soda, but then I went to a party where there was only soda to drink and immediately after I was at the grocery store buying soda for my home.

-Vanilla Wafers:  When a get strong hunger pangs late at night, I come downstairs and eat 4 of these babies and drink a small glass of milk and it’s always enough to kill the hunger.  My great grandmother was very very poor, but she always had ‘Nilla Wafers to offer me when I would visit her home and I always think of her when I eat them.

-Cookies:  Any kind.  I love them all.  Oreo are great, but I love baking homemade.

-Candy Bars:  I almost never eat these, but I love them.  I love Snickers, Baby Ruth, Hershey with Almonds, Twix, Kit Kat, and Mr. Goodbar.  YUM.

-Little Debbie Snacks:  Name one and I’ll tell you that I love it.

This is only the snack part.  Tomorrow I will share with you my shameful and passionate love for the McDonald’s Big Mac.  I hope you don’t think less of me for indulging in junk every now and then.  If you do, then I blow a raspberry in your general direction!