Category: General

OK, so i finally watched the Project Runway finale last night. I’m not going to spoil anything, but i do have one general comment.
If fashion seems to think that hips need to be bigger, to the extent that we embrace and praise poufy bubble-shaped miniskirts and tailored pencil skirts that deliberately extend away from the waist under their own power, then perhaps we ought to consider standards of beauty that include girls who actually HAVE hips. Dang.
Also, I cannot abide the girl or the rest of her collection for even a second, but i grant Kenley the right to continue existing on the strength of that feathered wedding dress, knockoff or not.

My dining room smells like a pine forest with all those mushrooms lying around. It’s AWESOME.

Someone is awesome. Specifically, whichever someone sent me a subscription to meatpaper magazine. My husband denies responsibility, so whichever one of you did it, confess so that I can shower you with gratitude.
Heh.
(update: it was my brother. he is awesome.)

I just ran across this while poking through Just Bento and Just Hungry. I’m not sure it’s *exactly* the 100 foods I’d choose for such a list, but I’m too tired to think up my own list right now. And since it’s a slow blog week for me (tired, sick, cranky from traveling last week), I figured I’d share. And then count up how many of these 100 I’ve actually eaten. Hee.
From VGT:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth 60 pounds/120 dollars or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake
I have eaten all but 11 of these 100 foods. And of the 11, most of them are because I’ve not yet had the opportunity to try them: I would totally eat roadkill or horse or haggis if the opportunity presented itself. I have had bagna cauda on the brain for a while, ever since I read a lavishly photographed magazine feature about it. Epoisses is just a luck-of-the-draw failure; I’ve eaten so many exotic cheeses, but I’m pretty sure never an Epoisses. I’ve had expensive whiskeys, but never one quite so rich, so I guess that one’s a technicality. I’m on the fence about fugu, but I think if I really had the chance in a fine fugu-ya I guess I wouldn’t be able to pass it up.
And whole insects. Yeah. I am really not into insects, and I think that the little limbs would be grody grody grody, a worse texture experience than even chicken feet, but if it was a dare I’d probably do it.
But here’s the other really interesting thing. Of the 89 items that I *have* tried, a shocking number of them fall into my “holy crap, yummy” category. I am not fond of pistachio ice cream, especially industrial versions. Raw scotch bonnets are a little insane. Cognac I just can’t get into, not when there’s delicious bourbon I could be drinking instead, for much much cheaper. Sweetbreads are a little mushy, but they’re tasty enough; ditto for chitterlings, they’re a little funky but tasty enough. Absinthe I’m mostly meh about. Baijiu tasted like gasoline, but it was kind of fun anyway, or perhaps because of that.
So that’s 7 of 89 things that don’t totally float my boat, but the other 81: NOM NOM NOM NOM, bring me some more. Am I weird? Or just lucky enough to be both omnivore and widely-traveled? Either way, I like it.
Update: my dad claims I’ve eaten kaolin because he gave me Kaopectate as a child… not sure if that counts or not, but if so that puts me at a solid 90% of the list. Woot!

i just got back from swing dance camp, which was AWESOME. i danced all night on Sunday, straight through to breakfast at 7am, and didn’t sleep except for about an hour nap in the afternoon when I finally got home.
camp food kind of sucks, unfortunately, so nothing exciting to report in that department except:
– brownies with peanut butter smeared on top are delicious, and great dancing fuel
– barbecue potato chips are much more satisfying as a mid-dance fortification than sweets
– a dark chocolate zone bar and a thimbleful of coffee is enough to get you through two dance classes if you sleep through breakfast (though a cabinmate came up with the genius idea of bringing instant oatmeal packets and using the hot water for tea to make instant brekkies)
– thousand island salad dressing makes everything taste good

more animals

Too busy and disinclined to sit at the computer to finish my trip posts… i will try and do over the weekend, i promise. And until then, I want you all to know that Lawry’s Seasoned Salt is very very tasty when used in place of regular salt in swiss chard sauteed with olive oil and garlic. Yums.

I am happy to report that I took my tray of black raspberries and two tubs of skyr over to my friends V+A’s house for dinner, and that skyr slightly sweetened Icelandic style goes really really well with the berries. Whew.
2 tubs + 2-3 tablespoons of sugar was just about right for the 4 of us, and we just sprinkled big piles of berries onto the skyr. And it turns out that skyr is actually fat free, which is truly hard to believe, given the silky creaminess of it all. Skyr is available at my local Whole Foods, and probably at yours too.

Lots of girls struggle with their weight. Lots of girls have weird issues around food. I personally have always gone with the “ooh, look, yummy” approach instead.
And I was usually fine with that. The occasional tight skirt wouldn’t work out so well, but it was OK. Tallasiandude likes soft and squishy, so that was OK too. But yesterday I went to the doctor’s office, and they weigh you just as a matter of course, and standing there in a summer t-shirt and skirt, no shoes, I was 10 pounds over my highest weight ever, 35 over where I should be. And at that point I lost it.
I’d had an inkling it was coming, since reliable old favorites have stopped fitting of late, but the raw numerical proof was just the last straw. And the problem for me is, not only do I look like shit, not only am I clearly not in optimal health, but my diet isn’t actually *that* bad. I eat vegetables, whole grains, fruits and all that, far more than the average American.
And so i find myself staring down the barrel of having to make truly drastic changes in what I will eat, and more terrifyingly, what I won’t eat. I don’t want to be that girl who won’t have a chocolate, who won’t touch even one french fry. I don’t want food to become my enemy, ever — and I am scared shitless that it will.
Yesterday my parents brought me a big tray of gorgeous black raspberries, my favorite, and there’s way too many for us to eat them all fresh (the way they are best) before they spoil. My first instinct was, “Yay! I can make pie!” And then I realized that I really *can’t* make pie, not if i want to eat any of the berries myself. And that was when I started to cry.
This morning I woke up and ate a big bowl of the berries with some cottage cheese for breakfast. I’m planning on making some kind of berry fool with Icelandic skyr, which is supercreamy yet low in fat, and the thought of this plan has made me calmer. I’m still scared as hell, but maybe I will be able to make it work and still eat with the delight and wonder that I love so much.

The other day, it was hot and muggy and disgusting, and we went for dinner to the Korean/Japanese place here in town, Sushi Yasu. I ordered oshitashi (cold spinach with sesame), a bunch of nigiri, and “cold noodles,” confirmed by the waitress to be zarusoba, cold soba noodles with the most delicious dipping sauce known to humankind, and a perennial hot-weather favorite of mine.
But i think we had a language barrier situation, because instead of soba what arrived was mool naeng myun, the cleverest invention of Korean cookery: tasty noodles, tasty beef and egg, tasty julienned raw vegetables, in cold broth… WITH LOTS OF ICE CUBES.
I can’t think of any other food short of beverages that actually goes so far as to include the ice cubes in the food itself, thereby keeping it super cool and crisp so as to continually counteract the general icky sticky warmness of your being.