foods i eat when no one's watching

Like most girls, I adore lists of any sort. "10 Tips to a Slimmer You." "10 Jeans Guaranteed to Make Your Butt Look Awesome." "5 Blouses to Boost Your Boobage." Etc. (And now you know what kinds of magazines I read after having a fancy-pants liberal arts education and a Masters degree from Northwestern.)

Today's list is inspired by a CNN article I read a few months back about the gross foods that we eat in secret when we think no one else is around. Because, let's face it--no one wants anyone to be watching when they eat packets of microwaveable Kraft mac 'n' cheese! (Not that I do, of course; that is what we journalists call "an example general audiences will understand, but not something that we do personally, especially not for four years in college.") But oh, how we love those guilty pleasures! Without further ado:

1. Raw cookie dough. Salmonella be damned, I love raw cookie dough for its smooth-yet-grainy texture, how you can kind of feel the sugar grains crack between your teeth. I love taking my time nibbling on the dough and the chocolate chipd and squishing it between my fingers. So I guess I don't eat it around people, not so much that it's a gross food, but that I like to take an embarrassingly long time to eat it.

2. Brussel sprouts. I know it's weird, which is why I don't tend to eat it around people. But I can't help but love brussel sprouts. Get a pan really hot and then melt some butter, throw in some Tony Chachere seasoning, cut the sprouts in half and pan-fry them until they're charred on the outside, flaky and tender on the inside. SO GOOD. Tyler thinks it's gross though, and has not let me forget the one time I made him eat ONE leaf, which he washed down with frantic gulps of water. (Not even the whole sprout! Just one leaf!)

3. Dried squid and fish snacks. Remember how we used to eat them in the Nicholas/Asian households? Those were the days! Remember how Benny bought a package of them and we roasted (okay, HE roasted) them over our stove so they got all hot and crackly? And all the squid and cuttlefish-related snacks that Sunny brought from Taiwan?? Haven't had the opportunity to be eating them these days, but it's something I know I would eat when no one's around. Mmm, savor that Asian goodness!

4. Rainbow frosting from the can. You know, the vanilla frosting that's got all the yummy roundish rainbow-colored candies inside? This is not to be confused with the kind that's got the flat sprinkles--the rainbow candies are like 12485231 better tasting and better textured than the sprinkles! I could just eat spoonfuls of this stuf, relishing every rainbow candy. So it's basically like eating butter and sugar and food coloring for a couple of hours. So gross, so delicious.

5. Ramen. Every bowl of Shin Ramyun takes me back to the good ol' Nicholas 107 days. Also, my mom used to only let us eat ramen on special days, like snow days, or if we had a bad day, so it's kind of become like my ultimate comfort food. Being alone out in the Midwest, I have had my share of nostalgia and homesickness, which means I turn to ramen rather a lot. I've gotten to the point where I've started to be all chef-y with my ramen. Like I'll mix different seasonings and sauces together or cook it with different kinds of stock (if you make it with chicken broth, it's basically healthy, right? Just like chicken noodle soup!). I also try varying combinations of what I call "ramen accessories": eggs, tempura, tofu, frozen corn, sausage. It's almost become like real cooking for me, which is kind of sick, if you think about it.

Some of you might be thinking "My gosh, Vicky, I never knew you liked rainbow icing that much," or "I never knew you were a ramen connoisseur," to which I reply "OF COURSE NOT, that's why they are SECRET FOODS that I eat when no one's watching!" These are foods that must be eaten with a certain lack of grace that just won't do with company around.

So now that you know my guilty foods, what are yours??