an exerpt from a book i'm reading "Heat" by Bill Buford

The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite. Without this, it is impossible to accumulate, within the slotted span, enough experiences of eating to have anything worth setting down. Each day brings only two opportunities for field work, and they are not to be wasted minimizing the intake of cholesterol. They are indispensable, like a prize-fighter's hours on the road. (I have read that the late French professional gourmand Maurice Curnosky ate but one meal a day - dinner. But that was late in his life, and I have always suspected his attainments anyway, so many mediocre witticisms are attributed to him that he could not have had much time for eating). A good appetite gives an eater room to turn around in.
-A.J. Liebling, Between Meals