Favorite Foods
This post is really not important at all, so feel free to skip it. It's just another chapter in my Me Manual - the collection of posts that tell friends & prospective lovers important things about me - important mainly to people who have to interact with me and who want a pleasant experience and/or are hoping to contribute to the things that make me happy. This post is all about my favorite foods, which nobody will care about except those who want to eat meals with me and might have a vested interest in choosing something I would especially like.
Favorite Childhood Meal:
My favorite meal growing up was always my mom's lasagna, iceberg salad with Italian dressing, and real San Francisco Sourdough bread with butter. I absolutely loved Garfield as a kid, which is a big reason why I started eating lasagna, but in the end, the taste of the lasagna kept me in love for pretty much my entire life. It had to be my mom's lasagna too, no other lasagna would do. She didn't do anything particularly special to it - it was a very basic and inexpensive recipe, but to this day I still prefer that style over any other. All it had was layers of lasagna noodles, browned ground beef in Ragu spaghetti sauce, and a mix of mild cheddar and mozzarella cheese. No ricotta, no parmesan, no spinach, no garlic, no anything else. Just pasta, beef, canned sauce, and cheddar & mozzarella cheese. I have since had other lasagnas with other cheeses and they're OK, but to this day, I cannot stand ricotta cheese, particularly in my lasagna.
This is still a very happy meal for me, although I now eat my salads with Ranch dressing instead of Italian. And authentic SF Sourdough is still my absolute favorite bread of all time. I used to pull all-nighters studying for finals with an entire loaf of sourdough & a tub of butter, and just snack on that all night long. I only get really good sourdough now when I visit my family in CA. I miss sourdough.
Favorite Current Meal:
Outback Steakhouse. I get the 6 oz. Outback Special (sirloin steak with their unique blend of seasonings, well done but not burnt - yes there is a difference), a giant baked potato loaded with butter and crusted with salt, a house salad with their special house Ranch dressing, and a Bloomin' Onion - a deep-fried giant onion (Vidalia, I think) fried in their house batter & dipped in their special house dipping sauce.
Yes, it's a heart-attack-on-a-plate ... for most people. But I have such low iron that I'm borderline anemic, I don't digest vegetable protein well, my blood pressure has only recently risen high enough to be considered "safe", and I have been considered "underweight" for most of my life, to the point that I could not donate blood (by the time my weight was high enough, either my iron was too low or my blood pressure was). I was specifically instructed to eat more red meat, more fatty foods, and more salt. Now that I'm in my mid-30s, my metabolism is slowing down a touch, so I try to eat less fatty foods now, but really, having this meal maybe 8 times a year isn't going to kill me.
And because I'm poly, my inability to really choose a "favorite" extends to food too!
Other Favorite Meal:
Ethiopian Meat Combo Platter. I first tried Ethiopian food in CA with corpsefairy, and since I didn't know what anything was when I first started eating Ethiopian food, I just got the combo platter so I could sample a few different things. I ended up liking everything on the plate, but couldn't remember what anything was called. So when I found the single Ethiopian restaurant in Orlando, I just ordered their version of the meat combo platter. Turns out, I like all 3 of the meats on the plate, so I *still* don't know what any of the item are because I just keep ordering the combo! But even the items from other people's plates that I've tried were good, even if I liked my meat combo better, so I'm happy to keep trying new items, but I'll probably always order the meat combo, wherever I go.
Plus, Ethiopian does really good vegetarian options (by "good", I mean "varied" - your subjective tastes my differ), so it makes it a very convenient place to go in a mixed carnivore-vegetarian company. datan0de and I both enjoy Ethiopian food so much, and so much *more* than the rest of the FLAN*, that it's become sort of an "us" thing, which gives the food very pleasant associations on top of the food being good. It's a great close-group activity, because the traditional method is to serve all the food on the same giant platter in the middle and everyone reaches in with their own bread, so you can really share food or try new dishes that way. I'm a big fan of the all-food-in-the-middle-and-everyone-shares-and-samples-a-bit-of-each method of group dining, but if anyone likes only 1 or 2 items, this is a great way to make sure he doesn't get enough of the food he wants & too much of the stuff he doesn't!
Favorite Special Occasion Meal:
Fondue. And not just any fondue. Decadent, 4-course meal fondue. My first exposure to fondue was in high school. I was a recovering anorexic and just learning how to enjoy the taste of food. There were very few things I liked, but I was determined to broaden my horizons and discover enough good-tasting food to keep me healthy. The problem was, my parents weren't very adventurous and my mother was constantly on a diet, so I had no idea where to start to *gain* weight or find taste-tempting foods to keep me interested in eating. My high school sweetheart came to the rescue. His family was in a much higher economic class than mine were, and his family enjoyed a variety of all the finest restaurants in the Bay Area. For some event, a birthday, I think, they invited me to La Fondue.
This is not a chain restaurant, it's a quirky little place nestled in the Santa Cruz mountains. Since we had a decent-sized party, we had the opportunity to get the meal with the largest variety of items. They started with a salad, then a cheese fondue. It had all the usual food for dipping in cheese - veggies, bread, pretzels, etc. But we got to choose 2 different cheeses. We had a cheddar with a beer base & something I don't remember because it was the cheddar I liked (the other was probably some kind of swiss & wine but who knows?). For the entree, they had 3 columns of meat, organized by how exotic it was, and we could choose 2 from each column. We had chicken, beef, teriyaki beef, wild turkey,ostrich, and buffalo. Yes, I remember that. The meat was boiled, not in oil, but in a rich vegetable broth, and then dipped in a variety of dipping sauces. And finally, the chocolate. Oh the chocolate! We had 2 chocolates, a milk chocolate with a Bailey's Irish Cream base, and a dark chocolate with some kind of fruit liqueur base that I don't remember because I liked the milk chocolate better. All the usual suspects were included for dipping: fruit, angel food cake, rice krispie treats, cookies, etc.
I instantly fell in love with La Fondue and we went back several times after that. Then, I learned how to make my own fondue and I began hosting fondue Superbowl parties using the same format as La Fondue - 2 cheeses, a cheddar & something else, exotic meat in vegetable broth, and 2 chocolates, a milk with Irish cream & a dark with a fruit liqueur. None of my set liked to watch sports, but we were all film students or cinema geeks or hipsters, so we enjoyed the commercials. Fondue was perfect for that. It was an all-day meal that we could prepare in the living room and only pay attention to the TV during the commercial breaks and then go back to conversation. The most recent fondue party I hosted, I discovered a fantastic Italian cheese fondue, consisting of mozzarella and provolone that I think will be going on my "regular cheese fondue" list.
I have eaten at the Melting Pot, a fondue chain, and I like it - a lot. But La Fondue is better. The chocolate fondue at Dante's Down The Hatch, in Atlanta has La Fondue beat in spread size & quality of their milk chocolate, but it's *only* chocolate, and only one *kind* of chocolate. Definitely worth going for, and I'd love to go again. But it's dessert. For a full fondue meal, La Fondue is an experience. I'll take Melting Pot, and it's not even a sacrifice. It only indicates just how awesome I think La Fondue is. I also like to prepare and host fondue parties, but they are incredibly expensive and very time-consuming with the prep & cleanup work. So, between the expense (both for hosting & for eating in the restaurants) and the fact that the top two places aren't local to me, fondue goes in the category of Special Occasion food.
Favorite Fast Food:
This has subcategories.
Burgers: My favorite fast-food burger is Jack In The Box kids burgers with Jack's Secret Sauce (basically a tangy version of Thousand Island dressing). Unfortunately, that is ALSO in CA, so I only eat there when I visit back home, roughly every 18-24 months nowadays. Here in FL, my next favorite fast-food burger is a Big Mac from McDonalds. It's the only burger I can even stand to have lettuce on, probably because it only barely qualifies as lettuce.
French Fries: My favorite fast-food french fries are Jack In The Box seasoned curly fries and, since I can't get those, McDonald's fries come second.
Overall Favorite Fast Food Restaurant: Jack In The Box is, in general, my favorite fast-food restaurant because I like their kids burger, curly fries, and milk shakes (they now have a blackberry shake that was really good!). My second-favorite would be McDonalds because I like their Big Macs and fries, and I also like their hamburger kids meals. Plus, they have a strawberry-banana smoothie that I have to remind myself not to get at the same time as a Big Mac because the two together are about a third of a normal person's entire caloric intake for the day, which means that I'm pretty full for the rest of the day. Wendy's is my third favorite because of the variety of food they offer. I like their jr. hamburger, their crispy chicken sandwich, their baked potato with cheese & broccoli, their chocolate and vanilla frostys, and their salads. None of it is quite the quality of the other two restaurants, but I have more than one meal there that I like to eat.
For non-burgers, I prefer Taco Bell and their Baja Chicken Chalupa and strawberry Fruitista. I also really like their crunchy taco, but I can really only fit either 1 chalupa or 2 tacos at any meal, especially if I get the Fruitista. I used to get 1 chalupa and one taco, but I felt overly full afterwards, so now it's one or the other. And yes, I prefer Taco Bell over Chipotle, Moe's, or Tijajuana Flats, although I'll take Chipotle over both Moes and TF if those are my only choices. Chipotle serves Izze drinks & their chicken fajita burrito bowl is large enough for 2 meals for me.
Fast-food chicken: I don't like any of them. Wendy's has the only chicken sandwich I like. KFC used to offer that same sandwich when I was a teenager, but they stopped before I graduated high school. So no Popeye's, no Chik-Fil-A, no KFC, nothing. That makes my boycott of Chik-Fil-A for their overt pro-religious policy, anti-gay policy, & financial contributions to the anti-gay-marriage movement easy.
Pizza: I prefer Little Ceasar's to any other pizza. Fortunately, it's also the cheapest, with gigantic "large" cheese and pepperoni pizzas at only $5 that are guaranteed to be hot and ready when you order. I only like pepperoni, so this is convenient. I don't like deep dish pizzas - that much dough just seems to make all that grease sit poorly in my stomach, but it doesn't bother me with a thin crust. The difficulty with thin crust, however, is that most places make it too crispy, or, in their effort *not* to crisp the crust, it comes out under-cooked. But I like the quality of Little Ceasar's dough, and I like the taste of both their sauce and their cheese. Domino's is a close second, and since they deliver but Little Ceasar's doesn't, I will often be willing to pay the higher price for Domino's even though I like Little Ceasar's a tad better. But the only brand of pizza I refuse to eat is Hungry Howie's. The first time I tried it, it was so greasy and so thick-doughed, that I actually got sick and haven't been able to even look at it since.
"Ethnic" Foods:
Technically, Ethiopian qualifies as "ethnic" since it's definitely not American, whereas places like Taco Bell and Chipotle are Americanized versions of Mexican food. But Ethiopian is such a high favorite, that it really goes under the Favorites heading. This is more of a list of specific dishes that I like from certain styles of food regardless of which restaurant they come from.
Indian: chicken tikka masala and rice. This is what I order at every Indian restaurant, and I even get it as a frozen meal from a brand, I think, called Ethnic Foods. There are a few other dishes I've tried & liked, including some sort of ball of dough with spicy stuff inside, but this is "my" dish.
Asian: chicken teriyaki or beef and broccoli. Doesn't matter where I go, I get one or the other. Almost all of the various Asian styles have some version of one or the other - Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. If they don't, I get whatever is closest. There's an Asian food restaurant in Tampa that datan0de and femetal really like that doesn't have either one of these or some variation, and there I get some dish that is basically a chicken cooked in a clay pot. Mongolian beef is another runner-up if they don't have one of the two preferred.
Sushi: chicken teriyaki. Seriously. I don't like sushi. I don't like seafood at all. I don't like fish, I don't like crustaceans, I don't like seaweed, I don't like anything that comes directly out of the ocean. I either don't like the taste or I don't like the texture. I keep trying them, though, and I hope, one day, I will like something. I used to eat tuna sandwiches as a kid, and fish sticks, and salmon, but mostly because my mother made me. My distaste for them grew as I got older, although I'm pretty sure I actively liked that stuff when I was very young.
The last time I had seafood (as in, I ordered it, not just tried a bite hoping my tastes had changed), I had a heavily breaded salmon smothered in melted cheese. I hoped, correctly, that the fried breading & cheese would overpower the fishy taste & I'd be able to eat it. I got about halfway through it before the texture made me gag and I had to stop. Very recently, I was able to eat 3 fried popcorn shrimp before gagging, and considering the last time I tried I couldn't even keep a single mouthful down, I consider that a roaring success.
So when it comes to raw seafood, I just can't. I've even tried the vegetarian sushi - the stuff that's basically nothing more than rice & veggies wrapped in seaweed, and I just didn't like it. It was the seaweed. If I could pick the whole roll apart and separate the innards from the wrap, I can eat it, but by that point, why bother having sushi?
Vegetarian: this isn't "ethnic", but I couldn't think of where else to put it since it's not fast food and it's not the top favorite. I absolutely love the vegan "fluffernutter" sandwich at Dandelion Cafe & Tea House. Although I'm a pretty solid omnivore, heavy on the carnivore, I do enjoy the taste of some vegan and vegetarian foods. I just can't live on that diet, but I don't need meat in every meal. Their "fluffernutter" is a vegan version of a peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, and banana sandwich. In their case, it's almond butter, rice-mallow fluff, and either apples or bananas, depending on the day, season, or who's making it, all served on toasted bread (I get toasted sourdough). It's sticky and messy and sweet and oh-so delicious.
Drinks:
My favorite drink is Izze brand carbonated fruit juice. It is 70% pure fruit juice with no additional sugar or anything else added, and 30% pure carbonated water. That's it. Caffeine-free, no artificial sweetners or colors, just carbonation (which I hear is bad for the teeth, but haven't verified) and a ton of natural sugar from the fruit. My favorite flavors are pomegranate, apple, peach, blackberry, and clementine. I also discovered that I don't much care for Izze ginger, EXCEPT when I'm eating chicken tikka masala - and then it's the perfect complement!
When I can't get my hands on Izze, I often make my own mixing any brand of 100% fruit juice and seltzer water. My favorite was Welch's pomegranate & white grape, but I can't seem to find that anymore. Now I typically use whatever comes closest to "wild berry mix".
When I'm at a restaurant or somewhere that I have to choose from soda, my favorite is any brand of root beer that isn't Barq's (that has caffeine & I don't take any caffeine), followed by any brand of orange or strawberry soda (that isn't Sunkist brand, that also has caffeine), followed finally by any brand of lemon-lime type soda like Sprite or 7-Up. I do not drink cola of any brand, I do not drink tea, and I do not drink coffee, even caffeine-free (although when I first gave up caffeinated drinks, I used to like caffeine-free Pepsi, as it was the closest in taste to its caffeinated version of any of the brands). Because of my caffeine-free requirements, and because it started relatively young, I never developed a taste for coffee or tea, and it has been so many years since I had cola on a regular basis that I lost the taste for it that I used to have. I only drink water when dehydrated & there is nothing else or the other options have so much sugar that it makes my mouth feel sticky because of the dehydration.
I love strawberry lemonade if it uses real strawberry chunks, although I really dislike plain lemonade. Technically, milkshakes, smoothies, & fruitistas fall under "drinks", although they can arguably be called "dessert" too. I like chocolate & vanilla milkshakes pretty much from anywhere, but I don't like malted shakes. I like strawberry-banana smoothies best, but I will occasionally have a wild-berry smoothie, and my favorite brand of smoothie is the Smoothie King Angel Food (strawberry-banana) and my second-favorite is McDonald's strawberry-banana smoothie, but I have yet to meet a brand of smoothie I didn't like - they're kind of like pizza in that regard. I LOVE the Strawberries And Cream Fruitista from Taco Bell, but that appears to be a seasonal item and not often available. Their regular Strawberry Fruitista is a pretty good second choice.
Snacks:
Ruffles Reduced Fat potato chips and my bacon-onion-ranch dip made with light sour cream. I can eat a whole tub of this myself (over 2 or 3 days).
Tostitos tortilla chips and mild Tostitos queso sauce.
Doritos and reduced-fat Pringles.
Gluten-free pretzels. I have no gluten issues, I just like how they taste better than regular pretzels.
My Jell-O Salad - lime jello, cottage cheese, cool whip, mandarin oranges, and pineapple tidbits.
Girl Scout cookies - Samoas, Thank U Berry Munch, Dulce de Leches
Lowry's Beef Jerky - the only kind of beef jerky I like. It's heavily processed like a Slim Jim, but it's flat, not round. It has a different texture too, which is the main problem I have with Slim Jims. Regular beef jerky is also way too dry. I vaguely remember a guy in my hometown that would come into the office where I worked and give us free bags of his jerky. He was just starting up his own jerky company and it was the best damn jerky I'd ever had! More like regular jerky where it was strips and chunks of dried meat and not processed strips or tubes, but it was so very moist and flavorful. I think he called himself the Jerky Guy and there is a place like that online, but I'm not positive it's the same guy. Right time-frame though. At any rate, this is a staple in my Gig Box - my box of storable food & miscellaneous items that I keep in my car for work and emergencies.
Desserts:
Oh, there are so many! My all-time favorite is vanilla bean ice cream with chocolate syrup, all stirred & mixed together like soft-serve ice cream. In addition to it being tasty, I have very strong associations with that. My dad has OCD, and he can't go to bed without his bowl of ice cream. When I was a kid, it was just like this. I was a daddy's girl as a kid, so he and I would have our proportionally-sized bowls of ice cream and watch a movie or TV show together every night, driving my mother crazy with our stirring and spoons scraping the bowl. I like quite a few ice creams, but this is my favorite. My second favorite is vanilla and orange sherbert swirl.
I like almost anything strawberry based, except strawberry ice cream. I especially like Strawberry Shortcake and NY cheesecake with strawberry topping. My birthday cake every year as a kid was always a white cake with fresh strawberry filling and whipped cream icing (hard to get since my birthday is in January). I also really like the seasonal strawberry-banana cake at Dessert Lady.
Speaking of Dessert Lady, her carrot cake is to die for! I don't like carrot cake, but I LOVE her carrot cake. No matter what I order when I'm there, I always get her carrot cake to go and have it for breakfast for the next two days.
Cinnabon cinnamon rolls. They're just better than any other cinnamon roll.
Apple-cinnamon type desserts are also high on the list - cobblers and the like. I don't have a specific brand or type, I just really like the apple-cinnamon combination, particularly when paired with some kind of dessert bread product like a pie crust.
Stuff I Really Don't Like:
Pork. Of any kind. I don't like ham, don't like bacon, don't like pork rinds, don't like pulled pork. I just don't like it. It's the texture, mostly. I'll swallow a couple of bites to be polite, like at a family Easter dinner, but I *really* don't want to.
Seafood. I already explained this one above.
Milk. I love milk products, like cheese and ice cream and milkshakes. And I'll have cereal with milk and I'll even drink the leftover milk in the bowl. But I do not like straight milk. I suspect that I'm actually mildly lactose intolerant, but I've never been tested for it or diagnosed. I have had bowel problems consistent with lactose intolerance since I was an infant, but it's never been severe enough to make me give up the milk products that I like. I just don't drink straight milk because I don't like the taste. It leaves an odd aftertaste in my mouth and makes my mouth and throat all phlegmy - and it's not because the milk was bad either. All milk does that to me except Lactaid, so I'll often have a carton of that in the fridge for the rare occasion that I need milk for something like cereal or a recipe.
Black licorice. Really hate it. This includes black jellybeans.
Anything burnt. I have to scrape the burnt off my toast, off grilled foods, off toasted marshmallows.
Chicken skin. It's the texture. It's slimy and I can't eat it.
Fat. Same reason, the slimy texture makes me nauseated.
That's all I'm coming up with for now, but I'll try to remember to update this if I think of anything else.
* zensidhe & femetal only thought it was OK - they'll eat there, but it's not their preference. redheadlass liked it, but the food is eaten without silverware, using chunks of flat, spongey bread to scoop up the food, and that breaks her low-carb diet.
Favorite Childhood Meal:
My favorite meal growing up was always my mom's lasagna, iceberg salad with Italian dressing, and real San Francisco Sourdough bread with butter. I absolutely loved Garfield as a kid, which is a big reason why I started eating lasagna, but in the end, the taste of the lasagna kept me in love for pretty much my entire life. It had to be my mom's lasagna too, no other lasagna would do. She didn't do anything particularly special to it - it was a very basic and inexpensive recipe, but to this day I still prefer that style over any other. All it had was layers of lasagna noodles, browned ground beef in Ragu spaghetti sauce, and a mix of mild cheddar and mozzarella cheese. No ricotta, no parmesan, no spinach, no garlic, no anything else. Just pasta, beef, canned sauce, and cheddar & mozzarella cheese. I have since had other lasagnas with other cheeses and they're OK, but to this day, I cannot stand ricotta cheese, particularly in my lasagna.
This is still a very happy meal for me, although I now eat my salads with Ranch dressing instead of Italian. And authentic SF Sourdough is still my absolute favorite bread of all time. I used to pull all-nighters studying for finals with an entire loaf of sourdough & a tub of butter, and just snack on that all night long. I only get really good sourdough now when I visit my family in CA. I miss sourdough.
Favorite Current Meal:
Outback Steakhouse. I get the 6 oz. Outback Special (sirloin steak with their unique blend of seasonings, well done but not burnt - yes there is a difference), a giant baked potato loaded with butter and crusted with salt, a house salad with their special house Ranch dressing, and a Bloomin' Onion - a deep-fried giant onion (Vidalia, I think) fried in their house batter & dipped in their special house dipping sauce.
Yes, it's a heart-attack-on-a-plate ... for most people. But I have such low iron that I'm borderline anemic, I don't digest vegetable protein well, my blood pressure has only recently risen high enough to be considered "safe", and I have been considered "underweight" for most of my life, to the point that I could not donate blood (by the time my weight was high enough, either my iron was too low or my blood pressure was). I was specifically instructed to eat more red meat, more fatty foods, and more salt. Now that I'm in my mid-30s, my metabolism is slowing down a touch, so I try to eat less fatty foods now, but really, having this meal maybe 8 times a year isn't going to kill me.
And because I'm poly, my inability to really choose a "favorite" extends to food too!
Other Favorite Meal:
Ethiopian Meat Combo Platter. I first tried Ethiopian food in CA with corpsefairy, and since I didn't know what anything was when I first started eating Ethiopian food, I just got the combo platter so I could sample a few different things. I ended up liking everything on the plate, but couldn't remember what anything was called. So when I found the single Ethiopian restaurant in Orlando, I just ordered their version of the meat combo platter. Turns out, I like all 3 of the meats on the plate, so I *still* don't know what any of the item are because I just keep ordering the combo! But even the items from other people's plates that I've tried were good, even if I liked my meat combo better, so I'm happy to keep trying new items, but I'll probably always order the meat combo, wherever I go.
Plus, Ethiopian does really good vegetarian options (by "good", I mean "varied" - your subjective tastes my differ), so it makes it a very convenient place to go in a mixed carnivore-vegetarian company. datan0de and I both enjoy Ethiopian food so much, and so much *more* than the rest of the FLAN*, that it's become sort of an "us" thing, which gives the food very pleasant associations on top of the food being good. It's a great close-group activity, because the traditional method is to serve all the food on the same giant platter in the middle and everyone reaches in with their own bread, so you can really share food or try new dishes that way. I'm a big fan of the all-food-in-the-middle-and-everyone-shares-and-samples-a-bit-of-each method of group dining, but if anyone likes only 1 or 2 items, this is a great way to make sure he doesn't get enough of the food he wants & too much of the stuff he doesn't!
Favorite Special Occasion Meal:
Fondue. And not just any fondue. Decadent, 4-course meal fondue. My first exposure to fondue was in high school. I was a recovering anorexic and just learning how to enjoy the taste of food. There were very few things I liked, but I was determined to broaden my horizons and discover enough good-tasting food to keep me healthy. The problem was, my parents weren't very adventurous and my mother was constantly on a diet, so I had no idea where to start to *gain* weight or find taste-tempting foods to keep me interested in eating. My high school sweetheart came to the rescue. His family was in a much higher economic class than mine were, and his family enjoyed a variety of all the finest restaurants in the Bay Area. For some event, a birthday, I think, they invited me to La Fondue.
This is not a chain restaurant, it's a quirky little place nestled in the Santa Cruz mountains. Since we had a decent-sized party, we had the opportunity to get the meal with the largest variety of items. They started with a salad, then a cheese fondue. It had all the usual food for dipping in cheese - veggies, bread, pretzels, etc. But we got to choose 2 different cheeses. We had a cheddar with a beer base & something I don't remember because it was the cheddar I liked (the other was probably some kind of swiss & wine but who knows?). For the entree, they had 3 columns of meat, organized by how exotic it was, and we could choose 2 from each column. We had chicken, beef, teriyaki beef, wild turkey,ostrich, and buffalo. Yes, I remember that. The meat was boiled, not in oil, but in a rich vegetable broth, and then dipped in a variety of dipping sauces. And finally, the chocolate. Oh the chocolate! We had 2 chocolates, a milk chocolate with a Bailey's Irish Cream base, and a dark chocolate with some kind of fruit liqueur base that I don't remember because I liked the milk chocolate better. All the usual suspects were included for dipping: fruit, angel food cake, rice krispie treats, cookies, etc.
I instantly fell in love with La Fondue and we went back several times after that. Then, I learned how to make my own fondue and I began hosting fondue Superbowl parties using the same format as La Fondue - 2 cheeses, a cheddar & something else, exotic meat in vegetable broth, and 2 chocolates, a milk with Irish cream & a dark with a fruit liqueur. None of my set liked to watch sports, but we were all film students or cinema geeks or hipsters, so we enjoyed the commercials. Fondue was perfect for that. It was an all-day meal that we could prepare in the living room and only pay attention to the TV during the commercial breaks and then go back to conversation. The most recent fondue party I hosted, I discovered a fantastic Italian cheese fondue, consisting of mozzarella and provolone that I think will be going on my "regular cheese fondue" list.
I have eaten at the Melting Pot, a fondue chain, and I like it - a lot. But La Fondue is better. The chocolate fondue at Dante's Down The Hatch, in Atlanta has La Fondue beat in spread size & quality of their milk chocolate, but it's *only* chocolate, and only one *kind* of chocolate. Definitely worth going for, and I'd love to go again. But it's dessert. For a full fondue meal, La Fondue is an experience. I'll take Melting Pot, and it's not even a sacrifice. It only indicates just how awesome I think La Fondue is. I also like to prepare and host fondue parties, but they are incredibly expensive and very time-consuming with the prep & cleanup work. So, between the expense (both for hosting & for eating in the restaurants) and the fact that the top two places aren't local to me, fondue goes in the category of Special Occasion food.
Favorite Fast Food:
This has subcategories.
Burgers: My favorite fast-food burger is Jack In The Box kids burgers with Jack's Secret Sauce (basically a tangy version of Thousand Island dressing). Unfortunately, that is ALSO in CA, so I only eat there when I visit back home, roughly every 18-24 months nowadays. Here in FL, my next favorite fast-food burger is a Big Mac from McDonalds. It's the only burger I can even stand to have lettuce on, probably because it only barely qualifies as lettuce.
French Fries: My favorite fast-food french fries are Jack In The Box seasoned curly fries and, since I can't get those, McDonald's fries come second.
Overall Favorite Fast Food Restaurant: Jack In The Box is, in general, my favorite fast-food restaurant because I like their kids burger, curly fries, and milk shakes (they now have a blackberry shake that was really good!). My second-favorite would be McDonalds because I like their Big Macs and fries, and I also like their hamburger kids meals. Plus, they have a strawberry-banana smoothie that I have to remind myself not to get at the same time as a Big Mac because the two together are about a third of a normal person's entire caloric intake for the day, which means that I'm pretty full for the rest of the day. Wendy's is my third favorite because of the variety of food they offer. I like their jr. hamburger, their crispy chicken sandwich, their baked potato with cheese & broccoli, their chocolate and vanilla frostys, and their salads. None of it is quite the quality of the other two restaurants, but I have more than one meal there that I like to eat.
For non-burgers, I prefer Taco Bell and their Baja Chicken Chalupa and strawberry Fruitista. I also really like their crunchy taco, but I can really only fit either 1 chalupa or 2 tacos at any meal, especially if I get the Fruitista. I used to get 1 chalupa and one taco, but I felt overly full afterwards, so now it's one or the other. And yes, I prefer Taco Bell over Chipotle, Moe's, or Tijajuana Flats, although I'll take Chipotle over both Moes and TF if those are my only choices. Chipotle serves Izze drinks & their chicken fajita burrito bowl is large enough for 2 meals for me.
Fast-food chicken: I don't like any of them. Wendy's has the only chicken sandwich I like. KFC used to offer that same sandwich when I was a teenager, but they stopped before I graduated high school. So no Popeye's, no Chik-Fil-A, no KFC, nothing. That makes my boycott of Chik-Fil-A for their overt pro-religious policy, anti-gay policy, & financial contributions to the anti-gay-marriage movement easy.
Pizza: I prefer Little Ceasar's to any other pizza. Fortunately, it's also the cheapest, with gigantic "large" cheese and pepperoni pizzas at only $5 that are guaranteed to be hot and ready when you order. I only like pepperoni, so this is convenient. I don't like deep dish pizzas - that much dough just seems to make all that grease sit poorly in my stomach, but it doesn't bother me with a thin crust. The difficulty with thin crust, however, is that most places make it too crispy, or, in their effort *not* to crisp the crust, it comes out under-cooked. But I like the quality of Little Ceasar's dough, and I like the taste of both their sauce and their cheese. Domino's is a close second, and since they deliver but Little Ceasar's doesn't, I will often be willing to pay the higher price for Domino's even though I like Little Ceasar's a tad better. But the only brand of pizza I refuse to eat is Hungry Howie's. The first time I tried it, it was so greasy and so thick-doughed, that I actually got sick and haven't been able to even look at it since.
"Ethnic" Foods:
Technically, Ethiopian qualifies as "ethnic" since it's definitely not American, whereas places like Taco Bell and Chipotle are Americanized versions of Mexican food. But Ethiopian is such a high favorite, that it really goes under the Favorites heading. This is more of a list of specific dishes that I like from certain styles of food regardless of which restaurant they come from.
Indian: chicken tikka masala and rice. This is what I order at every Indian restaurant, and I even get it as a frozen meal from a brand, I think, called Ethnic Foods. There are a few other dishes I've tried & liked, including some sort of ball of dough with spicy stuff inside, but this is "my" dish.
Asian: chicken teriyaki or beef and broccoli. Doesn't matter where I go, I get one or the other. Almost all of the various Asian styles have some version of one or the other - Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. If they don't, I get whatever is closest. There's an Asian food restaurant in Tampa that datan0de and femetal really like that doesn't have either one of these or some variation, and there I get some dish that is basically a chicken cooked in a clay pot. Mongolian beef is another runner-up if they don't have one of the two preferred.
Sushi: chicken teriyaki. Seriously. I don't like sushi. I don't like seafood at all. I don't like fish, I don't like crustaceans, I don't like seaweed, I don't like anything that comes directly out of the ocean. I either don't like the taste or I don't like the texture. I keep trying them, though, and I hope, one day, I will like something. I used to eat tuna sandwiches as a kid, and fish sticks, and salmon, but mostly because my mother made me. My distaste for them grew as I got older, although I'm pretty sure I actively liked that stuff when I was very young.
The last time I had seafood (as in, I ordered it, not just tried a bite hoping my tastes had changed), I had a heavily breaded salmon smothered in melted cheese. I hoped, correctly, that the fried breading & cheese would overpower the fishy taste & I'd be able to eat it. I got about halfway through it before the texture made me gag and I had to stop. Very recently, I was able to eat 3 fried popcorn shrimp before gagging, and considering the last time I tried I couldn't even keep a single mouthful down, I consider that a roaring success.
So when it comes to raw seafood, I just can't. I've even tried the vegetarian sushi - the stuff that's basically nothing more than rice & veggies wrapped in seaweed, and I just didn't like it. It was the seaweed. If I could pick the whole roll apart and separate the innards from the wrap, I can eat it, but by that point, why bother having sushi?
Vegetarian: this isn't "ethnic", but I couldn't think of where else to put it since it's not fast food and it's not the top favorite. I absolutely love the vegan "fluffernutter" sandwich at Dandelion Cafe & Tea House. Although I'm a pretty solid omnivore, heavy on the carnivore, I do enjoy the taste of some vegan and vegetarian foods. I just can't live on that diet, but I don't need meat in every meal. Their "fluffernutter" is a vegan version of a peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, and banana sandwich. In their case, it's almond butter, rice-mallow fluff, and either apples or bananas, depending on the day, season, or who's making it, all served on toasted bread (I get toasted sourdough). It's sticky and messy and sweet and oh-so delicious.
Drinks:
My favorite drink is Izze brand carbonated fruit juice. It is 70% pure fruit juice with no additional sugar or anything else added, and 30% pure carbonated water. That's it. Caffeine-free, no artificial sweetners or colors, just carbonation (which I hear is bad for the teeth, but haven't verified) and a ton of natural sugar from the fruit. My favorite flavors are pomegranate, apple, peach, blackberry, and clementine. I also discovered that I don't much care for Izze ginger, EXCEPT when I'm eating chicken tikka masala - and then it's the perfect complement!
When I can't get my hands on Izze, I often make my own mixing any brand of 100% fruit juice and seltzer water. My favorite was Welch's pomegranate & white grape, but I can't seem to find that anymore. Now I typically use whatever comes closest to "wild berry mix".
When I'm at a restaurant or somewhere that I have to choose from soda, my favorite is any brand of root beer that isn't Barq's (that has caffeine & I don't take any caffeine), followed by any brand of orange or strawberry soda (that isn't Sunkist brand, that also has caffeine), followed finally by any brand of lemon-lime type soda like Sprite or 7-Up. I do not drink cola of any brand, I do not drink tea, and I do not drink coffee, even caffeine-free (although when I first gave up caffeinated drinks, I used to like caffeine-free Pepsi, as it was the closest in taste to its caffeinated version of any of the brands). Because of my caffeine-free requirements, and because it started relatively young, I never developed a taste for coffee or tea, and it has been so many years since I had cola on a regular basis that I lost the taste for it that I used to have. I only drink water when dehydrated & there is nothing else or the other options have so much sugar that it makes my mouth feel sticky because of the dehydration.
I love strawberry lemonade if it uses real strawberry chunks, although I really dislike plain lemonade. Technically, milkshakes, smoothies, & fruitistas fall under "drinks", although they can arguably be called "dessert" too. I like chocolate & vanilla milkshakes pretty much from anywhere, but I don't like malted shakes. I like strawberry-banana smoothies best, but I will occasionally have a wild-berry smoothie, and my favorite brand of smoothie is the Smoothie King Angel Food (strawberry-banana) and my second-favorite is McDonald's strawberry-banana smoothie, but I have yet to meet a brand of smoothie I didn't like - they're kind of like pizza in that regard. I LOVE the Strawberries And Cream Fruitista from Taco Bell, but that appears to be a seasonal item and not often available. Their regular Strawberry Fruitista is a pretty good second choice.
Snacks:
Ruffles Reduced Fat potato chips and my bacon-onion-ranch dip made with light sour cream. I can eat a whole tub of this myself (over 2 or 3 days).
Tostitos tortilla chips and mild Tostitos queso sauce.
Doritos and reduced-fat Pringles.
Gluten-free pretzels. I have no gluten issues, I just like how they taste better than regular pretzels.
My Jell-O Salad - lime jello, cottage cheese, cool whip, mandarin oranges, and pineapple tidbits.
Girl Scout cookies - Samoas, Thank U Berry Munch, Dulce de Leches
Lowry's Beef Jerky - the only kind of beef jerky I like. It's heavily processed like a Slim Jim, but it's flat, not round. It has a different texture too, which is the main problem I have with Slim Jims. Regular beef jerky is also way too dry. I vaguely remember a guy in my hometown that would come into the office where I worked and give us free bags of his jerky. He was just starting up his own jerky company and it was the best damn jerky I'd ever had! More like regular jerky where it was strips and chunks of dried meat and not processed strips or tubes, but it was so very moist and flavorful. I think he called himself the Jerky Guy and there is a place like that online, but I'm not positive it's the same guy. Right time-frame though. At any rate, this is a staple in my Gig Box - my box of storable food & miscellaneous items that I keep in my car for work and emergencies.
Desserts:
Oh, there are so many! My all-time favorite is vanilla bean ice cream with chocolate syrup, all stirred & mixed together like soft-serve ice cream. In addition to it being tasty, I have very strong associations with that. My dad has OCD, and he can't go to bed without his bowl of ice cream. When I was a kid, it was just like this. I was a daddy's girl as a kid, so he and I would have our proportionally-sized bowls of ice cream and watch a movie or TV show together every night, driving my mother crazy with our stirring and spoons scraping the bowl. I like quite a few ice creams, but this is my favorite. My second favorite is vanilla and orange sherbert swirl.
I like almost anything strawberry based, except strawberry ice cream. I especially like Strawberry Shortcake and NY cheesecake with strawberry topping. My birthday cake every year as a kid was always a white cake with fresh strawberry filling and whipped cream icing (hard to get since my birthday is in January). I also really like the seasonal strawberry-banana cake at Dessert Lady.
Speaking of Dessert Lady, her carrot cake is to die for! I don't like carrot cake, but I LOVE her carrot cake. No matter what I order when I'm there, I always get her carrot cake to go and have it for breakfast for the next two days.
Cinnabon cinnamon rolls. They're just better than any other cinnamon roll.
Apple-cinnamon type desserts are also high on the list - cobblers and the like. I don't have a specific brand or type, I just really like the apple-cinnamon combination, particularly when paired with some kind of dessert bread product like a pie crust.
Stuff I Really Don't Like:
Pork. Of any kind. I don't like ham, don't like bacon, don't like pork rinds, don't like pulled pork. I just don't like it. It's the texture, mostly. I'll swallow a couple of bites to be polite, like at a family Easter dinner, but I *really* don't want to.
Seafood. I already explained this one above.
Milk. I love milk products, like cheese and ice cream and milkshakes. And I'll have cereal with milk and I'll even drink the leftover milk in the bowl. But I do not like straight milk. I suspect that I'm actually mildly lactose intolerant, but I've never been tested for it or diagnosed. I have had bowel problems consistent with lactose intolerance since I was an infant, but it's never been severe enough to make me give up the milk products that I like. I just don't drink straight milk because I don't like the taste. It leaves an odd aftertaste in my mouth and makes my mouth and throat all phlegmy - and it's not because the milk was bad either. All milk does that to me except Lactaid, so I'll often have a carton of that in the fridge for the rare occasion that I need milk for something like cereal or a recipe.
Black licorice. Really hate it. This includes black jellybeans.
Anything burnt. I have to scrape the burnt off my toast, off grilled foods, off toasted marshmallows.
Chicken skin. It's the texture. It's slimy and I can't eat it.
Fat. Same reason, the slimy texture makes me nauseated.
That's all I'm coming up with for now, but I'll try to remember to update this if I think of anything else.
* zensidhe & femetal only thought it was OK - they'll eat there, but it's not their preference. redheadlass liked it, but the food is eaten without silverware, using chunks of flat, spongey bread to scoop up the food, and that breaks her low-carb diet.