A few days ago, while having lunch at T.G.I. Friday’s (don’t judge me), my girlfriend made a startling observation: I have not tried a single recipe of ribs that I liked.

I had been complaining about how their “Best Ribs Ever” were not very good, and had the same flaws as all the (bad) ribs recipes I have ever tried–the meat was dry and stringy, and it was overwhelmed with sauce, which would have been a good thing had it not been disgustingly sweet. It’s the same everywhere–in cheap cafeterias, high end specialty bistros, american food family restaurants, and event catering. The same dull meat in the same terribly sweet barbecue sauce.

The thing is, though, according to my girlfriend, I keep trying ribs in every new place I go. Maybe it’s good here, I think to myself, before I order my regret-in-fifteen-minutes plate of sweet, crappy ribs.

So after a bad lunch of the “Best Ribs Ever”, she says, Maybe it’s not the ribs, it’s you.

Me? But… but… I love ribs! I love the tender, falls-off-the-bone meat! I love the sauce dripping down my arms and the sides of my mouth! I love the sheer joy of leaning back, seeing a plateful of clean bones before me.

I love it… but she made me realize that it never actually happened.

What was going on? Were those visions part of a sweet dream from days of yore? Were they memory implants, like Wolverine had in the Weapon X program? Were they merely my subconscious, repeating what I’ve seen from old restaurant commercials or celebrity chef TV shows?

I needed to know the truth. I needed to figure out this desire. And, most significantly, I needed to finally find damn good ribs.