The Omnivore’s Hundred

Yum, food.  I think I’m missing 26.  Suspect I’ve eaten sweetbreads, but can’t actually remember. And actually, maybe Slice has had nettle tea before. 

Hm.

Funny how I’m missing stuff like “Big Mac Meal” or “hot dog from street vendor” though. 

Don’t particularly feel like hunting those down. 

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

The Omnivore’s Hundred

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 atwww.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

Here’s a chance for a little interactivity for all the bloggers out there. Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognise everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what I want you to do:

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/$120 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

 

Sleeping on plane flights

It’s an acquired skill. (As with any specialized task, certain key tools make all the difference. Here - good headphones, a hooded sweatshirt.)  There are certain destination points that it’s nice to acknowledge, or that you might miss out on, like snacks and “important” safety announcements. On the whole though, most would agree sleep is way more fun.

I was thinking this is kinda a funny metaphor for stuff. Even when I’m traveling with friends, I’d really rather not chitchat on the plane. It’s almost more painful, ya know? Leave me be in my cocoon of semi-sentient misery. Talking makes me aware of the unhappy plight I’m stuck in for the next __ hours.  I forget what I wanted this to be a metaphor for. Alas.

A weird bonus is the fact that it’s easier for me to sleep when I’m sick, so getting sick while traveling sometimes enables me to zonk out before we leave the runway.  Blissful dreamworld until it’s time for peanuts.

Oh yes! A metaphor for unintentionally sleeping to your destination, and missing the travel part of it.  I guess it all depends on your goals.  Want to live life to its dryball scraping static stale fullest?  Don’t sleep on your plane. :P  Want quality ’stead of quantity?  Slip on those noise canceling headphone and let the yakkers yak. (Sidenote: yak = throw up = talk incessantly.  Interesting).

Good food in Napa

Title says it all. Weekend of way too much good food, and some quality time w/ da fam.

Favorites?  

Such a difficult question, that. Actually, our group of four came to a surprising amount of consensus as to our favorites.  Favorite restaurant of the lot (lot = French Laundry, Ubuntu, Bistro Jeanty), was definitely Ubuntu.  The chef was also really really nice to us because of a friend ;). 

The dishes are maybe what you’re most interested in…my faves below.

Sorry for some fuzziness of pics, still trying to work out some disagreements with my new SLR :) 

Lavender sugar almonds, Ubuntu
Mushroom pizza w/ local egg, Ubuntu
Cheesecake in a jar, Ubuntu 

 

 

Pearls + Oysters (Caviar + Oyster + Tapioca), French Laundry
Uni on warm rice + Granny smith slices, French Laundry

 

 And some good tomato soup from Bistro Jeanty

 

 

Assorted goodness from Bouchon Bakery (the bouchons, unsurprisingly, are pretty darned good.) 

 

 

 

Imagination = empathy, per JK Rowling

I love people who can write. Rather, I love reading stuff written by people who can write.

(Thanks to Karen for the tip-off). 

Ladies and gents - JK Rowling on the importance of failure and imagination (as empathy).

Only flaw in her speech? The location. Duh. 

http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html

 

I’m gonna die

Ya know, I actually get sugary headaches, kinda, when I have too much sweet stuff.
Given the activities of this weekend, though (please don’t tell my mom), I think my descent into pre-diabetes just got a hefty shove.

But oh-so-yummy a shove. :)

Behold - the ugly remains of a custardy cherry-ey clafoutis. (Saturday).
And the pristine smoothness of a yet-to-be-torched peppermint-chocolate creme brulee. (T-minus-one hour of chilling).

I have raspberries, and whipped cream.

Yeah, it’s over. See ya’ll on the other side.

May

May 3rd: How’d it get to be May already, and so littl

*blink*

…yeah, um.. now May’s almost over.   A mini heat wave, beach time, bay to breakers, and cherries.  So much for draft blog posts.

Gear up for summer, people!  It’s coming up fast…don’t let it sneak up sidewise. (Like a wave, when you’re holding a boogie board and turned around talking to friends and not paying attention and SMACK down you go.  Although really, that’s kind of fun too.)

No internets for meee

Comcast has been flaky lately.

Makes me grumpy.

And now the weather’s gone and gotten chillyish again.

Someone turn up the thermostat, please?

Not so Big

Today is really hot. By really hot, I mean 100+ degrees Fahrenheit/38ish Centigrade. I’ve decided not to go to Big Dance, despite a pretty steady streak of attending (when in town) over the past, hm…8 years.

For the blissfully un-subcultured, Big Dance is an all-night social dance … dance, held in a gym at Stanford, helmed by Richard Powers. Lots of undergrads, grads, and alums floating around, lots of live bands, local dance group performances, and as the night goes on, ridiculously fun contradances (think paint-by-numbers square dancing). It’s the spring analog to a series of quarterly dance events, the fall and winter ones being the Ragtime and Viennese Balls.

Swing and waltz being of some interest to me, I attended Big Dance starting in 2001. I only managed allnighters from sophomore year, though, due to some sad insecurity freshman year. (I didn’t want to be one of those hard core weird dance freaks, you see.)

If you make it through the night (’til sunrise!), through the evil Lullaby Gauntlet of sloooow waltzes at about 4am, then your name goes down in the annals of Big Dance record keeping. Multiply by three, and you earn yourself a Triple Crown (tshirt.)

I’ve been in 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2007. I actually made it through the night in 2002, 2005, and 2007. In 2003 and 2006, I was out of the country. In 2001 and 2004, I didn’t make it all night. So I’ve just barely gotten a Triple Crown myself.

Like I said though, I’m not going tonight.

The heat is one factor. Another is the fact that I have archery practice at 8:30am, followed by Bay to Breakers on Sunday. I’ve done the finish dancing - take a nap- go spend 8 hours shooting arrows - thing, in 2007, and my ankles really didn’t appreciate it.

Some may recall the circumstances for me NOT lasting the full night in 2004. That year, I stayed until about 5am, (sunrise is at 6:30 ish), then grabbed Jen, hopped in a car, and drove 4+ hours to Yosemite. We woke some friends up at a hotel, and headed straight for a hike up Nevada Falls. Grumpiest hike ever. Everyone there was inexplicably stupid and inconsiderate. No clue why. You could argue that under those circumstances, some archery and a 7 mile walk with regular er, refreshments, should be no problem.

You’d be right. The real reason seems to be that I just don’t care to go this year.

Maybe I feel old and disconnected from the community - like I’ve outgrown it, or it’s outgrown me. Perhaps we’re no longer mutually relevant. At this point, it’s obvious that I won’t get really good at dance unless I put a lot of time into it, and well…I’m too picky to want to be mediocre all the time, and too discerning to be happy doing the same 3 moves over and over with various iterations of undergrad. My posse is wearing thin, and it’s awkward to make small talk catching up with people I never see otherwise. I’d rather just dance…

So maybe really, I’m not going because I don’t want to be disappointed. Wonder how often I do that with real stuff. :)

Chocolate con churros

I’m back from Spain, as of Sunday.  The 67 (really, I couldn’t cut it down any more) pictures shuffling above will give you an idea of what we were up to. 

Spain makes you stay up late, but they make it worth it, with such yummy things as freshly fried churros and thick chocolate. Not just “chocolate” but chokoLAHtay (if you get my drift).  This stuff is dark, drippy, dense, and DELICIOUS.  (And after extensive research, determined to taste better in Barcelona than Madrid).  

I need me a deep fryer, so I can try to replicate these guys someday. Mmm…

 

Lyrics are fun.

  1. I have a soft spot for mashups anyhow.
  2. Jason Mraz’ lyrics (well, one in particular, are pretty amusing.)

The mashup (thanks Amanda) is fun, but this line makes me chuckle (okay, I don’t really chuckle) every time I hear it.

“I tried to be chill but you’re so hot that I melted.”

Okay maybe now that it’s posted, it’ll get un-stuck from my head. (Maybe).