100 things to eat before you die
i think frayed_yak posted a link to this over on the faceblog. i’m not sure its the same list, but i think it will work for the purposes of writing this food blog. Gab said he got like 85 or something. so lets see if i can top it. i wonder here just how many of these things i have eaten ...
the last time i had ABALONE was with srockhop at a fave sushi place of hers in L.A., it was fabulous (1) ... so, Amanda, there wasnt any ABSINTHE in those sazeracs at that party where i gashed my hand open on an oyster and made a bloody mess, was there? Oh, there was (2) ... oddly enuf, the cajun place near my offices at the worst job ever in Steamboat Springs had a delicious ALLIGATOR sausage on the menu (3) ... BABA GHANOUSH is yet more proof that eggplant sucks (4) ... i know its a New York thing, but a BAGEL & LOX made with Pacific Northwest salmon puts it to shame (5) ... i want to say it was esdscrabble who made BAKLAVA for a scrabble event of some sort recently (6) ... i like my BBQ RIBS with a St. Louis cut, slow-cooked for about 6½ hours and slathered in North Carolina-style vinegar sauce (7) ... i drank a BELLINI after a 5-course dinner at a Venetian restaurant called something like “Two Sisters and their Husbands,” in which the sisters worked the room and basically said things like, “so, you’re having potatoes, yes?” and left your table before you could answer, then came back and heaped the potatoes and more pasta on your plate before you could refuse. not that you would ever want to, of course (8) ... i gotta be honest here, BIRDS NEST SOUP was OK, but didnt really excite me all that much (9) ... the best BISCUITS & GRAVY i ever had was in a diner down some lost highway in West Texas. and i also had to help my fellow traveler finish their enormous chicken fried steak, because not only are you considered a rank degenerate if you traverse Texas without eating one, youre also considered a rank degenerate if you dont finish it (10) ... i dont mind BLACK PUDDING but when we went to that Argentine place in San Diego with nagekinoki et. al and were served those enormous trays of meat, i seemed to be the only one eating the blood sausage (11) ... the novelty of the BLACK TRUFFLE wore off pretty fast when i spent 2 weeks in Spoleto, because they grow like weeds there and the Umbrians put black truffle on everything (12) ... the wife of my Russian professor in college made the best BORSCHT ever and he also had a Russian scrabble set at his house (13) ... my favourite way to eat CALAMARI is Basque-style, stuffed with sausage and cheeses and served as tapas (14) ... yes, i have tried CARP, as a U.W. grad student brought it to my house in the “Stump the Chef” challenge. i grilled it but cant remember what the hell kind of sauce i made, and some of the other fishes were considerably more tasty (15) ... i know the Black Sea ossetra is supposed to be all that, but the CAVIAR i’ve had here locally, from the sturgeon in the Sacramento delta, is really pretty good (16) ... at some point in life, you will own a CHEESE FONDUE pot, so just accept (17) ... there used to be a burger joint in Duc Loi, but its been replaced a guy making CHICKEN & WAFFLES and i hope they’re as good as the ones that i had at Roscoe’s (18) ... it goes without saying that the sleazy Indian joints in San Francisco make a badass CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA (19) ... anyone at last summer’s xpmorgan memorial scrabble shindig can attest to my prowess at making CHILE RELLENOS (20) ... CHITLINS. uh, yeah. i’m OK with tripe, but chitlins were, uh, yeah (21) ... c’mon, i live in the Mission, which is the Latin American neighborhood, and you cant go 2 blocks without seeing someone selling CHURROS (22) ... CLAM CHOWDER in a bread bowl is kind of a cliché in this town, but there is something to the idea of edible dishware (23) ... at my sister’s wedding, my brother-in-law’s father brought a bottle of 54-year-old COGNAC, and when i suggested that instead of having a glass of that, we should have 6 glasses of 9-year-old cognac instead, he agreed with my “wonderful sense of mathematics” (24) ... CRAB CAKES? uh, hello, i am from the state where Dugneness crabs get their name is my GF is from Maryland (25) ... i am sorry. i have not and will not eat crickets. never, never, ever (25/26) ... aha, so the maker of this list thought they could trip me up by sticking CURRYWURST on here! little do they know that i found a spectacular currywurst stand in Leverkusen, which was about the only highlight of being in Leverkusen, even though it wasnt a terrible place by any means, but we were on a hitchhiking trip and finding a ride in Leverkusen proved surprisingly tough to come by (26/27) ... DANDELION WINE was disgusting, saved only by the fact that it was, you know, wine (27/28) ... there used to be this great Central American place down the street that made an amazing DULCE DE LECHE, but the place was starcrossed and it closed after the chef/owner was killed in a fight over something stupid like a parking space (28/29) ... sure, DURIAN does taste pretty good, but why waste your time with something that smells so bad when there are a bazillion things that taste good that arent so rank? (29/30) ... i like all sorts of EEL be it Unagi sushi or the really good smoked stuff from the Netherlands (30/31) ... the last time i ate EGGS BENEDICT was in Hawaii, in fact, as a sunday brunch in the Kona Hilton. i dont really like it that much, but it was a sunday brunch overlooking the Pacific and it was free so i ate that and all the seafood and about half the banquet room (31/32) ... FISH TACOS are haute cuisine in San Diego, which all of you will discover when you come to ¡EL SDO DOS! at the end of the month. and you are coming. so lets not discuss it further (32/33) ... i admit it, i liked FOIE GRAS i feel shame. OK, i’m over it (33/34) ... i could eat the FRESH SPRING ROLLS at The Slanted Door every day and i would die with a look of deep satisfaction on my face (34/35) ... i used to go to Catfish Corner in Seattle for FRIED CATFISH and hushpuppies, and it was always about the most popular kiosk at the Bite of Seattle (35/36) ... i’ve had FRIED GREEN TOMATOES at a number of southern-style eateries, and always been indifferent to them (36/37) ... the starcrossed Central American place i mentioned before was called Platanos and they served plantains with everything, including FRIED PLANTAINS on the side (37/38) ... one helping of FRITO PIE was all i will ever need in this lifetime (38/39) ... i will not eat frogs legs. i like frogs, and while i a have a love/eat relationship with other things, it doesnt extend to frogs (38/40) ... and i wont eat fugu because this is list is not called 100 Things to Die From After Eating (38/41) ... i remember i had a really good FUNNEL CAKE at Magic Mountain once, and given my fear of heights, it was amazing i didnt barf it up after going on all of the roller coasters (39/42) ... along with Chile Rellenos, i also made GAZPACHO for the last shindig. and it ruled (40/43) ... live blogging GOAT curry was one of the highlights of my food blogging career (41/44) ... my first thought upon trying GOATS MILK was that it seemed like a waste of good source material for making cheese (42/45) ... the first time i lived in San Francisco, which was in the 1970s, i remember going to a Hungarian restaurant with my mother, and my 7-year-old brain thought GOULASH was the best thing ever. i may have been onto something (43/46) ... GUMBO is proof that something as slimy and disgusting as okra can actually taste pretty divine (44/47) ... some of you might remember this post i made back on April Fools Day in 2010. trust me, it tasted as bad as it looks. i dont ever need to make HAGGIS because i had it once and it is on my list of the 10 worst foods i have ever eaten (45/48) ... HEAD CHEESE is another dish that i wasnt crazy about, but it wasnt terrible. it just wasnt good (46/49) ... fortunately, i live in an area where HEIRLOOM TOMATOES are readily available, albeit outside the range of my meager budget much of the time (47/50) ... mmm, HONEYCOMB, want. tasty. give to me. (48/51) ... i remember vending machines with HOSTESS FRUIT PIES in them, but for some reason, whenever i went to get one, the only flavour left was the stupid apple ones. more bitter memories from my jaded youth (49/52) ... short of a burger and a bloody mary, the best hangover cure i know of is HUEVOS RANCHEROS served up with some chorizo hash (50/53) ... for a heat freak such as myself JERK CHICKEN really is nuts-and-bolts. you dont deserve to cook with the habañero until you learn to master the Jerk (51/54) ... i suppose if i ever get to Australia, i will give kangaroo a try (51/55) ... if i ask really nicely, perhaps The Fabulous Baker Babe will make one of my fave desserts, which is KEY LIME PIE (52/56) ... the most recent encounter with KOBE BEEF was memorable, as Mary Stevens BBQ’d a Kobe Beef Brisket! it was so good, it verged on being evil (53/57) ... when i first started trying various Indian foods, i had a vindaloo that was fiendishly spicy. it was at this point that i learned to love the LASSI (54/58) ... in 1992, i went to a wedding in Portland, Maine, and our hosts took us to some roadhouse, and i was stunned by the fact that a) you could get 3 LOBSTERS for $12.99, and b) that, to a person, the entire family of lifelong Mainiacs said to us “i dont really like lobster that much.” (55/59) ... nothing says Hawaii to me quite like sitting on the lanai at sunset drinking a MIMOSA (56/60) ... i dont much care for the MOON PIE because i think marshmallows are gross (57/61) ... we have sautéed expensive mushrooms every year as a side dish for XKCP Thanksgiving Eve, and MORELS are usually among the fungi soaking up all that tabasco-butter goodness (58/62) ... i have no interest in NETTLE TEA. i am generally disinterested in tea, as it contains no coffee (58/63) ... i always have interest in OCTOPUS, however, as tako is a fave sushi choice (59/64) ... and anyone who has read this blog knows how much i extoll the virtues of the OXTAIL, which makes a great SOUP, stew, and the most stunningly good gravy i’ve ever had (60/65) ... my greatest stories of my days hobbling around Europe with a broken ankle all center on Barcelona, where a restaurateur nicknamed Fat José took pity on me and fed me PAELLA. he spoke no English and i spoke no Catalan, but we both spoke basketball so we understood every word (61/66) ... Palak PANEER is one of my go-to veggie dishes of choice at Indian joints (62/67) ... its when you order a PASTRAMI ON RYE and they bring you a sandwich that is so packed with pastrami that it cant even stand upright that you know you’re having a really good day (63/68) ... i am not a big meringue person, so a PAVLOVA isnt gonna excite me that much, especially if you put strawberries on top because everyone whose name rhymes with Bonrad Cassett-Couchard knows that i hate strawberries (64/69) ... now, see a PHAAL is another curveball on this list, since it actually originated in the UK and not India, which means you dont see this as much on restaurant menus here in the states. but the eating of phaal in London was usually carried out by Brits who wanted to prove to me they werent wimps, since the stuff is often brutally spicy. or at least it was brutally spicy to them. i would shrug and eat what was left when they couldnt finish it (65/70) ... i make a masterful PHILLY CHEESE STEAK. your onions are the key (66/71) ... once i discovered Turtle Tower, which served bowls of PHO the size of your head for a price so cheap it makes you feel guilty, then living in the Tenderloin dramatically improved (67/72) ... see, now the next one is weird. pineapple & cottage cheese? really? what is a must eat about that? i dont get that one. (67/73) ... i pretty much hate nuts because of the texture of them, but the flavours are OK, so i am down with PISTACHIO ICE CREAM (68/74) ... i havent made a PO’BOY in a while now. WTF is wrong with me? (69/75) ... my good college pal Mark Suzuki used to bring us POCKY, which we liked. he also used to bring us shrimp chips and seaweed, which we didnt (70/76) ... i am still waiting to be convinced that POLENTA is really great eating. its just boring to me, and i’ve tried it like 20 different ways (71/77) ... i have a love/hate relationship with cacti, the hate coming from the fact that they are mean evil plants that try to kill you, the love being because they look cool and do things like produce PRICKLY PEARS which are really a treat if youre a fruit fanatic like me (72/78) ... i had a really good RABBIT STEW on a weeklong trip to Scotland. it brought the total number of good meals i had had in Scotland up to one (73/79) ... i once ate 44 RAW OYSTERS at La Coupole, a famous seafood place in Paris. and i couldve eaten more, actually. the waiters were aghast (74/80) ... one of the things i used to like to do as a kid was see the vanilla ice cream and a can of A&W from the fridge and make my own ROOT BEER FLOAT (75/81) ... my loathing of marshmallows makes it hard for me to enjoy S’MORES (76/82) ... but my love of vinegar makes it easy for me to enjoy a good SAUERKRAUT especially atop a quality hot dog, which is one of eating’s finest guilty pleasures (77/83) ... and i dont care what anyone tells me, i’ve had SEA URCHIN many times at sushi places and i think it sucks (78/84) ... there was an exotic seafood place not far from my house in Seattle which would occasionally have SHARK, which i very much enjoyed. it was sort of odd enjoying eating a fish that i know would have enjoyed eating me. (79/85) ... hell, with the amount of garlic you use in escargot, anything will taste good, so why would SNAIL be any different? (80/86) ... actually, in Colorado, the making of a fine rattleSNAKE chile is sort of a signature dish (81/87) ... when we drive to ¡EL SDO DOS! at the end of the month, i just might have to get another of those yummy SOFT SHELL CRAB sandwiches in Pismo Beach, which we get at the seafood place that also serves this (82/88) ... SOM TAM aka Green Papaya Salad, is a really great dish that i dont seem to ever eat (83/89) ... amazingly, i actually made SPÄTZLE once. it was a pain in the ass (84/90) ... i concluded after one bite that nothing good could ever come from the eating of SPAM (85/91) ... i am not eating squirrel. ever (85/92) ... STEAK TARTARE, much like other raw beef dishes such as carpaccio and kitfo, is stunningly good when prepared well (86/93) ... i like more vegetables than people think, but the whole yam realm doesnt work for me. even so, i was willing to give SWEET POTATO FRIES a go, since they’re, like, fried. alas, it still didnt work for me. (87/94) ... the Basque version of SWEETBREADS is really the best way to eat it. then again, the Basque version of almost everything is the best way to eat it (88/95) ... my introduction to Thai food was TOM YUM which i liked, after which i had some noodle dish that made my head nearly explode, but i liked that as well (89/96) ... i havent had umiboshe before (89/97) ... good VENISON is the best steak imaginable. bad venison is that slimy, barely smoked reindeer meat i had alongside ludefisk and gjetost in Seattle once, which is the single worst meal of all time (90/98) ... ooh, i like me some WASABI PEAS (91/99) ... and i specifically remember eating ZUCCHINI FLOWERS at The Herb Farm near Seattle, which was a super-expensive dinner to celebrate some god damn thing related to my ex-wife which i cannot remember, but i do remember the dinner had zucchini flowers and was pretty wonderful. (92/100)
so thats 92 altogether. next time, i think i am gonna need a bigger list.
food is life. live to eat.
the last time i had ABALONE was with srockhop at a fave sushi place of hers in L.A., it was fabulous (1) ... so, Amanda, there wasnt any ABSINTHE in those sazeracs at that party where i gashed my hand open on an oyster and made a bloody mess, was there? Oh, there was (2) ... oddly enuf, the cajun place near my offices at the worst job ever in Steamboat Springs had a delicious ALLIGATOR sausage on the menu (3) ... BABA GHANOUSH is yet more proof that eggplant sucks (4) ... i know its a New York thing, but a BAGEL & LOX made with Pacific Northwest salmon puts it to shame (5) ... i want to say it was esdscrabble who made BAKLAVA for a scrabble event of some sort recently (6) ... i like my BBQ RIBS with a St. Louis cut, slow-cooked for about 6½ hours and slathered in North Carolina-style vinegar sauce (7) ... i drank a BELLINI after a 5-course dinner at a Venetian restaurant called something like “Two Sisters and their Husbands,” in which the sisters worked the room and basically said things like, “so, you’re having potatoes, yes?” and left your table before you could answer, then came back and heaped the potatoes and more pasta on your plate before you could refuse. not that you would ever want to, of course (8) ... i gotta be honest here, BIRDS NEST SOUP was OK, but didnt really excite me all that much (9) ... the best BISCUITS & GRAVY i ever had was in a diner down some lost highway in West Texas. and i also had to help my fellow traveler finish their enormous chicken fried steak, because not only are you considered a rank degenerate if you traverse Texas without eating one, youre also considered a rank degenerate if you dont finish it (10) ... i dont mind BLACK PUDDING but when we went to that Argentine place in San Diego with nagekinoki et. al and were served those enormous trays of meat, i seemed to be the only one eating the blood sausage (11) ... the novelty of the BLACK TRUFFLE wore off pretty fast when i spent 2 weeks in Spoleto, because they grow like weeds there and the Umbrians put black truffle on everything (12) ... the wife of my Russian professor in college made the best BORSCHT ever and he also had a Russian scrabble set at his house (13) ... my favourite way to eat CALAMARI is Basque-style, stuffed with sausage and cheeses and served as tapas (14) ... yes, i have tried CARP, as a U.W. grad student brought it to my house in the “Stump the Chef” challenge. i grilled it but cant remember what the hell kind of sauce i made, and some of the other fishes were considerably more tasty (15) ... i know the Black Sea ossetra is supposed to be all that, but the CAVIAR i’ve had here locally, from the sturgeon in the Sacramento delta, is really pretty good (16) ... at some point in life, you will own a CHEESE FONDUE pot, so just accept (17) ... there used to be a burger joint in Duc Loi, but its been replaced a guy making CHICKEN & WAFFLES and i hope they’re as good as the ones that i had at Roscoe’s (18) ... it goes without saying that the sleazy Indian joints in San Francisco make a badass CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA (19) ... anyone at last summer’s xpmorgan memorial scrabble shindig can attest to my prowess at making CHILE RELLENOS (20) ... CHITLINS. uh, yeah. i’m OK with tripe, but chitlins were, uh, yeah (21) ... c’mon, i live in the Mission, which is the Latin American neighborhood, and you cant go 2 blocks without seeing someone selling CHURROS (22) ... CLAM CHOWDER in a bread bowl is kind of a cliché in this town, but there is something to the idea of edible dishware (23) ... at my sister’s wedding, my brother-in-law’s father brought a bottle of 54-year-old COGNAC, and when i suggested that instead of having a glass of that, we should have 6 glasses of 9-year-old cognac instead, he agreed with my “wonderful sense of mathematics” (24) ... CRAB CAKES? uh, hello, i am from the state where Dugneness crabs get their name is my GF is from Maryland (25) ... i am sorry. i have not and will not eat crickets. never, never, ever (25/26) ... aha, so the maker of this list thought they could trip me up by sticking CURRYWURST on here! little do they know that i found a spectacular currywurst stand in Leverkusen, which was about the only highlight of being in Leverkusen, even though it wasnt a terrible place by any means, but we were on a hitchhiking trip and finding a ride in Leverkusen proved surprisingly tough to come by (26/27) ... DANDELION WINE was disgusting, saved only by the fact that it was, you know, wine (27/28) ... there used to be this great Central American place down the street that made an amazing DULCE DE LECHE, but the place was starcrossed and it closed after the chef/owner was killed in a fight over something stupid like a parking space (28/29) ... sure, DURIAN does taste pretty good, but why waste your time with something that smells so bad when there are a bazillion things that taste good that arent so rank? (29/30) ... i like all sorts of EEL be it Unagi sushi or the really good smoked stuff from the Netherlands (30/31) ... the last time i ate EGGS BENEDICT was in Hawaii, in fact, as a sunday brunch in the Kona Hilton. i dont really like it that much, but it was a sunday brunch overlooking the Pacific and it was free so i ate that and all the seafood and about half the banquet room (31/32) ... FISH TACOS are haute cuisine in San Diego, which all of you will discover when you come to ¡EL SDO DOS! at the end of the month. and you are coming. so lets not discuss it further (32/33) ... i admit it, i liked FOIE GRAS i feel shame. OK, i’m over it (33/34) ... i could eat the FRESH SPRING ROLLS at The Slanted Door every day and i would die with a look of deep satisfaction on my face (34/35) ... i used to go to Catfish Corner in Seattle for FRIED CATFISH and hushpuppies, and it was always about the most popular kiosk at the Bite of Seattle (35/36) ... i’ve had FRIED GREEN TOMATOES at a number of southern-style eateries, and always been indifferent to them (36/37) ... the starcrossed Central American place i mentioned before was called Platanos and they served plantains with everything, including FRIED PLANTAINS on the side (37/38) ... one helping of FRITO PIE was all i will ever need in this lifetime (38/39) ... i will not eat frogs legs. i like frogs, and while i a have a love/eat relationship with other things, it doesnt extend to frogs (38/40) ... and i wont eat fugu because this is list is not called 100 Things to Die From After Eating (38/41) ... i remember i had a really good FUNNEL CAKE at Magic Mountain once, and given my fear of heights, it was amazing i didnt barf it up after going on all of the roller coasters (39/42) ... along with Chile Rellenos, i also made GAZPACHO for the last shindig. and it ruled (40/43) ... live blogging GOAT curry was one of the highlights of my food blogging career (41/44) ... my first thought upon trying GOATS MILK was that it seemed like a waste of good source material for making cheese (42/45) ... the first time i lived in San Francisco, which was in the 1970s, i remember going to a Hungarian restaurant with my mother, and my 7-year-old brain thought GOULASH was the best thing ever. i may have been onto something (43/46) ... GUMBO is proof that something as slimy and disgusting as okra can actually taste pretty divine (44/47) ... some of you might remember this post i made back on April Fools Day in 2010. trust me, it tasted as bad as it looks. i dont ever need to make HAGGIS because i had it once and it is on my list of the 10 worst foods i have ever eaten (45/48) ... HEAD CHEESE is another dish that i wasnt crazy about, but it wasnt terrible. it just wasnt good (46/49) ... fortunately, i live in an area where HEIRLOOM TOMATOES are readily available, albeit outside the range of my meager budget much of the time (47/50) ... mmm, HONEYCOMB, want. tasty. give to me. (48/51) ... i remember vending machines with HOSTESS FRUIT PIES in them, but for some reason, whenever i went to get one, the only flavour left was the stupid apple ones. more bitter memories from my jaded youth (49/52) ... short of a burger and a bloody mary, the best hangover cure i know of is HUEVOS RANCHEROS served up with some chorizo hash (50/53) ... for a heat freak such as myself JERK CHICKEN really is nuts-and-bolts. you dont deserve to cook with the habañero until you learn to master the Jerk (51/54) ... i suppose if i ever get to Australia, i will give kangaroo a try (51/55) ... if i ask really nicely, perhaps The Fabulous Baker Babe will make one of my fave desserts, which is KEY LIME PIE (52/56) ... the most recent encounter with KOBE BEEF was memorable, as Mary Stevens BBQ’d a Kobe Beef Brisket! it was so good, it verged on being evil (53/57) ... when i first started trying various Indian foods, i had a vindaloo that was fiendishly spicy. it was at this point that i learned to love the LASSI (54/58) ... in 1992, i went to a wedding in Portland, Maine, and our hosts took us to some roadhouse, and i was stunned by the fact that a) you could get 3 LOBSTERS for $12.99, and b) that, to a person, the entire family of lifelong Mainiacs said to us “i dont really like lobster that much.” (55/59) ... nothing says Hawaii to me quite like sitting on the lanai at sunset drinking a MIMOSA (56/60) ... i dont much care for the MOON PIE because i think marshmallows are gross (57/61) ... we have sautéed expensive mushrooms every year as a side dish for XKCP Thanksgiving Eve, and MORELS are usually among the fungi soaking up all that tabasco-butter goodness (58/62) ... i have no interest in NETTLE TEA. i am generally disinterested in tea, as it contains no coffee (58/63) ... i always have interest in OCTOPUS, however, as tako is a fave sushi choice (59/64) ... and anyone who has read this blog knows how much i extoll the virtues of the OXTAIL, which makes a great SOUP, stew, and the most stunningly good gravy i’ve ever had (60/65) ... my greatest stories of my days hobbling around Europe with a broken ankle all center on Barcelona, where a restaurateur nicknamed Fat José took pity on me and fed me PAELLA. he spoke no English and i spoke no Catalan, but we both spoke basketball so we understood every word (61/66) ... Palak PANEER is one of my go-to veggie dishes of choice at Indian joints (62/67) ... its when you order a PASTRAMI ON RYE and they bring you a sandwich that is so packed with pastrami that it cant even stand upright that you know you’re having a really good day (63/68) ... i am not a big meringue person, so a PAVLOVA isnt gonna excite me that much, especially if you put strawberries on top because everyone whose name rhymes with Bonrad Cassett-Couchard knows that i hate strawberries (64/69) ... now, see a PHAAL is another curveball on this list, since it actually originated in the UK and not India, which means you dont see this as much on restaurant menus here in the states. but the eating of phaal in London was usually carried out by Brits who wanted to prove to me they werent wimps, since the stuff is often brutally spicy. or at least it was brutally spicy to them. i would shrug and eat what was left when they couldnt finish it (65/70) ... i make a masterful PHILLY CHEESE STEAK. your onions are the key (66/71) ... once i discovered Turtle Tower, which served bowls of PHO the size of your head for a price so cheap it makes you feel guilty, then living in the Tenderloin dramatically improved (67/72) ... see, now the next one is weird. pineapple & cottage cheese? really? what is a must eat about that? i dont get that one. (67/73) ... i pretty much hate nuts because of the texture of them, but the flavours are OK, so i am down with PISTACHIO ICE CREAM (68/74) ... i havent made a PO’BOY in a while now. WTF is wrong with me? (69/75) ... my good college pal Mark Suzuki used to bring us POCKY, which we liked. he also used to bring us shrimp chips and seaweed, which we didnt (70/76) ... i am still waiting to be convinced that POLENTA is really great eating. its just boring to me, and i’ve tried it like 20 different ways (71/77) ... i have a love/hate relationship with cacti, the hate coming from the fact that they are mean evil plants that try to kill you, the love being because they look cool and do things like produce PRICKLY PEARS which are really a treat if youre a fruit fanatic like me (72/78) ... i had a really good RABBIT STEW on a weeklong trip to Scotland. it brought the total number of good meals i had had in Scotland up to one (73/79) ... i once ate 44 RAW OYSTERS at La Coupole, a famous seafood place in Paris. and i couldve eaten more, actually. the waiters were aghast (74/80) ... one of the things i used to like to do as a kid was see the vanilla ice cream and a can of A&W from the fridge and make my own ROOT BEER FLOAT (75/81) ... my loathing of marshmallows makes it hard for me to enjoy S’MORES (76/82) ... but my love of vinegar makes it easy for me to enjoy a good SAUERKRAUT especially atop a quality hot dog, which is one of eating’s finest guilty pleasures (77/83) ... and i dont care what anyone tells me, i’ve had SEA URCHIN many times at sushi places and i think it sucks (78/84) ... there was an exotic seafood place not far from my house in Seattle which would occasionally have SHARK, which i very much enjoyed. it was sort of odd enjoying eating a fish that i know would have enjoyed eating me. (79/85) ... hell, with the amount of garlic you use in escargot, anything will taste good, so why would SNAIL be any different? (80/86) ... actually, in Colorado, the making of a fine rattleSNAKE chile is sort of a signature dish (81/87) ... when we drive to ¡EL SDO DOS! at the end of the month, i just might have to get another of those yummy SOFT SHELL CRAB sandwiches in Pismo Beach, which we get at the seafood place that also serves this (82/88) ... SOM TAM aka Green Papaya Salad, is a really great dish that i dont seem to ever eat (83/89) ... amazingly, i actually made SPÄTZLE once. it was a pain in the ass (84/90) ... i concluded after one bite that nothing good could ever come from the eating of SPAM (85/91) ... i am not eating squirrel. ever (85/92) ... STEAK TARTARE, much like other raw beef dishes such as carpaccio and kitfo, is stunningly good when prepared well (86/93) ... i like more vegetables than people think, but the whole yam realm doesnt work for me. even so, i was willing to give SWEET POTATO FRIES a go, since they’re, like, fried. alas, it still didnt work for me. (87/94) ... the Basque version of SWEETBREADS is really the best way to eat it. then again, the Basque version of almost everything is the best way to eat it (88/95) ... my introduction to Thai food was TOM YUM which i liked, after which i had some noodle dish that made my head nearly explode, but i liked that as well (89/96) ... i havent had umiboshe before (89/97) ... good VENISON is the best steak imaginable. bad venison is that slimy, barely smoked reindeer meat i had alongside ludefisk and gjetost in Seattle once, which is the single worst meal of all time (90/98) ... ooh, i like me some WASABI PEAS (91/99) ... and i specifically remember eating ZUCCHINI FLOWERS at The Herb Farm near Seattle, which was a super-expensive dinner to celebrate some god damn thing related to my ex-wife which i cannot remember, but i do remember the dinner had zucchini flowers and was pretty wonderful. (92/100)
so thats 92 altogether. next time, i think i am gonna need a bigger list.
food is life. live to eat.