Corny things

Since late last year, my penchant for all things with corn seems to have grown to an alarming degree. I don't care if it is cold, hot, junk, healthy, main dish, side dish, appetizer or dessert, it is the best!

Just lately, I seem to have ingested cornmeal, corn on salads or as side dishes, hydrogenated corn snacks, corn in fruit salad, corn ice cream, corn shakes and cornflakes. I thought that was quite alot of corn already, but apparently even the stuff that seems corn-free isn't without this ingredient! Apparently, corn is a major component in the production of peanut butter, snackfoods and even soft drinks! Unfortunately, nothing can make me like sodas (except when im forced to get them with those stupid fastfood value meals).

My latest corn-related discovery is Holy Kettle Popcorn! A franchise from the U.S, whose newest branch has been strategically placed right in front of my office building (im sure they have "intelligence" that sniffs out corn addicts like me a mile away!) Its also being marketed as good diet food because it has no MSG, preservatives and other nasty stuff you'd get from commercial popcorn. Well, there goes my food budget for the week! (I was even considering buying a big bag to serve as my lunch today, but my officemates managed to talk me out of it)

But unfortunately, I cannot be the first to lay claim to this pleasurable affliction. My cousin got bitten by the corn bug way way before me. Case in point, me and my three cousins would go to a dessert bar with a menu of a hundred or so heavenly combinations of fruit, ice cream and other sweets. One cousin would order the largest, chocolatiest, fudgiest mass of gooeyness available, the other one would get a fruity combo with ice cream while I would choose some weird partnership that would give me a 50-50 chance of a tummyache or tummy heaven in a few minutes.

Now my youngest cousin (the one who usually had the most sense amongst us) would look at me with a deadpan face and say "Ate, I'll just have corn." Aauurgh! I wanted to knock some sense into her and lecture her on all the wonderful things she was missing by being such a simplistic amoeba. Of course, there was nothing I could do. Although part of me wanted to drag her back home and dock her with a can of army size corn, another part of me kinda wondered why she was already contented that way.

Now, I guess she’s the smart one after all.