I love food. I have an obsession with food and anything food-related.

From the time I wake up and start thinking about what I’ll have for breakfast to the time I finish my last morsel of whatever I dreamed up for dinner, there’s probably not a full hour that goes by without at least a thought of food.

But there are guidelines. I will only eat food if it is delicious, if it is served to me and I don't want to insult the server, or if I'm ravenous. I draw the line at mediocre food. If it doesn't make me happy, I don't want it.

I love looking at pictures of food, talking about food, and watching people eat food.

And I love reading about food.

When I'm reading a novel I want to know what the characters eat. What someone eats is an important part of her or his make-up. A fictional character isn't fully developed until you know what she or he eats. I savor passages about meals, and I need to know all the details.

I want to read about a fork lifting a mound of whipped potatoes to a mouth, and the crunchy golden brown edges of the Brussels sprouts roasted with olive oil. If there is a sugar-and-salt-brined slow-roasted pork roast involved, I need to know about the sweet/salty juices flowing from it as it is being sliced. And don't forget the dessert. Is it a dark chocolate torte with a dollop of whipped cream, or a warm piece of apple pie with vanilla ice cream?

Note to authors: Don't skip over mealtime.

It's not that I don't care what your characters are doing, saying or thinking. I do. But I want to know what's for dinner, too. It's a big letdown when I'm reading about an approaching meal, anticipating a mouth-watering food scene, and then I turn the page and it's the next morning. After breakfast.

I'll know that Emily is tired and irritable because her husband rolled into bed at 3 a.m., smelling of whiskey, but I won't know if she sat on the couch with a glass of wine and a large pepperoni pizza, drowning her sorrows the night before, or if she had a warm, crumbly, buttery scone with clotted cream for breakfast, to comfort herself.

Talking about food is a major part of my day-to-day life. Please, when you see me at Hannaford, tell me what you're getting for dinner.

I want to know what you had for breakfast. Don't worry if breakfast was a bowl of Cheerios. Cheerios with cold milk are delicious. The mere mention of cereal in my office yesterday evoked a flurry of personal cereal stories. Everybody had one.

If a friend or co-worker lets it slip that she/he had dinner in a local restaurant the night before, I need to know the name of the restaurant, and what was eaten. And how it tasted. I never get tired of hearing about food and eating.

And then there's watching people eat food they love.

I want to see actors in movies and television shows actually eating food. Not pushing it around on a plate, or raising a forkful of it to their mouths, then putting the fork down to talk. I don't care how many takes it requires. Directors: Tell your actors to put the food in their mouths, chew it and swallow. They are being paid to act like real human beings. Make them eat the food!

Remember the scene in “Bonnie and Clyde” when Faye Dunaway took a big bite out of a greasy hamburger? I have watched that movie 10 times, and it never fails: I want a hamburger afterward. Preferably greasy.

And I don't have to share a love of the particular food that someone is making look luscious.

Take oysters. Ever since I watched my father eat raw oysters when I was a kid, I've wanted to savor them like he did. Some people eat raw oysters, letting them slide down their throats, for effect. My father truly loved them. And watching him eat them made me want to love them like he did. But I don't. I've been known to let a few slide down after a couple glasses of wine, but I can't say I love, or really even like them.

Which takes me back to food in literature. There's a passage in Ernest Hemingway's novel “A Moveable Feast” about oysters:

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”

I'm thinking I'll make another attempt to like them. I want oysters to make me happy. With a glass of cold, crisp white wine. Or two.

Suzi Thayer will be writing a recurring column about anything and everything food-related. 

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