Food, I love food.
If I could marry food, I would.
I am very much a comfort food person, which is why I do personal training twice a week, in fact after training on Wednesday I often pick up post-workout Souvlakis for dinner.
I earn it.
So when my now husband (then boyfriend) told me his family had invited me out for dinner one night, I obviously said yes.
What made it more appealing was that we were going to the Pancake Parlour.
The Pancake Parlour is the greatest place on earth as far as I'm concerned.
You can get bacon and eggs ON A PANCAKE! Genius, pure genius.
So I was obviously excited.
I find it hard to hide my food excitement.
I try not to be the first to enter the restaurant, the first to sit down, the first to pick up the menu..
..
I ordered the ham and cheese pancakes, because if I have an addiction to anything (other than shoes) it's cheese.
Cheese and I are soul mates.
I sat in eager anticipation, trying to keep up with the conversation, but actually picturing what my pancake would look like.
When the waitress brought out our food I tried not to look too disappointed when mine wasn't the first out.
I sat there smiling politely and laughing at what I had to assume were jokes because I was not listening to a word anyone was saying, all I could hear was my own internal thoughts of "pancakes pancakes pancakes pancakes pancakes pancakes pancakes".
The moment arrived, and so did my pancakes.
They were glorious, a thing of beauty.
Luckily mine were the last out so I didn't have to wait for everyone to get their food before I could eat.
I looked down at my plate and thought to myself, "why would they put ice-cream on a savoury pancake"? Oh well, I'll just eat it before it contaminates the rest of my food.
So I picked up the ball of vanilla ice-cream with my fork, and put the whole thing in my mouth.
Something was wrong..
..
...
It tasted..
..
..
different..
..
...
It wasn't ice-cream..
..
...
It was butter.
I'd put a ball of butter in my mouth and I wanted to vom.
Now there's something you should know about me, I'm not really scared of anything, I have no problem doing something stupid for a laugh, but the only thing that terrifies me, is being humiliated when it's not my intention.
So there I was, with a ball of butter in my mouth, fighting the urge to vom, not wanting to draw attention to myself for fear of humiliating myself.
What could I do? I considered doing the napkin trick, but the napkins were paper and far too small to conceal a ball of butter this size.
I had no choice.
I swallowed it.
I looked around the table to make sure no-one had noticed the grimace on my face or the physical shiver that went through my body as the butter ball went down.
I was safe.
I looked back down at my pancake, it had gone from looking like a happy pancake of deliciousness, to a pancake of doom and destruction.
But in the end, it was food, and it had cheese in it, so I ate it.
Even now when I go back to the Pancake Parlour, I push that ball of butter to one side.
I can't eat it without flashbacks to that night.