I Heart Mayonnaise

I love mayonnaise. I really do. So when Leigh Ann over at One Good Thing posted this picture, I wanted to frame it and build a shrine around it — using flaming mayonnaise jars instead of votives. If you can run a car on vegetable oil, surely you can keep the fires burning with a slop of mayo.

Sometimes, usually while at work, I’ll wonder what to have for dinner, and will plan my meal around a mayonnaise craving. One of my favorite snacks in high school was Wonder bread with mayo and two inches of iceberg lettuce. So. Damn. Satisfying. The sticky mush of bread clings to your throat, trying to hold on, but the gelid lubrication is too much for it, and down your gullet it goes, finally giving in to the Slip-and-Slide-like freefall, and you can almost hear it squeal, “weeee!” in its gleeful release. All washed down, of course, with the juiciest and crunchiest of lettuce leaves. You know you’re going to try it.

I am, believe it or not, a bit of a health nut. Organic milk, high-fiber cereal, antioxidant-packed spinach salad and some barley, Brussels sprouts and tofu can get me through the day, happily. But I can’t seem to let go of my condiments. I blame my parents. What else are they there for if you can’t heap all the guilt and responsibility of how you turned out on them? Mom, as a child, snuck raw bacon while my grandmother cooked breakfast. Dad — and please, try not to judge him for this — grew up on mashed overripe bananas and mayonnaise on toast. By the time he mixes it all together, it resembles wallpaper paste. I’d love to tell you it’s delish, but I’ve never been tempted to try it. I prefer my mayonnaise straight up.

Here, a shot of the lurid blue “J” shaped cake my friend made for my birthday one year, decorated with condiment bottles and frogs (another obsession I have since let go).