About once a month, my husband and I pick a weeknight and head down to South Philly. First, we stop for dinner just off Washington Avenue to get big, steaming bowls of pho. After we’ve stuffed ourselves to the point of excess with broth, noodles and beef, we go to Target for toilet paper, cleaning products and shampoo (all those things that are so expensive when bought piecemeal at our Center City CVS).

Recently, our Target remodeled, adding a big, brightly-lit food section. It goes against everything I embrace when it comes grocery shopping, with aisles of heavily packaged, brand-name foods and refrigerators full of plastic-wrapped produce, trucked or shipped from California, Mexico and beyond. And yet, when we do our loop through Target, I cannot stay away. I weave through those rows, feeling both dirty and totally hypnotized by the ease and appeal of the bright colors and cheap prices.

My husband doesn’t help matters. While he’s happy to go along with me when it comes to local foods, he’s not committed to it in the same way that I am. So he likes to try and tempt me while we’re at Target, to see how far off the path of edible virtue he can convince me to stray. And since I enter something of a fugue state when faced with a section bursting with inexpensive Tazo tea (I used to live just down the street from their corporate offices, so it’s kind of local, right?) and rows of Bear Naked granola, when we finally leave Target, he feels smug and I feel sinful.

We’ll be paying a visit to Target this week, to pick up supplies for Scott’s birthday party. I’m hoping to be able to steer clear of that portion of the store, but its siren song is so hard to resist.

Every year, a tin appears at the office. It doesn’t matter what office I’m working in, and no one ever admits to having brought it in. Layers upon layers of little fluted paper cups filled with the scourge of my existence: the evil, small Danish butter cookies that call to me. Eat just one more, they say. Aren’t we pretty with our scalloped edges and our sugar crystals on top?

I don’t buy these myself. I know better than that. If I did, someone would find me, lying in the corner of my apartment, surrounded by empty paper cups and sugar crystals, muttering to myself that I’m really just conducting a scientific experiment about the difference in taste between the square ones and the ones shaped like pretzels.

I have a question for you, people of Denmark. Do you eat the Danish butter cookies? Do you? And do you only eat them at Christmas? Or is this some kind of low-tech attempt to take over America?

Last Thursday, all day I planned to do a quick saute of marinated beef and some broccoli and serve it over some steamed browned rice. Virtuous, healthy and economical. However, when I got home, I tried to talk myself into the kitchen and found myself heading towards the menu drawer instead. I hesitated before sliding the tri-fold menu out of the stack, remembering all my objections to take-out (nothing even resembling local. Tons of MSG. All the packaging. And the disappointment that comes when I eat it and remember for the 99th time that it’s never actually as good as I want it to be).

I think you can probably guess what I chose. It was just as mediocre as anticipated (we really need to pick a new take-out spot, but The Wok has been Scott’s go-to chinese spot since he moved to Philadelphia six years ago. It’s hard to sway that kind of devotion). At least they have brown rice.

In my childhood, grilled cheese was always made with generic American cheese (my mom bought in bulk before it was cool). It was creamy and delicious and combined with the occasional slice of white bread (usual taboo at our house) it was the ultimate treat.

As grown-ups, Mike and I usually choose sharp cheddars, creamy goudas and other fantastic local cheeses. But when it comes to grilled cheese sandwiches cheddar and gouda just don’t cut it. Our secret to delicious sandwiches? Equal parts Kraft American cheese mixed with sharp cheddar. Layered between bread slices and then fried in butter it delivers the best grilled cheese sandwiches around here.

Sure, I should feel guilty as Kraft is REALLY not local, much less made with organic milk or artisan techniques. But when something tastes that good and tastes of childhood memories, its hard to believe that it’s wrong. Kraft doesn’t make many appearances in our market baskets or pantry, but when it does come around you can pretty much guarantee its being turned into melty goodness on local bread to go with tomato soup on cold rainy winter nights.

I’m not much of a candy eater. I’ll have some, on occasion, but I’m much more of a savory than sweet girl.

But put a box of Smarties in front of me, and I become a changed woman.

I’m not talking about what most Americans call Smarties—those cellophane-wrapped tubes of sweet-sour powdery discs. I’m talking about candy-coated chocolate Smarties, Nestlé’s entrant into the space occupied in the United States by M&Ms.

The thing is, these aren’t like M&Ms at all. They’re bigger. Wider. Flatter. And the candy coating is thicker. The whole thing tastes utterly different—Smarties have a creamier taste than M&Ms, with a much milkier chocolate flavor—and because I grew up overseas, where Smarties were much easier to acquire than their American cousin, that taste reminds me of childhood.

In Germany, they came in a cardboard tube with a plastic lid, almost like something that would hold a little tiny poster. I used to savor the Smarties, tipping the tube so one would fall into my palm at a time, then holding the candy on my tongue like a Communion wafer, letting the candy coating soften before biting into it in search of the chocolate.

Thanks to the power of the Internet, it’s possible to acquire Smarties in the U.S. All one has to do is place an order with any of a small number of specialty food purveyors. But me? I flew to Canada for my latest fix. The friend I visited had them at her house when I got there, and we ate them all weekend long.

My last stop before the plane? The duty-free store, not for liquor or tobacco or make-up or jewelry, but for a big bag of mini-boxes of Smarties. I’ve been rationing them out one box at a time. And I’m not sharing them with anyone.

I’m probably one of the few Americans who’s largely immune to the daily latte regimen. Don’t get me wrong: I love the frothy decadence of it, and I adore coffee. But it doesn’t love me so much, especially in combination with a massive dose of dairy. I grab a decaf now and then, and I usually stick to a locally-roasted option — of which San Francisco has many: Blue Bottle, Ritual, Philz — or Peet’s in a pinch. (Yeah, it’s a chain. But it started here, the coffee is good, and the baristas aren’t automatons.)

My biggest objection to Starbucks isn’t that the coffee “tastes burnt” (I’m too much of a philistine to notice, I guess) or even that they’re a bad corporate bully. Mostly, I just hate the vibe of their shops: the regurgitated music by bland artists; the production line feel of it; the sense as I scoot forward, one shuffle-step at a time, that I am heading meekly down the chute to slaughter, instead of grabbing a quick liquid breakfast.

But all of my trepedation goes by the wayside, a few days after Halloween. When the seasonal menu goes up on the faux-chalkboard and the lipstick-red cups come out of hibernation, I’m drawn in to the Sign of the Mermaid to feed my guilty addiction.

I can’t explain my abnormal attraction to the Gingerbread Latte. I don’t really like sweets, and I’ve taken my coffee without sugar since I was in my early teens. But there’s something about it that grabs me. Even before I’m really ready to acknowledge the holidays are here, I’m lining up for my 280-calorie, 14-fat-gram fix.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Hellman’s mayonnaise for most of  my adult life.  We’ve never been a Miracle Whip family – when I was five, the very presence of it on my sandwich once turned me off of lunch meat altogether and the next five years were a blur of Fluf-N-Nutter sandwiches.  If a salad dressing type product needed to be used, then in our family the only correct choice was Hellmann’s.

Moving on into my twenties, I was still a Hellmann’s fan.  I went through a phase of trying to cut as much fat out of my diet as possible.  In my misguided zeal, I made the laughable mistake of trying to buy the light version of Hellmann’s.  Since that obviously wasn’t punishment enough, I tried the fat-free version.  Because something whose taste is based on fat will be even tastier when the fat is replaced with chemicals, right?

In my thirties, I’ve struggled with the idea that Hellmann’s is chock-full of stuff that I really shouldn’t be eating.  The canola oil in it is most assuredly produced by using genetically modified canola.  It’s full of preservatives.  How else can a jar of it stay fresh for so long in the fridge?

Now it comes out that not only is Hellmann’s chockfull of preservatives and GMOs, it also thinks locavores are fools. Hellmann’s markets itself in Canada as a local product because all of its ingredients come from Canada.  So we’re supposed to believe any food made in a single country (especially one as large as Canada) is by default a local food?  It also has the industry backed “Smart Choices” label on it which if anything makes me want to buy it less.

I’ve tried various ways to wrest myself from its unctuous grasp.  I’ve bought several organic versions of mayonnaise.  Yes – it’s not local but maybe I could avoid the GMO ingredients that way.  None of them taste remotely the same to us.  I’ve made my own mayonnaise which is heaven.  But unless I want to waste most of it, there’s no way this household of two can finish off such a large quantity of mayonnaise.  Plus who wants to routinely whip up a batch of mayo after a long, hot day of garden chores or canning?  I want a BLT and I want it fast.

So Hellmann’s – I’ve tried to quit you.  And I’ve failed. I hang my head in shame.

As much as I adore the fresh, delicious food at Tacubaya, Nopalito, and all the other nuevo Mexicano places popping up  — and as much as I’m thrilled that they espouse the sustainable/local food ethics so near to my heart — I also have an incurable weakness for the combo-plate Mexican food of my childhood days in Southern California.

I’ve been known to plan my weekly menus (not to mention my Southland pilgrimages)  around the days that my favorite south-of-the-border haunts are open. The first place I head when I’ve had a bad day at the office is Lisa’s, a Daly City joint that looks like a biker bar from the outside, but serves up some of the most-L.A.-like combination plates this side of the Grapevine. And Cameron knows that if he wants to bribe me to come down to the peninsula, the three magic words I really want to hear are  “Fiesta del Mar“.

A platter-sized dinner of tacos, enchiladas, chiles rellenos or — let’s be honest here — all three, doused in red-chile gravy and draped with a mantilla of bubbly cheese: To me, there’s no better soul food.

Guilty Pleasure :: In & Out Cheeseburger with Onions

I’ve been an In & Out Burger fan since my college days in Salt Lake City when I ate way too many of them before the location near my condo closed. I cried I tell you, I cried.

These days I get one any chance I have and those chances are few and far between. There was that time we got stuck at LAX on our way back from La Paz, Mexico and sent friends in a cab for a midnight meal. Another late night stop in Vegas last year on a business trip. A quick stop in Phoenix. And well, every time I’ve been to San Francisco in the past 12 months.

Last weekend was no different, with Anita, Kristina and I all indulging in a late lunch of burgers and fries. Mmmm, I can taste it now (and let me tell you it would have been better than tonight’s hotel restaurant meal).

The burgers pretty much fail all four letters of SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) but I don’t care. I still love them and plan to indulge whenever presented with the option.