Flamin’ Hot Indulgence
The lowbrow pleasures of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos
My pioneer foray into the decadence of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos takes us to Venice Beach on Memorial Day weekend in 2016. Now and then, a chilly breeze would slice through the bands of sunlight warming my face and shoulders like the soft enclosure of a palm. I was sitting with friends on a patchwork of towels, littered with snacks. Drowsy and a little bit stoned, I was disinclined to test the water and instead sifted through the gleaming, polychromatic bags — every one of them offering some form of sodium-rich extravagance. I hadn’t purchased the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos — I was, as of yet, ignorant of their allure — but my friend had known better and generously shared a few.
As vices go, mine wield the intensity of mild undergraduate roguery: weed gummies, rosé, the occasional tequila shot before my husband and I summon a Lyft so as to be tucked into bed by midnight. I’ve never sampled hard drugs, in part because we don’t seem to matriculate in the same circles. I’m sure Gwyneth Paltrow and her Goop disciples would chastise me for my enthusiastic consumption of carbohydrates, but bread is god’s nectar witched into dough, and I will not forsake it.
And as for “junk food,” that obscure category, I don’t gravitate toward much of it. When I was growing up, my mother would anoint our school…
