When food writers die and go to their just desserts, they can only pray that Heaven will be as wonderful as the annual Fancy Food Show. And since it's the afterlife we're talking about, this will be a Fancy Food Show at which you can eat and drink all you want – and never gain an ounce, nor go into a state of total and complete culinary overload, precursor to the inevitable food hangover – a state in which your liver and spleen (if you still have either) give up the ghost, and all you can do is lean against a wall, beginning for Brioschi.

            I reached the point at which Lipitor was no longer the answer at the Fancy Food Show in San Diego at a point almost equidistant from the Nueske Bacon exhibit, and the Niman Ranch bacon demonstration. I am weak when it comes to bacon. If there were a 12 step program called Bacon Eaters Anonymous, I would have joined, and subsequently fallen off the wagon, many times.

The people at Nueske were cooking up some of their fine applewood smoked bacon, which they were giving out in strips about as long and thick as an aging baby boomers suspenders. Not far away, at Niman Ranch, they had some fine pepper bacon which they were grilling to crispy, crunchy, salty, meaty, musky perfection. Like a human ping pong ball, I bounced from one to the other, grabbing a hunk of bacon here, a chunk of bacon there. In between, I stopped at the Parmigiano-Reggiano exhibit, where there was a wheel that must have weighed a hundred pounds, with a wedge-shaped cheese knife jammed into it. "Help yourself," I was told by a friendly face. I did. Again and again.

I found myself going into a fugue state. People walked past me, speaking of the wonders of organic gin, and the joys of chocolate-flavored beer, while I went into a state of suspended animation. I would probably still be standing there, surrounded by an empty hall, were it not for a nearby aisle of coffee. Not a single coffee exhibit of course. But some four dozen coffee purveyors, one upon another, each only too happy to give me a blast of serious caffeine. Not much further was the Wonderful World of Chocolate. One may grow weary at the Fancy Food Show. But one need never become tired.

To those who have worked their way through the event (which alternates between New York, San Francisco and San Diego), the term "Fancy Food Show" may seem a bit foreign. We like to refer to it as "The Fat, Salt & Sugar Show." For that's really what it is – an opportunity to explore the limits of the human capacity for things that TASTE REALLY GOOD! There are some 64 aisles of purveyors at the Fat, Salt & Sugar Show. Each of those aisles has from 40 to 50 exhibitors. Many of those exhibitors have a dozen or so samples. Do the math – this is the Biggest Buffet in the World. And no one is standing next to you, whispering into your ear that you've had enough. There is no "enough" here. This is heavy. Only with the calories. And cholesterol. And sodium. And caffeine. And alcohol. This is as much fun as you can legally have with your clothing on.

By loose count, a third of all the samples involved cheese – this is a bad place to be if you're lactose intolerant. Perhaps another third was built around chocolate; there may be other forms of candy in the world, but judging from what was on exhibit at the show, only chocolate matters. The rest of the show was scattered between any of a hundred forms of indulgence. If you felt like some barbecue, there was lots of it – Mr. Stubb's BBQ Sauce had rolled in an entire 18-wheeler which turned into a portable 'que shack. And there was a constant line twenty deep to get a plate of beef and pork cooked down to its essential molecules.

For six hours, I stumbled about, grabbing a mouthful of wasabi-flavored nuts here, a ration of pasta there, a pile of chicken mole where I could find it. I didn't step on a scale for a week after I got home, figuring it was all water weight, and I should give my body a chance to adjust back to the real world. But I did leave with two nagging considerations.

One was wondering just who the folks are who, surrounded by billions of free calories, feel the need to head for the convention center's snack bars to buy a hot dog or a cheese sandwich?

The other was wondering what form of cruelty inspired the organizers of the Fat, Salt & Sugar Show to hold the event in San Diego, one of the healthiest, most body obsessed cities in the world. As I waddled back to my car, I was surrounded by joggers, slim and trim, the essence of health and well-being. I exuded bacon grease through every pore. They may live forever. But I had just been to Heaven.

--Merrill Shindler