THE GREAT AMERICAN ESCAPADE BEGINS

I'm in Chicago! For less than 24 hours! Then on to Houston. Land of rediculously fat people.

I've woken up early and decided that, although I have yet to purchase a camera, I can still post stories about food! Here's one I read in the Chicago Tribune today.

It's difficult for me to explain to a non-American audience the sobriety with which eating contests are referred to here. People routinely look past the symbolism of carelessly stuffing one's face with cheap, sponsored foodstuffs. It remains, it seems, ingrained in the American psyche that feats of physical ability, no matter how grotesque, will forever be enabled and applauded. Even if said physical feat impairs one's ability to compete in all other physical activity.