Fear for your lives, mortals: I have a George Foreman grill.

I say this not because it bestows upon me the powers of the Almighty, as I naively expected, but in anticipation that at some point soon I will stumble upon a recipe that will send the collective waistline of our nation expanding exponentially. Even if it is theoretically the "lean mean fat reducing machine."

By no stretch of the imagination am I a gourmet chef or in possession of some otherworldly cookbook ("Satan's Seductions: 666 Recipes That Will Send You Straight to Hell"). Believe me; I have the kitchen acumen of a dung beetle. About the same taste in cuisine, too.

It's more that, like a small child or a curious kitten, I simply don't know any better. I lack the patience to follow instructions, recipes make no sense to me ("after mincing, swash with 1/8ths of a cubit, then flame") and my raw talent has been overcooked since birth.

So it should be no surprise that after less than a week in my possession, I've already hijacked the Foreman, verbed the name itself ("I just Foreman'ed a banana split!") and begun my unholy (or at least unhealthy) reign of terror in the kitchen.

The slaughter began when I baptized the grill with a steak, the only way to bring a baby grill into the world. Juicy and delicious, and possibly even less unhealthy than it could have been.

Not ready to stop, I threw a couple of hunks of broccoli into its maw and decided to see what this baby could do.

And thus, my first failure with the grill.

At no point thus far had I bothered to open the included instruction manual and I really had no idea whether broccoli was suited for the Foreman. I never like to judge after a single experience, but for now the answer is no. However, after eating what came out of it that day, I can't help but wonder what the market is like for a vegan version of beef jerky.

The next item on my hit list was a red potato, relatively fresh from my parents' garden. Visions of crispy strips of delicious, starchy potato danced through my head as I dabbed a few slices with olive oil and fired up the Foreman.

Unfortunately, I neglected to cut the slices evenly, so while one section was nicely browned and extremely tasty, the rest of it was underwhelming. I suspect I didn't let it grill enough either, a theory I will rigorously test the next time around. When my potato delight becomes reality.

Having conquered (in spirit, if not in actuality) meats and vegetables I decided to move on to the third and final food group: grilled cheese sandwiches. Having been a staple of my diet since I first learned how to apply heat to food, I was a bit apprehensive: would my favorite sandwich survive the transition from pan to grill?

If measured by the flattened, sloppy mess I had to basically drink that day, then no, the Foreman is ill-suited for grilled cheese. But as the cheese oozed down the Foreman's slope and into the grease receptacle, the true potential of the grill was revealed to me.

While the grill's slope is designed to let grease and fat run down and away into oblivion, what's to stop someone from putting say, a Hershey bar in there and a bowl of ice cream below it? Or perhaps melted peanut butter dripping down onto the world's most delectable PBJ?

Nothing is sacred and no food product will elude my grasp for long. I've already got plans for grilled apples and Foreman-fried eggs. A challenge was issued to create Foreman macaroni and cheese, and as soon as I figure out whether or not the radioactive orange powder will forever tarnish the grill, I plan to make that happen.

Lean, mean, fat-reducing machine? Not in my kitchen.