Appeal leads to interest, attraction becomes fascination, and suddenly, I’m infatuated. In any case, I’m sure family and friends are grateful that, by definition, infatuation is an intense passion that is relatively short-lived. 

I remember my puff pastry phase as if it were yesterday. Pepperidge Farm provided the blank canvas and I created the masterpieces. The way I lovingly rolled out the dough, then wrapped everything that I could find in it, made some afraid to leave their small pets around me. 

I gradually moved on, but not before hosting a jovial dinner party that is still talked about in some circles, whereby every course was enveloped in crusty deliciousness. This resulted in copious amounts of wine being consumed, mostly as a defense mechanism in order to facilitate swallowing. 

Chef Ina Garten is directly responsible for my garnishing stage. She is the queen of finishing each dish with just a touch of lemon, kosher salt or parsley to bring out its hidden flavors. My rationale is that I might have fallen asleep while six back-to-back episodes of “The Barefoot Contessa” played on and into my subconscious.

I happily chopped and decorated until I stopped in my tracks one morning, realizing that my days of decorating, with this small final touch, were numbered after absentmindedly adorning my morning oatmeal with parsley. 

Grateful for no lingering food allergies, I moved on to footwear. My love of shoes presented itself in a fascination with spectators. Popular in the 1930s, the low-heeled oxford style men’s shoe is known for its contrasting colors on its toe and heel. Wallis Simpson’s spectators, thought of as quite flamboyant at the time, might very well have been the catalyst for Edward VIII to abdicate the English throne. 

To me, they signified the allure of a time past. My search finally landed me at an Allen Edmonds shoe store, where I treated myself to a pair, to the fascination of their male clientele. To this day, I worry about falling forward when I wear them, as I lean over to appreciate their sculptural lines. 

Which brings me to my two latest crushes: spray bottles and vinegar. As we all know, spray bottles were originally invented to fill with holy water, hide by the front door, and quickly mist your teenager as they head out, without them ever realizing it. 

I have no idea where using vinegar came from, other than the fact that I have been eating a lot of salad lately. My collection contains white vinegar and water as a household cleaner, white vinegar and dishwashing liquid as a weed killer and apple cider vinegar to rejuvenate my skin. Now that the bottles are properly labelled and the chaos has subsided, I can settle into a spraying frenzy. 

As I flow in and out of these infatuations, I have some lasting memories:

•  Scrabble – playing for money finally got my family back on board with board games.
  
•  Polka dots – curiosity into its history led me into an in-depth study of what I have termed “polkadotology”.
  
• Flamenco dancing – was an impromptu invitation by a guitarist to dance on the street in Seville, Spain, a way of telling me to keep on dancing?

Not a movement so powerful as to become a trend and not consuming me into an obsession, an infatuation is a playful fondness that lurks inside us all, if we just take the time to grasp its pudgy, little hand and come out and play.