eat chocolate meat: Weakness

I'm going to start with a little confession.

(This will be one of many confessions throughout these posts, so please bear with me.)

I don't eat meat. But I love hotdogs. L-o-v-e them.

Notice the receipt for $1.65.
Beat that, Dodger dog.

Let's back this up a little. I allow myself to eat meat on two occasions: when it comes to meat-filled dishes from my Chinese upbringing that my grandmother prepared when I was a youngin' (more on that at another time) and hotdogs.

I've taken sabbatical on eating meat on a few occasions. For various reasons that would take too long to explain, I mostly do it now because I've taken such a long break from eating red meat and chicken that the texture really weirds me out. I can't get past the muscle-y fibrousness of a piece of breast meat or the moist fleshy flavor of a medium-rare steak (that's how I used to order it.) Nope. Can't do it. If it's something that's still attached to the bone? Forget about it. It's one thing to eat a living thing (I still eat fish), but it's another to visually be aware of the process of how a cute four-legged (or two-legged) animal got to your kitchen...

These things are so damn cute. I just wanna wrap my arms around their enormous heads.

Photo courtesy of my favorite cowgirl.

...Especially when I fantasize about living on a farm just to have my own cow as a pet. Moo.

But here's where it get's complicated..

I still love hotdogs. (Sorry moo-cows.) Hotdogs fall into the culinary category of a forcemeat and they have THE worst reputation of being created from all the leftover parts of the animal. Did somebody just say lips and assholes? But with a hotdog...I can't explain it. Yes, it's a animal by-product. Yes, something had to die for me to eat it. Yes, it's made from MEAT. And it's the salty, spiced goodness of all that unnaturally pink ground up flesh that I covet despite all those other things.

Try not to hate me this early in the game.

If you read my last post, you'll remember that I suffered irreversible emotional damage from my trip to Costco.

And what better way to remedy a traumatic experience than with one of my favorite things in the whole world. A Costco hotdog. A Polish Hebrew National, to be exact.