A few days ago, I was chatting with a friend who is also a fellow chef and teacher. Between us was an enormous bowl of lemons, the leftovers of a bushel that friends had given me.

As we chatted about what we like to do when we have a lot of lemons, we both mentioned lemon curd and how we rarely make it.

“Too dangerous,” I said and my friend laughed. I could tell she understood.

See that indentation on the right? Finger-size, don't you think?

When I made this same comment on facebook, another friend posted that she’d made lemon curd for years and had never poisoned anyone. Just keep it in the refrigerator after you make it, she advised.

She didn’t understand.

Lemon curd is dangerous not because it might hurt you but because it is all but impossible to resist. It’s that good. If I have it, I will eat it. Until it is gone.

I feel that way about a few other foods: Franco Dunn’s chorizo and my own skordalia and hummus. Queso fundido. Fried Caciocavallo with a splash of vinegar. A Trader Joe’s candy bar of very thin dark chocolate filled with salted caramel. I don’t even care that much for chocolate but this candy bar is extraordinary. I tried  it for the first time out of politeness, as it was a gift from a friend who knows I love caramel. I took one bite and then sat down and devoured the whole thing. Since then, I have stood in front of racks filled with these bars on several occasions–indeed, I’ve gone to the store solely to buy some–and simply walked away. “One’s too many,” the song goes, “and a hundred ain’t enough.” (Here I offer a nod of thanks to Nick Lowe.) There’s no happy medium where satisfaction extinguishes desire.

Are there foods you might impossible to resist? Share your favorites in the comment section below.