Top 20 List of Food: From Love to Hate

Back in the saddle! Since everyone just loves lists, I thought I'd make up for not posting for awhile by including my current top 10 loves and hates in food (that's 20 opinions, people! In one blog post! What a bargain!). This list will be updated from time to time as I formulate new thoughts about food with passing trends and new experiences.

Top 10 loves

10.) Buffalo blue cheese: Ok, while it’s sort of boring, unimaginative, and part of generally boring grill menus (see my hates), there is something ethereal about the buffalo blue cheese combo which will continue to hold it high for the rest of time. Chile pepper and tangy blue, you have my heart. Dips, sandwiches, spreads. It’s as American as apple pie. Buffalo blue cheese apple pie? Hmm, that’s an idea. And it’s better than baconating everything, because, well, I have no logical reason. But, buffalo ranch? NO, that is pure blasphemy, and should be outlawed.

Sunday Dish: The Locavore's Dilemma and Food Literacy

Huffpo is full of interesting tidbits on food news, with a focus on California. Nowhere else does "out of the box" laws get more attention than in this creative yet experimental state, especially as the fruit basket of the US (I mean that in the most culinary sense of the word, folks..). This article, a forwarded link from California Watch, discusses a new resolution on Food Literacy whereby September is to be dubbed Food Literacy Awareness Month.

This resolution will allow resources to be put toward encouraging several state departments to work with local communities to increase awareness about environmentally healthy food choices and promote local California-based local food products (in support of the "locavore movement"), among other somewhat vague but seemingly innocuous vision statements. You can read the full bill here.

Sriracha Blood Mary

Of course! With the name of this blog, this is kind of a mandatory post. So, what's the best part of waking up? Sriracha in your cup! Simple. Obvious. No backstory needed.
Except for adding that I adore the olive bar, not just for snacking, but for making a most excellent Bloody Mary Schwag. What kinds of prizes do you sneak into your Bloody Mary? Please share!

Ingredients (makes 1 serving):
5 oz. V8
1.5 oz. Grey Goose (yeah, we live the high life, but its worth it!)
1 tsp Sriracha (more if you like it spicier, of course)
1/2 tsp Worcestershire
1/2 tsp Maggi Seasoning
3 grinds of black pepper
Ice
Spicy marinated olives and peppers
Directions: Mix. Stir. Garnish. Drink. Fish out the schwag that sunk to the bottom with a toothpick.

Cruise gourmet the lazy way: gnocchi with candied bacon and Marsala thyme butter

I recently went on my first cruise to the Caribbean with my husband and some of my brother and sister-in-laws (he's got a large and complex family and I'd have to draw you a flow chart, which I'm not going to do). We went on Royal Caribbean Navigator of the Seas, and when I tell you that this ship is a floating castle, I'm not kidding.

Sunday Dish: What do to about Big Organic?

Hmmm, well, maybe to make this blog a little more appealing and to get a few more regular followers, I'll have to start doing something regular like "Sunday Dish". Sure, why the hell not? I'll find a story that gets me thinking, come up with some assorted opinions about the topic (I'm full of opinions...), and then share them with you! Maybe get a debate going - post a comment and tell me how you feel!

Good Ole Fashioned Americana

So I recently described strange foods from my youth, and the dominant themes were filled with american staples like processed cheese, 7-11 hot dogs, white pasta/bread, and the like. It was good, goddammit. My inner child still swoons for these things. Especially american cheese.

A pasta dish that covers all the flavor elements: orecchiette with eggplant and burrata

Orecchiette with Marinated Eggplant, Chiles, and Burrata (modified from Food and Wine, July 2010)
This will be the first of my recommended recipes series. As you may know, I'm not very good yet at completely inventing my own dishes (I'm working on it though, and it will be better than the bizarre foods of my youth...). Until then, I am currently an obsessive fan of Food and Wine, I subscribe to the annual recipe books and hound their website every day looking for amazing new dishes to try. I'm rarely disappointed, and I usually learn something new, like a flavor or wine pairing, or use of a new ingredient.

The author of this Puglia-based recipe, Missy Robbins, is one amazing chic (I say that because this recipe is amazing). She apparently is Executive Chef A Voce in New York, and was awarded one of F&W's Best New Chefs of 2010. Honey, I will get to A Voce one day! I swear! I will make the pilgrimage after having this dish.
This recipe calls for one of the odder pasta shapes, the orecchiette, which in Italian, means something like "small ear". This pasta holds sauces very well, and is better for those that just coat the shape. Its a fun texture.

Bizarre Foods From My Youth

One day, my husband came home from WinCo, that Mecca of fine gourmet food items, with American Cheese. Yeah, I just capitalized that. I have not put that in my fridge since college. My inner foodie was appalled, but my inner child was delighted. I got to thinking about all those not-so-right foods I enjoyed as a kid, and maybe how I've evolved into what I like today. So here is a journey to the early years...

Before I begin, you should know a little about my upbringing. I was a somewhat lonely kid, brought up by the babysitter and when I was old enough, brought up by myself at least until 8pm when my parents came home from their long commutes. The house was filled with diet food, as my mom was on-again off-again dieting and trying to reduce my butterball-like frame after the doctor told me my cholesterol was off the charts (that was before the days off good cholesterol/bad cholesterol). Fat free American cheese (the horror!), "turkey salami" (a total sham), whole grain crunchy nut bread (to get stuck in my teeth) and fat free whatever else the food labs could think of. At least we had diet ginger ale in the house. I don't like ginger ale.

Sacramento sushi...and the jury is out...

Sacramento sushi...and the jury is out...

American sushi. One could argue its the new taco, maybe even the new pizza.  People devote their paychecks to its aesthetic glory and salty/sweet melange of tongue-pleasing textures, and some pretend that its their claim to multicultural culinary enlightenment (there is so much to Japanese food that is non-sushi that few people I know really bother with...).  I love it, with all of my heart, oh tiny little bite sized morsel of happy time.  Hell, its the one food during my on again/off again weight watchers episodes that I think I can fit in after a fried food lunch.

And in the beginning, there was fire...

And in the beginning, there was fire...

Well it's my birthday... turned 31 today. I always feel like I need to do something different, make a splash, give myself a treat. Do something that deep within my heart I've wanted to do for some time, but no other day is special enough to make the change.