As a gourmand growing up in the land of milk and honey -- more accurately, the Midwest, so the land of mayonnaise, cream of mushroom soup, and deep-fried cheese -- I've often felt like an outsider when it comes to foodstuffs. While others traipsed off to eat their abhorrent mixtures of non-dairy topping and canned fruit, I snacked on pancetta and garlic-stuffed olives, scoffing at their bovine natures.

But then I found my passion, my downfall, my Lolita, the fire of my loins and the glitter of my soul. It's called a pizzle.

So innocuous, the term, although its other name of "bully stick" makes it sound more street tough and hip-hop. But, the reality of their creation is even tougher: a "beef stick," in a manner of speaking, fashioned from the part of a bull that ensures baby cows and bulls will continue being replicated in perpetuity. But it's dried, and sometimes braided, as a kind of literal twist on its original purpose.

What does this make me, that I am so obsessed -- nay, addicted -- to eating dried bull's [insert euphemism of choice here]? Am I some kind of uber-carnivore, that the other hunks of a cow simply won't suffice? Or is there some type of Freudian slant here, a developmental stage that wasn't surmounted?

All I know is that I may be a feisty rascal of a dog, but I am still, at the very core, a dog. I cannot deny my true nature, nor my deepest passion. Thank you, bulls, for making the ultimate sacrifice.