The thing that scares me about tattoos isn’t just the fact that they’re permanent. It’s also because they’re a mass invitation for the world to judge you. People aren’t satisfied with the fact that you’ve simply chosen a pretty design for yourself; they want some deeply significant back story behind it.
Don’t get me wrong—there’s a certain rebellious, tortured-artist appeal about someone who sports the ink. But somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen for Ryan, who was about to get a slab of bacon tattooed onto his forearm.
“Aw yeah, this is going to be awesome,” he exclaimed. He took my silence as a sign of agreement, when in fact I was just exercising the “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” policy.
Ryan exhibited the same innocent eagerness symptomatic of all spanking new culinary-school grads. He had returned to Hong Kong after crossing the finish line, and before he was reduced to the bottom rung of the ladder as some apprentice or commis in a real kitchen, he wanted to once again commemorate his passion for cooking.
There’s a lot of passion-speak in the culinary world these days. “The M9 Wag beef, it’s so beautiful and marbled—I am so passionate about it.” “This fish, I hand-speared it myself, with passion.” “My morning cereal, it is not just Kellogg’s rice krispies—I eat that snap, crackle, and pop passionately.”
This sappy love affair with food can be downright nauseating at times. Especially, moments like this—when a completely rational adult decides that it’s a good idea to have a picture of a breakfast item on his skin... forever.