Do you have any weird food habits? I do. Many of them revolve around even and odd numbers, some of them revolve around an almost supernatural fear of not serving enough food and one of them relates to cutlery. I guess this post is not going to paint me in a good light.

I think, looking hard at them, that it may be mild OCD. Although (and this is without any disrespect what-so-ever to true sufferers of OCD which is a terrible illness) I think many of us think we’re ‘a bit OCD’ because people are more aware of the symptoms in recent times. Maybe I’m just plain crazy and it doesn’t have a name.

Do you find that you can’t just toast one piece of bread, and that you must in fact toast an even number of slices? Maybe because toasters have two or four slots (a quick search on google didn’t find any with odd slot counts). Certainly when I was young you had to put single bread slices into specific slots in our toaster, otherwise the universe exploded (or something). I mean, I don’t fall over if I have to eat an odd number of toasted products, but I certainly have pause to think ‘this isn’t right’. Our Tesco sells crumpets in packets of 6. There’s two of us in this house. That’s 3 each. Distressing.

I hate mismatched cutlery. We have a range of cutlery in our draw and I really don’t like having a mismatched knife and fork. Usually of course I only use a fork and don’t bother with a knife, I am after all a man and I can eat my food with only a fork thank you very much. But on the occasions where I do use a knife it has to be the same model as the fork (and if I bring cutlery in for other people, I make sure they’re matched as well). This isn’t even really different types of cutlery, we have two sets of stainless steel, one plain and one patterned and I don’t mix them.

Then there’s the deep psychological issue of not serving enough food. I really have no idea where this came from but I have no doubt it contributes to my weight issue. It goes hand-in-hand with serving up everything that gets cooked, and not being able to leave it or throw it away if I cook too much (and since I fear not serving enough, I always cook too much).

Lastly (for this far too revealing blog post) is the habit of eating the stuff you like least first and leaving the stuff you like most to last. I first remember doing that at school during school dinners, getting rid of the stuff I didn’t really like in the meal and leaving the nicest bits to the end.