MICHAEL LIPPMAN

I was born with a stuffy nose. In fact, this was my signature quality for the first five or six years of my life. My nose was always stuffed and/or running. I was also skin and bones. I hated food. It was a chore to eat. I’d always go over to my best friend’s house for “dinner”. His m... more >

I was born with a stuffy nose. In fact, this was my signature quality for the first five or six years of my life. My nose was always stuffed and/or running.

I was also skin and bones. I hated food. It was a chore to eat. I’d always go over to my best friend’s house for “dinner”. His mom would serve me hot dogs. After dinner, she’d call my mom, bragging, “Michael ate so well over here, I don’t know what you’re serving that child that he’s not eating”. I would arrive home, my mother would check my mouth, and there, stored in my cheeks, were all the chunks of hot dog I’d supposedly eaten.

Then, at 6 years old, I had my tonsils removed, because the doctor suspected it might help my chronically stuffy nose. It did. Not only did my nasal passages open up, but so did my sense of smell and my sense of taste. Oh, brave new world!

I have been eating with a vengeance ever since. And eating with a level of heightened voraciousness (and sometimes awareness) that is surely the result of still making up for those first five years.

Now that I’m older, I call this relationship to food a “passion”. Let’s go with that. And here is my chance to put that passion into words. < less