Sansa is very snowy, and her ears are beginning to go up. Her dad’s ears are floppy, and her mom’s ears are straight, so we weren’t sure, but right now she’s starting to always look like she’s listening (she is not always listening.)
I am experiencing that winter desire to eat everything the light touches, and I miss New York this week, so this list of great places to eat near Times Square (a noted wasteland) and this list of the 100 best restaurant dishes in New York City in 2015 proved excellent ways to torture myself. Please tell me your favourite dish at your favourite restaurant wherever you happen to be. Please tell me THE BEST THING YOU HAVE EVER EATEN.
The best thing I’ve ever eaten was an unending series of challah-and-butter-and-caviar sandwiches that a Russian friend’s mother made me at midnight after our flight landed. She opened a JAM JAR of caviar and proceeded to make me sandwiches until my jaw got tired of chewing them. It was wonderful, and I was so sleepy, and the saltiness against the sweetness of the challah…
It actually reminds me, thinking of it, of one of my favourite Alden Nowlan poems, “Great Things Have Happened”. Isn’t that a wonderful poem? Alden Nowlan is mostly only known to Canadians, so I am happy to share him with you.
Renting with a disabiliity (spoiler: it’s terrible and difficult now, and as the Boomers age, it’s only getting worse):
A new report from Harvard finds that more than 7 million renter households have a member with a disability. (According to the Census Bureau, about 57 million Americans, or 19 percent of the U.S. population have a disability, many of whom are senior citizens.) The most common challenges associated with these disabilities involve mobility and difficulty with lifting or grasping objects. There are five features that are considered basic when it comes to accessibility. To help those who struggle with mobility, the most common disability challenge, it’s important to have a step-free entryway, a single-floor layout, and wide doors and hallways. For those who struggle with grip, it helps to have door handles in the form of levers instead of knobs. And for those who are are not of average height or use a wheelchair, electrical controls such as light switches should be accessible from lower heights. While not every person with a disability needs all five features, only 1 percent of rental housing (about 365,000 apartment units) include all of them, according to the report.
captain awkward column lives up to its name, oh noooo how awkward and also painful:
Dear Captain Awkward,
I accidentally found a diamond ring in my boyfriend’s bag when he returned home from a recent trip to see his family. We have been together for three years, but have been on rocky territory for a while. We had a fight shortly before he left to see his family, which led to me saying I thought we should get counseling, which he wasn’t super interested in. As a compromise, I said we should give ourselves two months to work on our issues, and if we couldn’t make headway, see a counselor, and then…. ( I realize I didn’t make it explicit in our conversation, but I meant that if we couldn’t make things right, we should break up, as four months will take us through the end of our lease).
I’ve been feeling not great about the relationship, and seeing the ring, and the oh fuck feelings it brought up, makes me realize that I’m basically done. However, he is not an asshole, and I don’t want to to hurt him. I am worried he may be thinking of a Christmas proposal (there is a suspicious package under the tree), which… please no. No no no no no no no. How do I head off this potential proposal off at the pass? Or, if that isn’t possible, how do I very gently let him down if he does propose?
Saddling Up the Nopetopus
Dear Saddling,
Ohhhhh my heart goes out to both of you. All of your options are awkward.
THAT NASTY-ASS MAST CHOCOLATE IS A LIE, IT IS GROSS AND I HAVE ALWAYS SAID THIS, IT SULLIES SHAKE SHACK TO SELL IT
also, this piece is like “we were suspicious because their chocolate originally tasted good, because bean-to-bar is gross, and then it started tasting gross, so they must have started finally doing bean-to-bar, but also their bean-to-bar sucks”
BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE TOO FANCY WITH THEIR CHOCOLATE, IT IS TOO DARK AND IT TASTES LIKE TREE BARK
(i wrote about this extensively)
The third installment of Meaghan Winter’s series on crisis pregnancy centers is out at Cosmopolitan, it’s worth your time:
Last year I attended Heartbeat International’s annual conference in Charleston, South Carolina, where roughly 1,000 crisis pregnancy center staff and anti-abortion leaders gathered for training and networking. There, I heard movement leaders directly instruct pregnancy center workers to “compete with the abortion industry” by concealing their religiously motivated anti-contraception and anti-abortion mandates. Suggested tactics included operating multiple websites with different messaging, choosing pro-choice seeming names like “pregnancy options,” removing religious paraphernalia from waiting rooms, and advertising free medical services and counseling.
This was sent to me by a reader with the subject line “Big Dog Dressed As Henry VIII” and I was not disappointed:
I found this look at autistic representation in children’s literature really fascinating.
Rewatched Terminator 2 this weekend. It is a basically perfect movie, and I am OBSESSSSSSSED with Linda Hamilton’s arms, look how veiny and rad they are:
You may or may not know that I care passionately about the pursuit of El Chapo, and this longread about the relationship between the DEA and his Sinaloa cartel is RIVETING:
Herrod is 50 years old now and nearing the end of his career with the DEA. In the time he spent hunting the Arellanos, his hair and goatee went from black to salt-and-pepper to finally just plain salt. He’s proud of the audacity and perseverance it took to bring down the cartel, and he knows he helped prevent murders and kidnappings. But when he looks back, he doesn’t see the clear-cut triumph portrayed in press releases. Instead, he and other agents who worked the case say the experience left them disillusioned. And far from stopping the flow of drugs, taking out the AFO only cleared territory for Joaquín Guzmán Loera — aka “El Chapo” — and his now nearly unstoppable Sinaloa cartel. Guzmán even lent the DEA a hand.
This is the story of the investigation as the agents saw it, including accounts of alleged crimes that were never adjudicated in court. “Drug enforcement as we know it,” Herrod told me, “is not working.”
My boot camp trainer is a fuckin’ nerd and I love him:
OH MY GOD SNOWY PUPPY SNOWY PUPPPPPPY. Does she have a ridiculous amount of snow clumps that need to get removed from her fur afterwards? Our old dog hated it sooooo much, but he loved tromping through the snow, so he tolerated it. Barely.
Relevant to Toast interests: Here is The Rock cuddling his newborn daughter. Say goodbye to your ovaries.
The best thing I have ever eaten is my grandmother’s garlic chicken and rice. It’s sort of a German-Jewish version of arroz con pollo and I’m afraid to know how much butter and garlic is involved, and the meal was always finished with homemade alfajores. She doesn’t make it anymore now that she’s strictly kosher, but I dream about it.
My only regret is I have but two ovaries to lose for The Rock.
1- TINY BABY
2- Does spray on grease (Like PAM?) work to keep the snow clumps off dogs? That’s what we use for horses feet to stop the snow balling up and giving them ice high heels. Baby oil might do it too?
We used to use Musher’s Wax for our old dog, but trimming the fur carefully between their pads helps too!
Musher’s Wax. Of course there’s an actual product for this condition in North America. (I have literally had to deal with snow + horses, maybe twice in my life. The dogs just stay inside for the duration because they’re wimpy)
We put snowpads on the horses up front, barefoot in back, and that works REALLY well for grip and preventing snowballs.
Q: How old do babies have to be before you can give them pureed cod?
A: Babies generally don’t need the extra protein from cod until they start weight training, usually around 3 months.
Q: Have they announced the baby’s name yet? Is it Baby ‘The Pebble’ Johnson? If it isn’t can we all refer to her as such anyway? Ms The Pebble Johnson will be an honorary Toast before her first birthday I’m sure of it.
Her name is Jasmine, according to the linked Instagram post.
Also for a moment I saw your comment and was very worried that it was a genuine question. I literally thought ‘WHY IS SHE ASKING ME WHAT TO FEED HER BABY? I AM NOT A PEDIATRIC NUTRITIONIST, DO NOT LISTEN TO THINGS I SAY ABOUT CHILDCARE.’
My tiny dog has little booties that look like yellow balloons to keep the snow (and salt) off her paws and giver her better grip on ice. They look silly but work great
“as men, [childbirth is] a miracle we should witness because it’ll give you a whole new respect for the strength and beauty of a woman”
Oh, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, well done, I say.
My Jewish grandma made amazing lamb chops when I was a kid, which were my favorite thing.
I’ve tried replicating them myself (using the instructions she gave me), but they’re *just not the same*…
I was JUST coming here to check if The Rock’s Extremely Tiny Child made the link round-up. It did not, yet here Her Tininess is in the comments section!
Can you IMAGINE growing up with Dwayne The Rock Johnson as your FATHER.
I now want NOTHING MORE than a Dad Magazine aimed at The Rock. January 2016 edition, perhaps?
Dwayne The Rock Johnson would probably be pretty hard to shop for, if you were his daughter. 1) He would probably say he doesn’t want anything and to save your money and spend it on yourself, 2) He probably just buys what he wants when he sees it, and 3) He is ENORMOUS and it’s not like they have his size at Men’s Warehouse.
I guess you could just get him a cod-of-the-month club membership.
I love how his one pec is bigger than she is.
Yeah now I’m wondering if Baby Jasmine ‘The Pebble’ Johnson operates on the Norwegian Bodybuilder Principle and is actually a *normal sized* baby.
Friends, on the news this morning they did this thing that is like, “on this day in history!” but really it’s “on this day on the news, because we are the news,” and they showed this scene from 1976 of what looked like a totally fake news broadcast where a guy says, “A 17 year old girl has hijacked a TWA flight attempting to do what her mother died doing, which is free ANOTHER plane hijacker from prison.”
United States December 21, 1978: 17-year-old Robin Oswald hijacked TWA Flight 541 flying from Louisville to Kansas City claiming she had three sticks of dynamite. The plane landed at Williamson County Regional Airport where she hoped to seek the release of Garrett Trapnell who was serving time at Marion Federal Penitentiary. Trapnell was serving time for a January 28, 1972 hijacking (see January 28, 1972 above). On May 24, 1978 her mother Barbara Ann Oswald was killed after hijacking a helicopter in an attempt to rescue Trapnell. Robin eventually surrendered at the Williamson Airport. The dynamite was revealed to be flares
And I thought to myself, “what the fuck did they remake Point Break for, why didn’t they make this movie?”
The family that hijacks together…?
oh WOW
Agreed. Would definitely watch this movie. Especially if a real teenager (and not a 35 year old) played the lead.
Surprise Christmas proposals are THE WORST. But the holidays are the No. 1 most popular proposal time, so….I hope everyone getting engaged at this time of year is confident the other person is on the same page because WOW no. Same for super elaborate surprise proposals including flash mobs and hidden photographers and nonsense–if you are not absolutely 100 certain that your partner is going to say yes, NOOOOO.
Although I suppose if you had a professional photographic record of someone breaking your heart, it would serve as a reminder to be more careful in the next round.
I can see circumstances under which a public holiday proposal would work LIKE IF YOU HAVE BOTH AGREED YOU WISH TO GET MARRIED AND ALSO LOVE ATTENTION but the downside is so, so awful if you have misjudged the situation.
Before I got married (following the best, completely private proposal) I always said that I big, public proposal for me would be an automatic NO, because it would show me that the guy didn’t know me AT ALL.
I have also told people this exact thing! No one would mistake me for the kind of person who would be into that anyway, but one of my best friends is super loud and friendly and loves, like, high heels and makeup and fancy dresses and is a crazed in-your-face baseball fan, and she is TERRIFIED that she’ll end up dating some dude who will think she wants one of those awful jumbotron baseball game proposals. She isn’t dating anyone right now, but I have been tasked with informing any future boyfriends that they are not under any circumstances to pull that shit or they will definitely be dumped.
Ugh.
I was delighted that, following a bit of discussion, both direct and semi-oblique, about marriage, and an accidental “congratulation” a week early from my then-future MIL, the actual proposal involved nothing more public than me answering the doorbell in my PJs on a Saturday morning (and almost not, because who the hell rings the doorbell then other that pollsters and pamphleteers?) to receive a bouquet of roses. The proposal itself happened when I returned to bed. 🙂
Hah! I think we’d get along. I have been known to not answer the door when I’m not expecting anyone because what if it’s someone trying to sell me things I don’t want/A MURDERER???
And that proposal sounds perfect!
I do the “peek out the window and see what’s up” thing, and don’t at all worry about feeling rude if they see me and I don’t answer.
In this case, the dude held up the flowers. Which helped.
Fellow non-door answerer! As I am never home during package delivery time, no good comes of an unsolicited ringing of the doorbell. I also screen all my non-contacts phone calls, just like Gwen taught me.
Wheelchair accessible accommodation
I know some people who recently got married following a public (on stage!) proposal, but the person who did the proposing cleared it (hypothetically) with their partner beforehand. It’s not a thing you ever want to do without giving warning and getting consent first.
Life is a rich tapestry. I would feel no shame in brutally rebuffing anyone who tried to propose to me in public but I have friends who really wanted the grand gesture. It’s a good thing their spouses propsed to them and not to me!
“Am I proposing to Jenna Maroney? Yes? Okay, then.”
And even she rejected the public proposal!
No, I totally think that if are totally confident that that’s what they want and you have already agreed that you want to get married, it’s awesome. But not for a random surprise. Especially if there is family involved. So, so, so bad.
Yeah, it’s not the “Grand Gesture” part or even the “in public” part that’s the issue, it’s the “make sure you and your partner are both on the same page about wanting to get married.“
Christmas proposal season always reminds me of this photo. I spent several years after college feeling like Red Vest Girl: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2523590/C…
My husband proposed on St. Patrick’s Day, but without any fanfare. Luck of the Irish.
Surprise, public, proposal. Three words that should never meet IMO.
Personally for me, proposal’s should be private because its a private thing between you two as a couple; also the only public proposal I’ve witnessed (sort of) was my best friends creepy older BF guilting her into saying yes by asking in front of all of her friends and an entire restaurant. (She’s a people pleaser, so of course she said yes, but everyone who knew her immediately recognized how uncomfortable she was with it. And then she had the dilemma of how to get out of the engagement with this guy who was desperate to tie her down ASAP). She managed to break it off, a bit painfully, and is now married to a nice-ish guy who proposed in private after he got her pregnant.
So yes, unless you 100% know she’ll say yes and that she 100% wants all the attention and fanfare, do it in private.
Here’s a pretty brilliant video of a woman completely freaking out because her BF proposes on stage ON TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yarRxERRFxY
Count how many times she says no.
(She did say yes in the end, no idea if they’re still together)
At work, so can’t youtube, but:
“Count how many times she says no.”
…….
“She did say yes in the end”
*cringe*
*cringecringecringe*
Basically, he starts to go down on one knee and she literally chants ‘nonononononononononononono’ and the look on her face says ‘WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, WHO TOLD HIM THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA’
And then he asks and she just says ‘yes.’ BECAUSE HOW COULD SHE NOT, it was live on TV and her mother had orchestrated the whole thing (I think)
“her mother had orchestrated the whole thing”
Wow, I didn’t think it could get worse BUT IT DID
I’m not 100% sure on that; it was all over the Irish media when it happened. IIRC her parents organised him flying to Ireland in secret to surprise her on stage at the massive beauty contest she was part of. So yeah, parents thought it’d be a good idea and didn’t consider daughters feelings in it at all.
Was it the Lovely Girls competition?
ALWAYS here for Father Ted. ALWAYS.
Pretty much. (That whole episode is a satire of The Rose of Tralee)
My now-husband did a surprise public proposal, except that it was really only the two of us, and it was in O’Hare’s domestic terminal, and the people around us were only annoyed that they had to move two steps to the right to avoid us, and no one clapped or anything. So I guess “public” is up for definition? Also, we’d designed the ring together, so the only surprise was the exact day. But it was perfect.
I knew the engagement was imminent (we’d talked about it happening before I left to start grad school), I’d called the ring designers to make sure they could make a ring to accomodate my stubby fingers, and I was expecting to sign for the UPS package when he was at work, as we had just gone out of town for his sister’s wedding. However, he had shipped the ring to friends of his, and so managed to surprise me anyway — with the time and location, not the ring or the engagement. Most excellent husband!
Yeah, I proposed in public, but didn’t make a big thing of it and I don’t actually think anyone noticed.
My fiance and I got engaged this time last year. We mutually scheduled the engagement on our shared google calendar in advance, and timed it for the holidays primarily so that we could tell our large, local families personally in quick succession before the news leaked onto social media.
That is how I start whenever I am asked to tell the story of our engagement, because I think it appropriately prepares the listener for the fact that there will be no surprise flash mobs in the story.
It says a lot about my love of planning that I find a mutually scheduled proposal on a shared calendar to be DEEPLY romantic.
That the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. (I will pretend there was also a color-coded spreadsheet involved somehow, for I am a hopeless romantic.)
OH MAN every time I see something like this on FB, especially if it involves the line “And her favorite place in the world is Disneyland/world”, I feel so very #blessed that if my partner ever pops the question it will probably be over a 5lb bagel with lox.
Actually, I would be fine with trying to wear a bagel as a ring and snacking on it all day. As a wise woman once said, “If you liked it then you should have put a bagel on it”
I am trapped beneath my sleeping baby, so I can’t go get my dictionary, but I thought it might please you to know that the Old English for “ring” is either “baeg” or “beag,” which is also the shared root for wherever we get “bagel.”
THIS IS THE GREATEST AND IF I HAD A BAGEL I WOULD BRING YOU HALF SO YOU COULD STILL ENJOY IT EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE TRAPPED UNDER A SLEEPING BABY
You are sweet. Next time you read anything in which kings give out rings like candies, just imagine bagels in their stead.
This is my favorite etymological fact! I think “bagel” came to us from Yiddish, so the Germanic roots are all connected.
I never had the slightest desire to get married or have a wedding, until someone pointed out to me that you could have a brunch reception with LOX AND BAGELS!!
Agree with all points.
5lb bagel with lox
Is… is that real? Does the world in fact contain such wonders?
Is that including lox weight?
This happened to me except it was the exact opposite thing ever. I’d been waiting for a couple years to get our financials in place before getting married, & I found a box with several rings after my beau came back from Christmas. Thought I was getting sucked into a holiday proposal…then it never came. And then I freaked out because I knew the ring was there & couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t given it to me. Eventually, he proposed 100% in private as I cried all the PMS tears in bed. Then we kept it a secret so it wasn’t a “holiday proposal” long enough for it not to seem like a “Valentine’s proposal.” Yup. When people asked the story, the response was almost guaranteed “Wait…he didn’t even get down on one knee?” “You didn’t plan anything at all, like, you just gave it to her?” “Um…intimate, I guess?” You can’t win with people…
Engagements are one of those areas, like pregnancy, where you basically can’t win and everyone seems to assume it’s their fucking business, when in fact it is not.
the talk among my extended future-in-laws family a few months ago:
“can you believe Emily didn’t get an an engagement ring?”
“can you believe cousin’s fiancee insisted on a $3000 ring?”
I like to think we’re averaging out to two perfectly reasonable engagements.
This is true! However, protip: if you get a non-diamond ring, you have a really great way to immediately detect which of your relatives are complete assholes and unworthy of your time, because instead of lighting up when they see the really cool puzzle ring you picked out together, they go, “what, no diamond?”
(My brother’s wife is a person of such reactions. I now only refer to her as Caroline Bingley.)
We are definitely not doing a diamond ring (because we are both pretty much full-blown SJWs who find the diamond trade awful, and because my mom has some really great stones that have been in the family for a long time), so I look forward to this process of discovery.
Guh-rooooossssss.
I am not in any danger of getting engaged at this time but if I ever do, I definitely don’t want a diamond ring. On top of the diamond trade being awful, diamonds are a huge scam! People think they are an investment but they aren’t at all, the resale value on diamonds is crap so it’s more like buying a car. (Except that a car is actually a useful object.)
I have metal allergies, so it will need to be platinum, so I would prefer a honking great fake diamond and a down payment on a house, rather than a large diamond.
I mentioned above that we had a holiday engagement for strategic reasons, and we planned it together, which always gets similar disappointed comments. In addition, I have a non-traditional non-diamond ring (we both designed rings for the other, fiance has one too).
I LOVE when people are stupid enough to respond negatively to either of those choices, because I am the master of the serene comeback. It isn’t very kind, but I get genuine joy out of exchanges like the following:
Judgy Person: “oh, he didn’t surprise you then?” + look of pity
Me: “No, we wanted to make this decision the way we make all of our important life decisions; by talking about it first with the person we love,” said contentedly with a smile.
Judgy Person: “oh, it isn’t a diamond…”
Me: “I’ve never liked diamonds. Fiance put a lot of work into making something custom just for me! And me for him – look at his ring!” again – said in my best Emily Post approximation of blissfully overlooking rudeness. At this point, fiance usually sticks his hand out proudly, which genuinely seems to knock them off balance.
IT’S GREAT. The people that want to shame you over these sort of personal decisions subscribe very strongly to traditional scripts and don’t know what to do when you very happily refuse to play along. Their eyes cloud over and they usually just mumble something and stumble away and then NEVER BRING IT UP AGAIN. I sort of wish they would, because I’m combative by nature, but the oblivious happiness thing works like a trick.
I also take this approach and 100% endorse it: replacing judgment with joy is awesome and leaves you feeling so full of love.
I made an offhand comment to a coworker about how nice it would be if the Jinx Parents let their 35-year old daughter share a room with her boyfriend this Xmas, or were they seriously going to wait until Beardo & I get married? And coworker went into paroxysms of glee, “OOOOOH MAYBE THIS IS THE HOLIDAY THINGS CHANGE WINK WINK” “oh, yeah, it’d be nice if. Y folks got less weird about it-maybe!” “No, no…what if your boyfriend PROPOSES?! I really think he will!” When I expressed dismay at the thought of an undiscussed holiday proposal happening in front of family, it got worse: “Well, at least he’ll get the ball rolling-if you’re staying with your parents it will be a perfect time for him to speak to your dad and ask permission!” Not only am I horrified by that, I’m pretty sure even Pa Jinx (concerned though he is with keeping his daughter from sharing a bed with her boyfriend) would be aghast at the thought.
The “asking Dad/parents permission” thing is the worst. I just hate it so much. To the point where when a friend asked “But don’t you think it is sweet?” I said, “No, and if anyone I was dating did that we would be breaking up real quick.” My Dad laughed.
The whole “permission” thing is so gross and weirdly anachronistic. Especially if you’re already in your 30s and have been living a grown-up life!
My family (especially my dad) would just consider that bizarre, and probably laugh.
My dude asked my dad, just to be on the safe side (they didn’t know each other very well, and dude didn’t want to start things off wrong if my dad turned out to be That Dad), and my dad was completely horrified. Dude said he just mumbled something about it not being up to him and wandered away mid-sentence. YET, the ban on sleeping together in dad’s home was not lifted until the engagement was on. I can’t really find any thread of logic that works with my father’s behavior.
My spouse insisted on asking my parents. I was pretty annoyed. He was all “I just want them to make sure they are ok with the fact that I can’t take care of you financially at the level you’re used to” and I was like “yeah but the only reason I’m used to that is because I take care of my damn self.”
Youtube videos of public proposal denials are my favorite. Laughter–public, derisive laughter–is the best cure for Mr. Collinses.
There was a TV programme in the UK last week which involved not just a Christmas proposal, but one on national television. My worst nightmare. (It sounds like it was probably not a total surprise, but still.) http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/dec/…
As far as I know, nobody saw anything improper about cops fake arresting a woman and making her cry in this proposal.
Ha, the one time I went to Time’s Square I went to one of the restaurants on that list. Sake Bar Hagi is indeed a delicious place to eat.
The best thing I have ever eaten is very thinly sliced nova with even more thinly sliced red onion and just a tiny scattering of capers on a perfectly toasted bialy with cream cheese. But– woe!– I am pregnant and can not have smoked fish.
The onion rings I had three nights ago are a close second. The baby likes onions, is what I’m trying to say.
Well if the baby says you must eat onion rings…
I think you can have hot-smoked fish! If that helps things any! (I ate smoked salmon at least three times during my pregnancy [which is ongoing and interminable], and each time I felt gleeful and very myself, which was worth the offsetting worry. You do you, though!)
Sadly, what I’m dreaming about is the cold-smoked salmon I grew up eating, but I do like cooked salmon too, so I will try the hot-smoked at some point.
wait, you/we can’t have smoked fish? Why so many rules? I hate this…
Supposedly because of listeria, the same problem as with lunch meat that hasn’t been cooked. The idea is that it’s a pretty small chance of any one person getting it, but one’s immune system is compromised during pregnancy, and some types of food poisoning could have disastrous results, so a lot of OBs recommend avoiding it entirely.
I can deal with not drinking alcohol, overcooking my fried eggs, even avoiding soft cheese (sob), but I’m really struggling with the lox thing.
Many soft cheeses are actually fine! So long as they’re made with pasteurized milk (which everything in a US grocery store will be).
Yup! Eat that brie, mama! TIS THE SEASON.
Yeah, I think it’s pretty much impossible to find cheese made with unpasteurized milk in the US, even if you wanted to. I know it’s illegal to import.
My doctor said I could have lox during pregnancy (so there may be hope!), and I immediately went out and got a bagel with lox. I also ate a lot of gefilte fish. My baby is an old Ashkenazi man.
Wait, really? THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING. My wife is kind of fanatic about food safety even when I’m not pregnant, so she may not go for it, but I’m going to ask my OB.
I love sandwiches and am not going to stick to the no cold lunch meat thing, I just can’t. This parasite is just going to have to deal with it.
Off topic but: does anyone else’s android phones not let them log in with WordPress?
Most of the supposed food rules for pregnancy in the US are based on total guesswork and no medical evidence whatsoever. (Apart from, like, heavy drinking).
Most of the recent listeria outbreaks in the US have been with fruits and vegetables (melons, etc.), and even then it’s still pretty rare. I’ve never personally heard of a case involving smoked fish. If I get pregnant, I’m gonna be eating ALL THE LOX and no one can stop me.
I WANT TO BELIEVE. Thank you for this.
Yay!
I also vaguely remember reading some studies showing that the benefits of eating fish during pregnancy (e.g., omega-3s, vitamins, etc.) vastly outweighed any risks from mercury, etc., and that more doctors are encouraging fish consumption. Based on evidence from Japan, Scandinavian countries, etc.
Agreed. The last major listeria outbreak was ice cream (blue bell), cilantro, cucumber, and melons. I am six months pregnant and eat lox all the time. My husband and all of my in laws are doctors and don’t blink an eye.
The best thing I have ever eaten. Oh lord.
A few years ago, MrChouffe and I hosted a Thanksgiving of Orphan Toys and I made a turkey.
Specifically, I made a turkey using a recipe from Food and Wine that involves soaking a fresh turkey in a brine that mostly is Guinness and quartered onions and thick-sliced bacon. The net result was legitimately the best turkey I’ve ever tasted, but, BUT, THE GRAVY. The pan gravy that resulted from the salty-sweet brine and onions and bacon, you guys, holy shit it was transcendent and I will never be content with anything else again, ever.
saving this recipe
The best thing I ate over the wkd is Momofuku roast pork which I made from the Official Recipe for a holiday party… I had approx 25 people over and deeply feel like I didnt get to eat enough of it so I will be doing a repeat on Christmas when I go home with the fam. OMG IT WAS SO GOOD.
At Nicole’s demand, here is the recipe! http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/12197-momofuku…
This is in fact SO GOOD and also very easy. And SO GOOD.
It’s so goddamn delicious!! I put it in steamed buns and people lose their collective minds.
I do not know why this dresser is missing its lowest drawer (it was in my apartment when I moved into it that way) but Charlie P. Hashbrowns has taken it as his rightful domain, along with all the other lowest shelves in my room. This one has a particularly good vantage point for barking at his food bowl to see if it magically fills up.
When I used to foster kitties, one day I left my bottom (underwear) drawer a crack open before going out. I came home and no kitties. Eventually I thought to check in my dresser and, a-ha!, one kitty, nice and comfy amidst my bras. I removed him and then tried closing the drawer, but it wouldn’t shut. So I took it out. And out come, sleepy and a bit wobbly, two more kitties.
tl;dr I think all pets are just drawn to bottom drawers and shelves.
Oh my god a drawer full of kitties I want it.
There is nothing Klaas-Jan Huntelaar the cat loves more than drawers, any time you open a drawer he will rush into it.
Just this morning I took a sweater out of the second-to-bottom drawer of my dresser, turned around to ponder it, sensed something behind me, and turned around in time to say “DO NOT GO IN THERE” to my cat, who was in fact quivering pre-jump right in front of the drawer. She gave me that “excuse you, I was not doing anything” look and slunk off.
Tell me the kitty was curled up snuggly inside a bra cup.
I actually have a picture of it. No idea how to c/p photos directly, but here be a link: http://postimg.org/image/80m8b6avz/
After careful examination, most of the kitty seems to have been very snugly fit inside a bra cup! His sleepy head is hanging out though. (The other two climbed behind the drawer for… whatever reason.)
My cat knows how to open drawers. Also cabinets. She doesn’t nap in them, just snoops to see if she can cause chaos.
When I was a kid, I had a bed with shelves built in underneath it.
We had a pregnant foster cat at one point (whom our former neighbors had abandoned), and she was REALLY, REALLY determined to give birth under there in those shelves. I was far less keen on the idea…
My cats totally do this, and at least once have (rightfully) scared my mom when she was “helping”/snooping.
HOW IS YOUR DOG EVEN REAL I MARVEL AT HIS UNREALITY EVERY TIME
Charlie Potato Hashbrowns is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Don’t ever stop posting photos!
Charlie P. Hashbrowns, I think I love you!
Awwww…!
By the looks of him, C.P. Hashbrowns will always be the size required to fit into the lowest drawer area, which robs you of the pleasure of the common phenomenon of him not understanding how big he has gotten and eventually only managing to fit his tail in. That said, I am sure he is the perfect size and that dinner time is very soon.
Note that all three so far of the Best Things Ever Eaten, mine included, were either prepared by or invented by Jewish people.
As a Jewish person, I can confirm that our food is off the charts delicious. No one has ever persecuted our cuisine.
Not everyone likes Russian food, but I LOVE IT, and the sweet-spot that is Russian-Jewish food? (kisses fingers)
My inclination has always been towards the German-Jewish cuisine (my dad makes the best schnitzel on EARTH), but really any Jewish interpretation of a country’s food is gonna be delicious as heck.
I was once fed borscht and vodka by my Russian Jewish friend’s grandparents and it was amazing. Also we had just stopped by there randomly for like a minute and they were like, here eat this soup.
Come to San Francisco and I will escort you around to all the best russian jewish food, ending at my annoying 70-year-old cousin’s house.
How could anyone in their right minds persecute the culture that gave us challah and latkes?!? smdh, world.
I could persecute the heck out of some matzoh ball soup right about now.
Same. (rubs hands together)
I am a reputable Jewish cook myself, but let’s face it, there is some horrendous Jewish cooking out there. The terrible Passover kugels. The greasy cholent. And even terrible bad latkes (which are so good when they are good), and regrettable flavorless briskets. And I really have never warmed up to either sweet and sour stuffed cabbage or lokshen kugel, which are my mother’s specialties.
When it’s good it’s great though.
Are you, and have you always been, Claudia Roden in disguise? With a little editing that could be the strapline for her Encyclopedia
YES. On this note, my dear friend’s grandmother makes what we call the Killer Kugel, because more than two servings will probably cause immediate cardiac arrest. It is a sweet kugel, and it is filled with so much buttery goodness that words actually fail me. It is a strict rule that it can only be made once a year, for lo, no artery can withstand its greatness.
OH YES. My mother’s kugel is the greatest on Earth. The amount of dairy in it would make a vegan cry. It is not a proper kugel if you don’t have 911 on standby while eating it.
AGREED. I’m making mine for New Year’s and putting it in the fridge for 24 hours because the only thing better than kugel is leftover kugel.
You’re welcome 🙂
(nods) This is right and proper.
I fully support this trend, and am adding to it the homemade babka that my boyfriend makes. It is beyond, he served it to my mom and stepdad the first time he met them and I swear they BOTH made “LOCK IT DOWN” eyes at me after the first bite.
On holiday in Budapest with friends, we ate at the same restaurant in the Jewish quarter two nights out of three because the food was so good. I still think about going back.
The best thing I have ever eaten is the “inside out kyushu maki” at a Japanese restaurant near me. It consists of tempura prawn and avocado wrapped in seaweed, covered in the best sushi rice imaginable (hence ‘inside out’) which in turn was covered in what I think was caviar. It is one of the things that makes me saddest about becoming a vegetarian, and occasionally when times get rough, I consider going back, breaking my own rules and having, like, three eight-piece rolls of it.
Oh man, speaking of amazing things I can’t eat, you’ve reminded me of a restaurant that used to exist that had something they called “yuzu tuna,” which was just perfect cubes of raw tuna with yuzu juice poured over it, surrounded by a wall of thin avocado slices. It was incredible.
Back in my college years, a few friends and I were frequent patrons of the very close, very cheap sushi place (California rolls for A DOLLAR and they were perfect) … one day we ordered something off the menu that we thought was just a whitefish roll, but it came to us tempura-fried with eel sauce and sweet mayo and it was the best thing we’d ever fucking tasted. And the kitchen was baffled that this was not what we ordered nor was it what was described on the menu, but we made such a big deal that they made it for us that exact way, every time we went back. So basically we unlocked the hidden menu.
I’m far away from my college town now and I still think about that roll and try to hack it with other sushi places, so far to no avail.
I’ve been vegan, or mostly vegan, for over ten years now.
Things I don’t miss: bacon, cheese, butter (earth balance margarine is just as good, honest, and I used to be a butter SNOB)
The one thing I do miss: salmon. Smoked salmon, salmon sashimi, salmon in any form. Perfectly ripe avocado with nori keeps the cravings down. Mostly.
Now that I’m thinking about it though… best thing I’ve ever eaten in life might be… fresh shucked oysters from a dive bar-y cafe in Maine (we ordered maybe 3 dozen?) or seemingly overpriced ceviche in Lima (it was the best thing I ever ate and when we were done we were like “No, actually the price is fair.”)
(If your Best Thing Ever Eaten has a shareable recipe, you are duty-bound to provide it.)
My boyfriend one made me a tirmaisu that was so nice I cried. I’m trying to get him to marry me.
Please enjoy this recipe for the Greatest Kugel On Earth
YES I have made this, or at least something very, very similar. It is indeed deadly.
This is a top five for me, but instead of bread cubes, you toss a shitload of panko crumbs with too much butter and dump them on top. Don’t be afraid to be heavy-handed with the mustard, and a little cayenne never hurt either: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/05/marthas-ma…
I had no idea there was so much politics in Chocolate making.
Gimme a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk and some Tayto’s any day. (Lidl also do epically good chocolate.)
That story bothers me on so many levels: the deception, the fact that people were so easily duped because the chocolate was wrapped in fancy paper, the fact that said fancy paper is not really that pretty (what is the fascination with old-timey bicycles?), the idea that it’s totally reasonable to buy $10-a-bar chocolate…
“Thanks to Mast Brothers, spending a lot of money on chocolate doesn’t seem like such a leap.”
Yeeeeah, okay, if you say so Mr. Chocolate Expert Guy. It’s still a leap to me. I bought 2 boxes of Russell Stover chocolate for 9 dollars (one part of Xmas I’m not depressed about this year) at Target and I am unabashedly pleased with that.
Also, I think evil hipster chocolate makers should be the villains in the next Disney and/or Pixar movie.
Meh, I studied marketing and now work in advertising; didn’t surprise me at all. People will literally buy dog shit if you can dress it up the right way.
Price is used as a status signifier; along with the fancy packaging, it tells people that this product is better than other products because it costs more and you’re a better person because you’re willing to spend money on quality chocolate. It really doesn’t matter what the chocolate is like after that, people have already made up their mind that its going to be ‘good’. In fact, if you’re really smart, you can convince people that it tastes bad because its better quality and more ‘real’ that the crappy stuff they’re used to.
Starbucks do exactly the same thing; their coffee isn’t better or worse than anyone elses, and yet because of them, we’ll happily spend £5 on a cup of coffee that cost <50p to make.
TL:DR people are idiots and will buy what they’re told to.
Conceptually I completely understand why the marketing was effective, but it still bugs me that people can’t think for themselves, or that they don’t judge the product objectively based on its actual taste.
I’m actually not a coffee drinker, so when I go to Starbucks it’s usually because I want to get one of the offbeat drinks they have, like the passion iced tea lemonade. Also, a while ago I was working for a crazy guy who didn’t have an office. We worked out of a public space, so there were no kitchen facilities and I went to Starbucks to get tea, because if I was going to spend over $2 on a cup of tea (it would be the same anywhere), I was at least going to get tea that was nicer than celestial seasonings from a deli.
Conceptually I completely understand why the marketing was effective, but it still bugs me that people can’t think for themselves, or that they don’t judge the product objectively based on its actual taste.
Me. Through out my entire degree.
And simultaneously claim that media has no effect on behavior. It’s spooky. I claim the real reason for the change in average weight per American is due to the higher quality visuals in food commercials. We all see gorgeous tasty-looking food all the damn time. I wonder if we feel hungrier because of it?
Every time I walk into Vosges, I’m impressed by their fancy chocolate combos. I walk right out with empty hands because I am not trying to spend $8 on 4 oz of chocolate no matter how much bacon you put in it.
I can get Snickers 2 for $2 at Walgreen’s, and that’s good enough for me.
In all fairness, Vosges makes a buttermilk pancake mix that includes chips of Mo’s Bacon Bar to put into the pancakes, and it makes some of the best pancakes I’ve ever had.
I would watch that movie!
Aaahhh I work at a shop that sells Mast Bros bars, and people have been buying them up for Christmas. And I read that article a few days ago and it justified all my suspicions and now whenever people ask me about chocolate I can steer them to the delicious locally-made chocolates but if they don’t ask I have to hold my tongue and it kills me.
The locally-made chocolate bars, by the way, are made with a staff of reasonably-paid-for-the-current-market chocolatiers, some fine imported ingredients like calabrian figs, and some ingredients like honey that are produced locally at a small scale. (I know this because I have a friend who worked there.) So the economics of scale + fair pay + good quality means their cost of production is kind of high, and the cost of their chocolate reflects that. And yet even their chocolate does not cost $10 A BAR.
There’s your protagonist in the Pixar movie!
I love good candy stores- we have one here in downtown Sacramento (Andy’s Candy, it’s on 9th by the library) and I’m a little bit… um… crazy about it. I am also super opinionated about chocolate so it’s a good thing the people who work there are the ones giving advice and not me.
It’s the lying that’s the thing. I’m a chocolatier by trade and something like this blows back onto all of us in the artisan chocolate community (which Mast Brothers were never really part of, mostly because of their “we’re the best but won’t tell you anything about our sourcing” thing, which has always been a bit of an indicator of how they operate).
In short, they suck!
Please pitch a piece about being an artisan chocolatier to the Toast? I never knew I wanted to read this, but now that I know, I want to read it so badly.</i.
YESSSSSS PLEASE
seconding this!
Well that’s a 2016 goal- do a pitch for a Toast piece! Watch this space 🙂
I’d be way into reading about being a chocolatier! I love seeing how things are made
Apparently everyone just thinks the chocolate they grew up in is best (which is why americans like hersheys and everyone else thinks it tastes like vomit). So…these guys should just kidnap a bunch of babies and force feed them their chocolate, I guess? IDK I’m not good at marketing strategies.
I was so disappointing the first time I tried Hersheys Kisses. I honestly thought it was gone off. All the Americana I consumed as a child had built it up as The Best Thing Ever, but I grew up with Cadbury’s so I knew what chocolate should taste like.
But yes, there is a very popular marketing strategy that says ‘get ’em while they’re young’ (Either to create nostalgia later in life/get people to bring their kids, or because your product is addictive)
I am American and think Hershey’s tastes like wax and garbage (it literally kind of makes me choke when I try it).
The only appropriate use for Hershey’s chocolate is in s’mores.
I discovered a long time ago that Ghiradelli and Nestle dark chocolate chips are delicious and the cheapest way for me to get my chocolate fix. Also I can ration them out in the exact amount I need–10 chips on a regular day, considerably more on a PMS day. There are better chocolates in existence but 1) Mast Bros are not those and 2) the high cost takes away some of the pleasure when I am buying for myself.
If you’re near a Trader Joe’s, they sell absolutely massive chocolate bars that are actually not bad, especially at around $4 for over a pound of chocolate.
My guess (from lots of tasting) is that the TJ’s bars are actually made by Callebaut.
I really got a kick out of the “bros to beards” pic further down in that article; it reminded me very much of the Duck Dynasty people before they went camo-ZZ Top, and it’s much of the same thing–opportunists who saw a chance to make a buck off of artificial authenticity.
The best food that I ever ate I had when I was living in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn (this is before that neighborhood really started to get gentrified, back in 2005; or, I guess, I was part of the beginning of the wave of gentrification? I don’t know, when i was there it was mostly West Indies* immigrants). Many stores advertised a food called The Doubles, which I came later to understand was a Trinidadian food that has a fair bit of variation.
These doubles were made with two thin pastry layers like crepes, and they put chickpea curry, mango salsa, and pepper sauce on them and rolled them into a ball. You could only buy them between 8 AM and 11 AM, but you got two for two dollars and I ate them for breakfast every day.
*I don’t know how preferred “West Indian” is as a nomenclature, but it’s what all the stores there had on their signs.
A&A DOUBLES ARE THE BEST DOUBLES, YES.
Yes! A&A Doubles ohhhhh maaaaaaan I lived there for months before I finally said, “I wonder what the fuck the Doubles are?” and got some and then I was consumed with agonizing regret that I had let so many months go by without them auuuugggggh.
<pours one out for wasted time>
Repping the Trinis here! Doubles are the greatest and most essential Trini breakfast food, drunk food, anytime food. Come to Trinidad and have some! Lived in NYC 4 years and never had doubles the same as home 🙂
Very well, I WILL come to Trinidad and eat your Doubles.
I don’t think I could say the BEST meal I’ve ever eaten, however, I went to Montréal last summer and had what was definitely a top contender: handmade gnocchi with foie gras sauce, mushrooms, arugula, and parmesan. It was pretty much what heaven tastes like.
you had me at foie gras sauce and mushrooms.
I am a Gnocchi Fiend, and that sounds amazing.
I, too, am a gnocchi fiend, and I believe it is a very under-appreciated dish.
I like to make sweet potato gnocchi. With minced kale if I’m feeling a bit anemic.
I used to think I hadn’t seen any Terminator movies but I didn’t realize I had this deeply-ingrained memory of seeing Terminator 2. When my ex found out I hadn’t seen any, he said to me, “We’re going to watch all the Terminator movies because I can’t date someone who’s never seen them. Except the third one is terrible so we’re just going to watch the second one twice.”
This came about after he was watching Sarah Conner Chronicles and I said, “Who is that guy?” and he was like WELL MAYBE IF YOU HAD SEEN THE MOVIES YOU WOULD KNOW
I also have not seen any Terminator movie, but we had a chance to watch the original over Thanksgiving weekend. I did not realize exactly how 80s it would be.
It Happened To Me: Awkward Proposal Edition
So, right… my boyfriend and I had been together for two and some change years, living together for one and a half. Things were good with us, but I was in a job that was making me physically ill with no savings net. Basically, if I lost the job, he was paying the rent and that made me supremely uncomfortable.
We were planning a trip to Italy, and very excited about it.
In the course of doing something goofy on the computer, I was in his email to find some information I needed. I noticed he was exchanging emails with my mother (who lives out of state and who he had not yet met). Out of curiosity*, I clicked into the email and lo, discovered that he was planning to propose.
This was terrible. I was in a bad situation with my job that was looking increasingly like impending unemployment, which meant he was going to be paying the rent. We were a couple weeks away from a trip to Italy which I suspected would be when he’d pop the question (because: Italy). I didn’t want to have all that hanging over my answer. Saying no would mean I’d be in a vulnerable place if we broke up, and I didn’t want to say yes just so he would keep paying the rent. I wanted to say yes because I loved him and was in a place to be an equal partner.
I did the awkward thing. I told him. I explained the reasons why, if he was thinking about proposing, it would be a bad idea, and maybe we should just go on our trip and have a good time, and talk about marriage later. So. Painful.
I lost my job 10 days after I got back to the office following that trip.
We got married two years later and celebrated our 10 year anniversary a couple months ago.
*Moral of the story: Nothing good can come from reading his emails.
……. Wait, how did you get to that moral of the story? Sounds like while reading that email involved some temporary super awkwardness, it was, in the end, for the best for both of you?? And you both handled the situation as well as you could, with love and respect and doing the things that are best for you, even when they’re not easy? Which, as an outsider, seems to be a running theme of your relationship?
Basically, what I’m saying is that a) you’re awesome, b) he seems pretty quality too, and c) you should really be reading ALL of his emails, even the spam ones. especially the spam ones?
I’m not fully awake yet, and sort of still have a headache, and it’s monday morning, and there’s supposed to be more funny in this comment, and it’s just not happening. sorry.
Adding funny left as an exercise to the reader. (<—- how you can tell i have a degree in mathematics, this is the ultimate cop out of my people.)
<whispers> i think your moral is actually wrong because something good did come out of reading his emails but i understand it is bad to say that </whispers>
glad you made your way out and it turned out for the best
hmm, yours has a better ending than mine.
A History of Proposals: A Tragicomedy.
by: inkwashed
Part I:
After a few years of dating, undergrad inkwash is having dinner with her boyfriend in a nice restaurant. It is the anniversary of becoming “boyfriend/girlfriend.” He pulls out a ring box, and lo: I say, “if this is an engagement ring you probably ought to take it back.” before the box is even opened. Flushing and stammering and “no no it’s just a ring, just a present” (thank god no diamonds). I never wore it. I broke up with him a few months later.
Part II:
A few years later, post-college me has a plunge of a whirlwind romance with a boy who seemed soooo soooooooo perfect – adventurous, educated, progressive, attractive. We met at a holiday party in December; in September he wakes me up early in the morning and proposes in bed. I sleepily agree, and spend the next year having a wedding be planned that I never really wanted in the first place but couldn’t seem to figure out how to avoid at the time. (why, me?? why so afraid of breaking it off??) Fast-forward 4 years: nasty divorce from a relationship that never should have happened.
Part III: Jesus, finally.
Once again, the fair inkwash has a serious boy. At one point, I am walking in the evening with serious boy, and we begin to talk about the future. We agree that we would like to continue together in the future. His visa will be expiring in a year. We revisit the conversation periodically, until finally we decide that it is time to elope. There is no engagement ring. There is no engagement, really, at all. We have rings made later, long after going to the courthouse and tying the proverbial knot in order to ensure our ability to live together in the same goddamned country.
5 years later, it’s still the best. Behold, the beauty of direct and honest communication. You were brave and congratulations on ten years. <3
Whenever I read about this nonsense of diamond rings and “surprise” engagements I just think, “Straight people have no idea how fucked up they are.” Though, for the record my terrible ex-spouse proposed to me as a sort-of surprise. I thought when she said, “We need to talk,” we were going to have another fight. I should have known then.
Just the other day I said to my partner “I know I take on more of the butch roles, but that’s just out of necessity, ain’t no way I’m going to pick out a ring for you.” She responded, “Oh no! I figured we’ll go ring shopping together.” And sounded properly aghast because while we both enjoy jewelry we have very different styles.
Note: we aren’t engaged. We’re just planning on getting engaged when our current period of hell is finally over.
WHY WHY WHY can’t those Crisis Pregnancy women understand that contraception prevents abortions?
Because its not really about preventing abortions, its about controlling women and shaming them for having or wanting sex.
‘You had sex now you must deal with the consequences you filthy harlot.’
It makes me beyond sad that these people think children are “consequences.”
That’s the part that really breaks my heart. Children should be wanted and parents should be excited about bringing up a new person, no child wants to grow up with a mother who resents giving birth to them (and I say this coming from a country full of these children. Its not consciously or overtly articulated, but the attitude and aggression around children is often linked to how much the mothers resent being stuck with them. And of course this mostly affects working class women, because affluent women can afford to leave the country for an abortion)
^ This, times a million.
A number of my extended family and friends grew up in situations like this, where their parents didn’t really want them but having kids was just “the done thing” (or they didn’t have any choice in the matter, pre-Roe v. Wade and pre-Pill). It’s left a permanent psychological mark on most of them, and created a lot of difficulties in their relationships with other people as they got older.
that’s what flipped me from my Catholic “pro-life”/anti-abortion upbringing to Abortions For Everyone!
I don’t know what it was specifically that triggered it, but my switch was almost entirely based on the idea of “consequences”: if a woman is “irresponsible” enough to get pregnant and she doesn’t want to be, why should i assume that she would be responsible enough to take care of the pregnancy and resulting child? there’s this idea that women are “irresponsible” for having unplanned pregnancies, and they need to be “taught a lesson” for it. but if the pregnancy is honestly because she didn’t give a shit about contraception and sleeps around indiscriminately (as if that’s a bad thing? but this was my thought Catholic thought process), why on earth would you trust her to take care of a child? or even just to not fuck up the pregnancy, so that the baby is born as healthy as possible.
After I had that revelation, i realized many other things about choice and feminism, but realizing how fucked up and wrong the idea of forcing someone to give birth as “consequences” for their actions, or to “teach a lesson”, that’s what started me on it. (And then I realized that even calling women irresponsible for having sex and getting pregnant isn’t exactly right either. Maybe unwise, but only because I think it’s probably better for the body to not get pregnant at all rather than have a miscarriage, whether accidental or induced.)
Ugh, yes. I have this Republican aunt, and one of the reasons she doesn’t approve of my living in Canada is that you can get free abortions here, and she doesn’t think SHE should have to pay for anyone else’s abortion, not even in theory. She snarled, “you play, you pay!” I was all, “but what if you’re not in a safe relationship? Or if birth control fails you?” She was all, “DOESN’T MATTER.” It was…interesting. She somehow is OK with insurance covering the cost of her diabetes treatments.
I think everyone on ALL sides can agree that the end goal is to stop unwanted pregnancies, right? So . . . why not start at the beginning? Why not provide contraception, and education, and health care, and support BEFORE the pregnancy happens, and then no one has to go through hard decisions. It seems so simple, and yet.
I’m going to out myself here: several years ago I trained to be a volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center. I got all the way through the training but couldn’t bring myself to actually BE a volunteer, because of this very question. Many centers are faith-based and basically hold the belief that you shouldn’t be having sex if you’re not prepared to be pregnant, which is not exactly realistic. I will say that the center where I trained was upfront about their mission and never even insinuated we should ever trick anyone, and they did offer a tremendous amount of support, baby supplies, and education to women who chose to carry out their pregnancies. What frustrated me was their stance on birth control, and the way that they like so many other centers didn’t offer any education or solutions to prevent pregnancies in the first place.
I feel like it’s in the title: Crisis Pregnancy Centers. They are in the business of ensuring pregnancy, and providing pregnancy resources when women need ultrasounds etc…and that’s it. Preventing Pregnancy is not in their business model, because All the Sex should result in pregnancy. In fact, if you have sex and don’t get pregnant, you did the sex wrong.
Planned Parenthood, also in the title, is **literally about planning parenthood**–sometimes preventing pregnancy, sometimes helping you get pregnant!
I feel like the Sinclair line gets quoted maybe too much, but it is pretty difficult to get people to understand something when their jobs and/or personal beliefs rely on them not understanding it.
Because reasons, obvs.
Years ago, someone from a local Pregnancy Care Center (which used to be called Crisis Pregnancy Center) did a presentation. To get any help, women* had to have an ultrasound, had to do a Bible study/discipleship program. I think even conversion was a requirement? But yeah. NOPETIPUS.
* b/c, of course, trans men and dfab non-binary and genderqueer people don’t exist in Christianity Incorporated (/sarcasm)
So I don’t know that this is the best food I’ve EVAR had, but I recently had this mushroom risotto made with wheat berries and foraged wild mushrooms that was mind-numbing. YUMSK.
TOAST I am sitting on an egg of potential right now, and am too scared to get explicit about what’s going on, and hate to be so ~myserious~ but I can’t think of any better group to ask for positive warm hopes and dreams from. I’ve watched so many of us grow and struggle and shift and move and it’s fantastic to think that maybe we can pull together some cosmic energy (haha I don’t believe in that except maybe I do) to help each other out. LOVE. THANKS.
*sends all the warm and hopeful thoughts your way*
This is a great group for loving and hoping, isn’t it?
Sending hopes and dreams and warmth in big waves.
Oh, nurse the heck out of that potential, and also love yourself a wee for having the gumption to make good on it. All the best thoughts to you.
Sending as much warmth as I am capable of to incubate that potential, fellow toastie. 🙂
Hafta believe we are magic, nothing can stand in our way. May the power of Olivia Newton-John bring all your dreams to life.
Best of luck to you!
Also, can we talk about the awkwardness of the Miss Universe crowning last night? It was so terrible and sad for everyone!
OH MY GOD. I’m still torn on whether or not it was For Real, or whether it was a publicity stunt to drum up interest because otherwise no one cares about Miss Universe.
I watched the opening because those country costumes were bananas. (And Miss Vietnam’s costume was flawless.)
I heard Miss Colombia was crying on Snapchat after the ceremony. 🙁 Poor woman.
I just watched this and felt SO bad for Miss Colombia. And I have to admit I was really impressed by her poise as she had to crouch down to have her crown removed.
Afterwards, Steve Harvey sent out a tweeting apologizing to Miss Philippians and Miss Columbia, in case you were wondering whether or not he could add insult to injury.
Yeah, I think that tweet was worse than the actual mix-up. Mistakes can happen on live television. Tweets can, theoretically, be double-checked before they are tweeted.
I kind of don’t want to come down too hard on him about that, because “Columbia” is a really common misspelling of “Colombia”, and Philippians has GOT to be a weird autocorrect or something, but on the other hand Steve Harvey is a raging dumpster fire, so.
…Oh my God, I just realized I’ve been misspelling Colombia MY ENTIRE LIFE.
(lol edited to correct)
Steve Harvey does radio commercials for some, like, trade university or something near where I live, and his support for it has made me start to think that the place is some kind of scam.
I mostly felt upset that they didn’t cut to a quick commercial to give themselves time to recover off camera. It was a bad situation, but I can’t for the life of me imagine why they chose to remove the crown from Miss Colombia on camera.
The damage was done, but they could have been gracious enough to spare her that moment being captured live.
Yes, that really was the worst part.
The on-camera aspect is what has me thinking it was all intentionally, cynically, a publicity boost.
I too think there’s a better-than-even chance it was a publicity stunt. But if they did it without Miss Colombia’s co-operation they owe her big time.
I think that as of right now, the best thing I have ever eaten was at Potter’s Tavern in Troy, NY. Please read the description of the macaroni and cheese IN A BREAD BOWL, thank you:
Macaroni baked in a creamy blend of Vermont Cabot White Cheddar, Fontina and a special Vermont-made Mascarpone Cheese, all topped with a light panko crust and a layer of Berleberg Organic cheese from Berle Farms in Hoosick, New York.
*drools*
Other than that, the best thing that I have ever eaten and can continue to eat in season are the buffalo chicken tenders at The Chicken or the Egg in Beach Haven, NJ, because I am 12.
I need that macaroni and cheese ASAP omg
ME TOO
In Troy? Really? Huh. I did a job there and it was kind of a shithole, but that was oh, 2005 or so so I guess it’s better now?
This was a few years ago after a ski trip, so I can’t vouch for the quality now, but it was perfect at that very moment.
*sighs wistfully*
One of the things I don’t miss about that line of work is that you never get to be in particularly nice places.
I’ve only been there once for a wedding, and thought it was pretty interesting architecturally (kinda like Baltimore). But otherwise pretty much like you said.
Dang there’s a macaroni and cheese restaurant in New York where i once had a brie, figs, & shiitake mushroom mac and cheese that was life-changing.
one of the few times I went out and found a recipe for a food so I could make it myself
“Yes, I am seriously considering a 5-hour drive to Troy, NY now”
Pick me up on your way through!
Will do!!
OMG LBI shoutout!
The Chegg is magical. I grew up down the street and still go every summer.
Thank you, The Toast, and also Toasties.
I spent the weekend promoting a fundraiser that my very ill brother-in-law put together to keep my niece, the sprightly Boo, in school for next semester. His Mystery Ailment has left him unable to work or go to school since September, and he and my sister found themselves with the bleak reality, having depleted their savings, of my niece not being able to go back to her preschool in January.
You guys obliterated it. The fundraiser was up for NOT EVEN TWO FULL DAYS, and the majority of donors were people who have never met my sister and may never. I had to come here – to the source, as it were – and thank this place and this community for existing. We’ve been, my sister and BIL and the whole rest of my family, giving everything we could for Boo’s life to not change as much as possible while her dad is sick. The support – not just financially – that my family and I have received from you is overwhelming and magical. Thank you so much.
It’s been a joy to be able to help a friend out for the holidays, even if it was just a little
The best thing I’ve ever eaten is a dish of fried cheese, dining al fresco on a gorgeous sunny day in Corfu, Greece. I think it was about 70% the location and the weather, 30% the food –I mean, you can’t go wrong with fried cheese.
Runner up is Asparagus Rotolo at Osteria in Philly. I’m drooling just thinking about it.
FRIED CHEESE
There is a vegetarian restaurant in town that does a beer-battered fried halloumi. Such a dreamy thing as e’er was placed on taste buds.
IDK if it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten, or it’s the best thing I’ve eaten recently and has pushed all other good foods out of my memory, BUT:
Last weekend I had gingerbread pancakes and, like, I can’t overstate what an incredible experience it was. You would THINK that gingerbread pancakes would be like any of the weird, gimmicky foods that come out this time of year, like eggnog Oreos or whatever, but NAY. These pancakes were like enormous, fluffy ginger cookies, and I was filled with hope and joy as I devoured them. They were exceptionally filling and I took a nap as soon as I got home. All-around A+ experience.
They sound awesome, was it a normal pancake recpie with gingerbread syrup?
I have no idea, I didn’t think to ask the fancy brunch place! That’s probably a safe bet though, I’m not really sure how else you would do it? They were quite dark.
OH. There is a diner in Portland that does these sometimes. Now I wish I were there.
Thank you for reminding me to do what I like to do every Christmas – make gingerbread pancake batter ahead so it’s quick & easy to fry them up on Christmas morn. Here’s my recipe: Grandma’s Gingerbread Pancakes
BLESS YOU.
Woohoo!
I’ve had something similar before, and they were indeed fabulous.
mmmm a friend made me gingerbread waffles once and they were amazing! (this is the recipe if anyone is interested – http://www.marthastewart.com/336409/gingerbread-w… We ate them with syrup like normal people not lingonberries because I don’t know what those are.
Best thing I’ve ever eaten, hands down, was this duck laden pasta dish at the Greenhouse Tavern in Cleveland. My mom took me to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as my college graduation present, and we went to this main tourist-y strip nearby, went to this restaurant on a whim, and were forever changed. It was pasta with duck liver and crispy skin, and other various ducks parts and it was the richest, most delicious thing I have ever had in my life.
A couple years later, I went back during a roadtrip, and while they no longer had the pasta dish on the menu, I had steamed mussels that were almost as good.
That’s a good place! I used to work right across the street in downtown Cleveland, and went there a lot. (There are a bunch of great restaurants in that E. 4th Street area).
Lola (a few doors down from there) has the most amazing burger and fries– they’re perfect little matchsticks with rosemary. I’m jonesing for them pretty hard right now.
The best thing that I have ever eaten….in the last year, let’s say, was a fresh lobster sandwich and about two pounds of fried clams at a snack shack in Hunts Point, Nova Scotia. It was mid-July, and maybe thirty yards from the Atlantic Ocean, and accompanied by a huge Diet Pepsi, as the Lord intended.
Oh my god
Basically my favorite-thing-ever-eaten is Meat Inside A Carb Pocket. i don’t even care what you call it: samosa, dumpling, empanada, tortellini, corndog… i love it so much. BUT my absolute favorite are pork bao. The steamed bao buns and the tangy-sweet-umami filling are divine, and one day I will have a personal bao-chef at my beck and call. Because fuck if i have the patience or kitchen skills to learn to make them myself. (Even though loads of people keep offering to teach me to make potstickers and samosas and i’m like “do i look like i have the time to wait for it to cook when i have a craving, which is always”.) (I don’t really like raviolis, though – i think the ratio of carbs:meat might be off, or the type of dough? or maybe it’s the tomato sauces and cheeses that are with it)
BUT the other day i was google image searching bao just because they’re beautiful and sometimes you do that you know? and i stumbled across a recipe for Shanghainese Pork Bao using canned biscuits (!) from Chubby Chinese Girl and i will leave the link here for anyone who wants to experiment and report back, because i’d be willing to try but it seems like an awful lot of work/expense for only one person and i’m 100% serious when i say that if it takes enough effort to cook, by the time i’m done, i’m no longer hungry/interested in eating, and it’s why i prefer ready-made. http://www.chubbychinesegirleats.com/2012/07/reci…
i did discover an ancient FryDaddy in our kitchen recently, it’s probably 25 years old, so i’m going to make tempura asparagus for dinner on NYE as a fancy treat, and i will be eating it like french fries because it is my #2 favorite thing to eat in the world, and i’m probably going to make a dark chocolate dip for it, too. i love eating asparagus and mid-dark chocolate together, the bitter flavors are complimentary, but also you get the different asparagus and chocolate flavors and it’s great (milk chocolate is too sweet, but if you go too dark, it’s not sweet enough)
Re: Bao:
I like the Trader Joes bbq pork bao, honestly.
The larger Asian markets near me tend to have a good frozen section with lots of tasty Bao products, including just the frozen rolls, so that you can pull them out a couple at a time and fill them as you see fit. I keep meaning to buy some of those and add my own fillings, but I keep not bothering.
trader joes 🙁 🙁 🙁
I don’t think we have one in my city yet!
i *do* have a lot of asian grocery stores near me, though, so i should get unlazy and go check them out. eventually. (it’s only recently, like in the last few years, that i learned i like Indian or Filipino or Japanese or Chinese food, so I never even looked twice at those shops before!)
Those are quite respectable! I buy them a lot.
I am TOTALLY gonna try to make those dumplings omg
Garlic Pierogies. They were like little clouds of garlic and sometimes I think about them and tear up.
Good, proper perogies are heavenly.
Once a month the Ukrainian Cultural Center hosts a homemade perogy dinner and it is heaven.
Two years ago I ate my first pierogie ever in Krakow and stuff my face with them for the rest of my trip.
When I was living in Cleveland, practically EVERY restaurant entree came with a side of pierogies and oh God I miss it so much
My favorite MEAL is meeting my bestie at Pearl Oyster Bar for lunch and eating this identical meal each time: a Caesar salad, a massive lobster roll with shoestring fries, and two glasses of rose.
Grilled oysters with melted butter, big garlicky salad with soft French bread, steak au poivre and seared potatoes, tall glass of ice water, beach-view, under a blanket.
My BFF and I go for steak tartare deviled eggs (the raw meat in a hard-boiled egg white, with the yolk crumbled fine over it), crab bisque, and icy-cold martinis at the local steak jernt. Lawsy. We have solved everyone’s problems over that meal, repeatedly.
oooh, I love steak tartare
If you’re ever in DC, we know where to send you!
My pre-Star Wars dinner was a calzone filled with pulled pork and mac and cheese, which was pretty bloody good.
Another amazing meal was at a tiny steak restaurant in Shepherds Bush that only served steak and chips with side salad, the only drinks were water and red wine, and the only dessert was cheesecake.
a calzone filled with pulled pork and mac and cheese
WHAT.
I KNOW! I saw it on the menu and had to do a double take, I did not believe in it. Mac and cheese in a pizza! With pulled pork and some bbq sauce!
Oh my word can you let me know the place in Shepherds Bush please? I live in north east London but would absolutely make a trip to a place which exclusively serves my favourite things.
There are more branches now, it turns out!
http://www.popeseye.com
oh gosh this is so hard because there’s like categories of best food, right, like there’s the best food based on context- like when i was in Baikal doing research and our team had been eating well but on a fairly plain diet (kasha in the morning, soup + meat + carb for lunch, meat + carb for dinner, sometimes if we were lucky there were mushed up eggplants in the meat. also dill, there was a lot of dill.), and then we went mushroom picking and got some good mushrooms and cooked them up and there were flavors I had not encountered in ages and they were SO GOOD.
and there’s best food that can be replicated like the agedashi nasu + ramen from this strip mall japanese restaurant in my old hometown which is always good and always the best.
oh, for sure context!
best breakfast: smoked trout and green chile hash from a diner in new mexico.
best lunch: mussels with a white wine/blue cheese/herby broth on the fucking sea in france (bonus: fries, more wine)
best dinner: homemade persian fesenjan (pomegranate, walnut, and beef braise over rice) carefully cooked by mrinkwashed over an insane period of time
and yes. each of those is so specific and wonderful in my mind, and the atmospheres and smells and sounds and everything plays such a big part in my mind when thinking about the food.
When I think of the best things I have ever eaten, these are it:
1) Foie gras stuffed pheasant at Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City on my honeymoon (we couldn’t afford to stay there, just eat there once).
2) Oysters and okonomiyaki in Hiroshima. Hiroshima cuisine = a fucking revelation of awesome
3) Eggs, bacon, and hash browns the morning after a pub crawl at Amy’s Place on Main St in Buffalo. Hands down a meal worthy of the gods.
Eggs bacon and hash browns are everything that’s right about food.
Toasties! I would love to crowd-brain-source a question/search for Intelligent Internet Opinions:
It seems to me that there are some parallels between “spoiler alerts” and “trigger/content warnings.” Or rather, that the ways that people are talking about Star Wars spoilers/”spoiler alerts”/preventing people from being spoiled on twitter, facebook, and mainstream media is exactly how a lot of women, POC, survivors of trauma, and others (myself included) would LIKE trigger warnings and content warnings to function– but when marginalized groups assert that need, it is written off as “the coddling of the american mind.” But when it comes to not giving away fictional events in a fictional narrative, people are like “OH OF COURSE we will include spoiler warnings!!! SORRY”
SO my question– have people written about the similarities between the discourses around trigger warnings vs. spoiler alerts? Do you guys have Thoughts on this? Are there nuances/reasons that this happens other than the gender/race/class ones that I inevitably settle on?
My opinion about “SPOILER ALERTS” is that a lot of them are rooted in the Nerd-Information-Economy — that there’s a subculture of nerds that use information as a competitive tool to establish dominance in social environments, and spoiler alerts are a way of managing that information: i.e., if you’re not allowed to spoil information in this environment, you can’t use your knowledge to assume a superior position in the nerd hierarchy to me (hence the need for spoiler alerts — if I have information that you don’t, I want to use it for something in order to establish MY dominance).
Some of these are the same people who are contemptuous of Trigger Warnings, and I think it actually is connected, in the sense that it’s a group of people who are rejecting the idea that other people can manage or control the information flow of the community. (I.e., I read Ovid, and I know about Ovid, but if you’ve got the right to simply not read Ovid because of its content, then I can no longer establish social dominance with that knowledge; you’ve made it non-essential, and therefore devalued it).
I expect that there are a lot of other ways of looking at it, too — I avoid spoilers just because I want to be surprised about what comes in a movie, and I think this is a good and reasonable inverse of trigger warnings, which I like because there are some things I don’twant to be surprised about, but the problem is that the non-asinine interpretations of an idea are rarely the interpretations that dominate the public conversation.
Hmm. Well one obvious difference is that spoiler warnings have a natural expiration date. If I yell at someone for telling me Darth Vader is Luke’s father, I look like a moron because that was 30 years ago. The current worry for Star Wars spoilers will last about 2-3 weeks and after that you’re on your own. Trigger warnings are a sort of permanent attachment to a specific story or topic, and therefore more closely resemble ratings systems for movies/TV.
Ditto what others have said, and also I think there’s something about spoiler warnings being there with the expectation that you will eventually consume this piece of media whereas trigger warnings are more about choosing not to consume a piece of media.
I just saw a Willy Wonka meme on this very subject earlier this morning!
Yes– this encapsulates exactly how I feel about it! Would love to read a longer piece getting into some of the nuances others have teased out above.
I don’t know, but I’m interested! A possible nuance: “but spoilers!” is one of the arguments you sometimes hear against trigger warnings, since to be useful they have to be a bit more specific than a spoiler warning would. I haven’t read (or written) anything in-depth about this, but I’ve been thinking about that conflict a lot lately, because of the occasional fuss about trigger/content warnings in academia — if you’re concerned about both letting people avoid triggers and letting people avoid spoilers, how do you balance the two? (You sometimes see this done well in fanfic and fandom spaces, where there are a lot of people who do indeed care about both.)
i read a book recently that said (before the text started) “for a trigger warning that may contain spoilers, please turn to page 350.” Page 350 was after the text ended, next to the ‘about the author” page, so if you were avoiding spoilers you wouldn’t accidentally come across it. It also had a URL for the publisher’s website where you could find a list of TWs for all their books, before buying. I thought that was really well done.
I don’t have exactly what you’re looking for, although I’ve found this to be a decent explainer on the “trigger” vs “content” warnings.
Most of what I’ve seen that gets to the heart of what you’re talking about have been jokes, where the implications you’re thinking about have sort of been taken as givens. But I’ve seen those jokes hit especially hard recently, so the longer pieces are probably not far behind?
There are some things!
Trigger warnings are more important than spoiler warnings, so why are they more controversial?
Trigger Warnings, Spoiler-Alerts, Philosophy and Film?
wow, I just saw a shitstorm in the comments of a friend’s FB status, because the friend had quoted something that was in the Star Wars trailer. Which, in this context, makes me think of the straw-man argument against trigger warnings, “what if someone is triggered by eggs, because they ate eggs right before something horrible happened? AM I SUPPOSED TO WARN EVERYONE IF A CHARACTER HAS EGGS FOR BREAKFAST!?!!” no, c’mon, no one with a very idiosyncratic trigger expects warnings for it except maybe from close friends, but apparently we’re supposed to know that some Star Wars fans (yup, more than one complained) are keeping it THAT secret from themselves.
The best thing I have ever eaten was this dessert………………. thing.
I studied abroad in Rome junior year of college and for our orientation trip we went to Tuscany. One day of the trip they took us to a wine tasting which didn’t interest me because I don’t drink but then after that we had a meal at the wine tasting place and the whole mean was amazing because Tuscany but this dessert. This. Dessert.
The thing it, I have no idea what it was. I have never eaten anything like it, before or since, and to my dying day my only regret will be not figuring out what this dessert was. To my best guess it involved mascarpone, cream, probably powdered sugar???? and also probably clouds and happiness. I don’t even know how to describe the texture other than soft and pure. Everything about it was perfect and I will never forget.
In a pastry shell or just loose in a bowl/plate?
just on a plate somehow managing to hold a shape while not being fully solid??????
Sounds like Panna Cotta, which is the best thing ever and a common Tuscan dessert
Floating Islands immediately came to mind – I encountered this dessert in Hungary and “clouds and happiness” is the perfect description!
oh man this seems like it could be close to the right direction. even if its not the exact same Thing floating islands seem like a similarly amazing Thing
The best thing I’ve ever eaten is too hard to pin down this morning, but I can tell you the best salad I’ve ever eaten (yes!) It’s a steakhouse salad I get like once a week at a local restaurant, which is a healthy piece of sirloin grilled to order (so RARE AS BLOOD), your standard mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, crispy fried shallots, chopped up roasted asparagus when it’s in season, ROASTED POTATOES (did you know you could put potatoes on a salad???) and a blue cheese horseradish vinaigrette which I think is basically a red wine vinaigrette with blue cheese and horseradish but it’s prefect stuff. I have dreams about this salad.
I need this salad in my life, sounds fabulously good.
Big Salad and Steak is one of my favourite things and this sounds like it was designed to make me happy. WANT!
One of the best things I’ve ever eaten is 7/11 kara-age (ginger fried chicken) in Japan. Holy god, I still dream about it. Unfortunately, that particular recipe is probably too fast-foody to make it to any Japanese restaurant here in the US. I still order the kara-age whenever I get the chance, just in case.
OH MAN ASIAN 7/11s. I kept putting off going to 7/11 for onigiri on my trip to Taiwan this past fall and all of the sudden it was my last night in Taiwan and I insisted on walking the extra two blocks to a 7/11 to get my fix for the next morning even though my grandparents live above a perfectly adequate FamilyMart and my family continued to be baffled by how strange their American counterpart is.
Best thing I’ve ever eaten: duck duck brandy sausages.
I don’t know what they’re really called. A friend of a friend brought them to a barbecue I was hosting. They’re a delicious mixture of duck breast, duck liver, and brandy. Plus probably some spices. I don’t know. But they were perfectly fatty and amazingly rich, and i can’t even remember the name of the person who brought them to my house. Due to a later, alcohol-fueled incident, I know him only as “Jerkface”. I’ve never seen him again.
well that sounds amazing
I mean, almost every piece of cheese I’ve ever eaten is the best thing ever. But aside from that, probably the Tarte Tatin crepe I had at Breizh in Paris. Or maybe the homemade cookies and cream ice cream I made? With homemade oreos.
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS LINDA HAMILTON ARMS
All this talk of delicious food is putting me into a fugue state, remembering all the lovely things I’ve put in my mouth.
I know that sounded dirty. I don’t care.
The best meal I ever had was on a chartered boat off the coast of Sardinia — the captain of the boat/tour leader was also a chef! All 5 (or 6) courses were delicious, but the real highlight was the SIX pounds of mussels served as the second course. They were fresh from the ocean, so briny, and monstrous compared to the weak-ass mussels one finds in the Midwest.
After eating and drinking bottles of wine for hours, we then had to snorkel and i had a near religious experience following little fish and being rocked by the waves.
My recent favorite dish is the veggie pork bun at Ippudo in Hell’s Kitchen. It is SPICY and FLOATY and has the perfect smallest amount of mayo and lettuce, oh god, I could eat fifteen of them.
I work 10 blocks away from Ippudo and I am not TECHNICALLY supposed to have a lunch break today, but you are making me consider sneaking out of the office to buy this.
The best thing I can think of that I have eaten was a mountain peach, served as part of the omakase at Nobu when I was in NYC for a booty call, like ten years ago. (I miss having disposable income and also booty calls. Being an old married homeowner with a toddler has some rewards, sure, but I do have nostalgia for certain parts of single life… )
Also the grilled artichoke at New York New York (I think) in Vegas. It’s a steakhouse, and I was vegetarian at the time, and everyone was all sad for me, and I was all, listen up! This is way better than anything the rest of you are eating.
SHIT I just remembered these perfect peaches that are grown up in Hood River on the Columbia River gorge. Super seasonal and hard to find, but a dream when you do. Also Hood River strawberries, which are tiny and delicate and have a season of like 3 weeks so very hard to find unless you live near by, but are floral and wonderful and sweet like no other strawberry. Or wild huckleberries from Western Washington! Midwestern produce is pretty lackluster, in comparison. (Though I had some Michigan strawberries that were great, once, and then was never able to recapture that experience again.)
Ooo, tiny wild strawberries are the best! I don’t think I’ve ever had a fresh huckleberry, but I bet they are also the best.
Geez, if your booty calls included omakase at Nobu, I don’t blame you for feeling nostalgic!
Yeah, those were the days! I mean, I paid for dinner, but still.
One of the best things I’ve ever eaten was the 5 Mushroom Sauce Over Potato Dumplings from this place in Manitou Springs.
Malta also had a high proportion of delicious dishes, but the only one I remember with any clarity was some sort of rabbit stew.
In October of this year I had a life-altering tiramisu at a restaurant in Rome called Flavio al Velavevodetto. The creamy part tasted like a mix of sublime strong vanilla pudding and mascarpone, the cake was like madelines with a delicate crunch, the coffee flavor was subtle, and instead of cocoa powder on top there was a small pool of hot, dark melted chocolate. I had a bite and told my husband, “I’m never ordering tiramisu again in my life, because I’ll never match this experience.”
Oh, and: snowy puppy SWOON, Linda Hamilton SWOON, surprise public marriage proposals CRINGE.
I ate there in October this year and a life changing cacio e pepe!
“several people with rings stuck on their genitals”
…
The penis ring tweet was honestly so hilarious in and of itself, I haven’t even watched the video yet.
“Nearly 5” rescues a year, my god…
Best meal ever is probably fresh fish meals in Istanbul, very unattainable. Or lobster.
But attainably: lately I have been buying maiitake mushrooms (hen of the woods) at the farmer’s market and making omelets with them and it is out of this world! Sauté shallots or garlic (shallots are best) in a saucepan, add some parsley and the maiitake, then add the eggs plus milk or sour cream, and goat cheese or parmesan and salt and pepper!
A mixture of oyster and shiitake mushrooms is also delicious. Or I have been just sautéing king mushrooms in olive oil with a dash of balsamic vinegar — you get these delicious mushroom rounds that taste like scallops!
Fresh mushrooms….
Hen of the woooooooods! SO GOOD.
Two top contenders for my best foods ever are from Istanbul: borek from the breakfast buffet at our hotel, and fried mussels at the town where the ferry up the Bosphorus turns around. But on the whole, EVERYTHING I ate in Turkey was better than anything anywhere else. Nothing all that fancy–we were mostly staying in tourist hotels catering to bus tours–but it was all just so … nourishing, I guess is the word.
I am not normally a huge mushroom fan (they’re fine, but I don’t go out of my way for them), BUT one of my best foods ever are the sake-braised ones I had in a restaurant somewhere in Palo Alto over a decade ago. They melted in my mouth and I still dream about them.
And speaking of eating good things, a question:
If you were going to bring a vegetable dish to a potluck for teenagers (so they don’t get scurvy, my god the sign-up sheet is full of tan foods!) and you wanted them to eat it, what would you bring??
Speaking as a former teen, I would say creamed spinach or some kind of spinach dip. I know it’s not exaaaaactly good for you, but oh my god is it delicious and it will get some vitamins into their poor bellies.
Oh, dip! Good idea. Then it’s not even a vegetable, it’s a condiment!
Ooh yeah or spinach-artichoke dip! Tangy and delicious!
Ooh, I’ve got an artichoke dip that’s not even that horrifyingly bad for you. It uses soft tofu, but I cross my heart, people don’t realize that and they love it. It’s from the Tassajara cookbook:
Grind 1/2 cup toasted walnuts in a food processor. Then add:
1/2 c silken tofu
12 artichoke hearts packed in water, drained
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup grated parmesan or similar cheese
2 tb fresh oregano or less dried whatever you have on hand.
1-2 cloves garlic, depending on your taste for garlic
lemon juice to taste
salt and pepper to taste
Sounds yummy, thanks!
Pan-fried brussels sprouts with garlic and bacon bits, bacon-wrapped asparagus, tempura vegetables. Basically, hide the green and put butter and meat/flour on it. Source: I was a teenage boy who ate vegetables like this and pretty much no others.
Tempura is beyond me, but bacon-wrapped is a good idea!
You can grill or bake the asparagus and it’ll be delicious. You will know the next day that you ate asparagus, but these are the crosses we bear.
I’ve had this done with prosciutto too, which seems like it might be thinner and less fatty and maybe a little more easy but might be too fancy for teenagers?
Mashed Cauliflower with garlic and butter.
You could feed me stir-fried tires and glass as long as you put enough garlic and butter on it.
Maybe some kind of ratatouille smothered in cheese? This smitten kitchen recipe is good, but I’d make it mozzarella cheese instead of goat and add it for the last 15-ish minutes of baking?
The spinach dip suggestion is also fantastic. Dips will always disappear quickly around teens (or at least, they did around my teen self.)
Do as you think best, but my teenage self would have been so, so grateful to see something that wasn’t made out of starch or slathered in butter at a potluck. A fresh green salad with optional bowls of carrots or tomatoes and a few bottles of dressing (ranch and Italian maybe) would have made me so grateful that I didn’t have to choke down another bite of cornbread-mashed potato-hot dog-cheese cubes. If my only vegetable options had been wrapped in bacon or creamed into a dip, I would have gone home feeling sick to my stomach. (I did go home from potlucks that way many times as a teenager.)
I think teens are generally at the age where they eat vegetables if they want to and don’t if they don’t, and most of them are probably managing their diets at least moderately ok. A potluck is an opportunity to eat “festive” foods and eschew greenery, so even if they normally eat vegetables, they might not want to bring something that “boring” to a party. But I can almost 100% guarantee someone at the party will be wishing there were something light and fresh and green there, including some of the teenagers who had no say in choosing the menu, so I wouldn’t discount that option just because not all of the teens might be willing to eat it.
/two-cents
You make a compelling point. The only teenage-specific food memory I can dredge up is of bringing tomato and cheese sandwiches on speech and debate trips so we wouldn’t have to eat at McDonald’s so much… I don’t think these kids have a lot of control over their diets most of the time, so some of them probably would appreciate something fresh!
Best thing: Afghan food from this restaurant: http://www.helmand.com
Second best: the first time I had Vietnamese food, specifically bun. It was also very good the next 2309837823 times I ordered it, but the first time was just transcendent.
I love the Helmand!! That was our favorite place when we lived in Baltimore. I still dream about their pumpkin appetizer. And the ice cream with cardamom!
oh my god, the pumpkin thing. I have also had actual dreams (plural) about that dish.
I’ve had this recipe bookmarked forever, but I’m afraid to try it because it might not be good enough: http://www.tinyurbankitchen.com/project-food-blog…
Yes, omg the pumpkin thing. I love the Helmand.
Yes to first time bun bliss! Salty! Tangy! Fresh! So many textures! Ahh…
So happy to see support for what is EASILY one of the top 10 restaurants in the city — they have this one green sauce they bring out at the beginning of the meal which changed my life. I could perhaps learn the name and ingredients of this sauce, but I like it in its ritualized space, as The Green Sauce I Will Only Ever Eat Before A Meal At The Helmand
The best thing I ever ate, basing this on how tasty it was AND how much I still think about it, was a duck shepherd’s pie I had in Paris. It was basically shredded duck encased in a giant mound of mashed potatoes. They weren’t just plopped on, either–there was some kind of infrastructure going on.
Part of the joy was the childlike wonder at eating this giant quasi-potato volcano, but it was also my first time eating duck (my mom won’t let anyone bring it in the house because apparently she was disproportionately attached to some ducks that lived in a pond behind her elementary school…) and I wish I could relive that first tasting.
I grew up opposite a duck pond and still do not eat duck if I can help it, so I sympathise with your mum! I do want a meat-and-potato volcano, though.
I think we all go through that phase where we want to marry a big dog and then be decapitated by him.
I have a recipe for lasagna that’s one of my favorite things to make, when I have the time. The lasagna, itself, is really good. But the thing about it is the sauce. The sauce is transcendent. It is magical. I make extra, just to have some to eat after I’m done assembling the main dish.
And I’d give you the recipe but it is sitting in my cookbook at home.
Pretty great that the London Fire Brigade and LIttle Richard have so much in common (see last week’s link roundup re: the original lyrics of “Tutti Frutti”)
One of the best meals I’ve had was a falafel in Paris?? It was the best falafel I’ve ever had and now my joy in street cart nyc falafels is slightly tainted. People are like “really the best thing you had in paris was falafel” and YES I dream about it, the fresh hummus and red pepper sauce and pickled onions and tiny lil falafels so you got a falafel with every bite… amazing
On a day to day, a fresh hot everything bagel from a good bagel store with scallion cream cheese is a perfect meal and I will never get sick of it.
(also I love reading descriptions of food, it’s my favorite part of books, I would 100% just read an entire novel of food descriptions)
re: food descriptions in books YES. I assume you’ve read all of the “Game of Thrones” books then? Because GRRM really leans in.
Yes I have! The excessive food descriptions are probably the only part of those books I really truly enjoyed (and direwolves). I love food descriptions in fantasy novels and novels about rich people with large estates
One of my best foods is falafel too! From a local place that sadly closed about a year ago.
You should read Jaspreet Singh’s Chef! It has some of the best fictional food writing I have ever read.
Oh thank you so much, I will check it out!
Wait, was it from L’As Du Fallafel in the Marais district of Paris?? Because that falafel will go down in history as the best falafel I’ve ever eaten, and one of the best meals period. It was totally worth the line and lived up to the hype. Whenever I hear someone’s going to Paris I tell them to go there.
Also, my standard bagel order is a toasted everything with chive (or scallion) cream cheese and tomato. Delicious always.
yes it was!!! I didn’t realize it was such a big deal, it was recommended by a friend and we went on a rainy tuesday at like 1pm and there was no line, and then we walked past it later and there was a line around the block and I was like “oh! so this place is really popular I guess!” which makes sense because it’s transcendant
Best time in food: A few years ago I did a 2 week adult French immersion program in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec. While I stayed at the presbytery (with the dad-est priest ever: cargo shorts, Tom Selleck mustache, Montreal Expos hat, chain smoking), my meals were provided by a senior lady named Jeanne d’Arc. She was a treasure. I feasted on tart au sucre, grands-peres (dumplings in maple syrup), çipaille (meat pie with 5 different meats), creton (ham spread for breakfast toast). If bacon fat and maple sugar could be added to anything she did. It was wonderful.
So I shared “Men Explain Lolita to Me” (http://lithub.com/men-explain-lolita-to-me) on facebook, without comment, and got the following best oblivious male comment as a result (plus a link to a youtube clip of Nabokov discussing Lolita with two other men): “…if your writer wanted anyone to explain Lolita to her, the last person she could depend on would have been Nabokov.
But what has always irked me about postmodernist criticism, and particularly feminist postmodernist criticism, is that it operates completely outside the framework of the novel. This gal could have written this article having never read Lolita, and hidden within her argument is the suggestion that the quality of art does not matter if the subject isn’t in compliance with modern feminist theories, which oddly enough were not even in existence when the author put pen to notecard.”
OH DEAR. Didn’t engage much with it because seriously what is the point.
Words that literally every man-written opinion that you should not bother to read contains at least one of:
quibble
irked
probably some others
Ooh this is fun! Here’s some others:
debate
robust debate
censorious
moralism (when referring to feminism)
moral agent (when referring to themselves)
unpleasant
‘but hardly’
non-specific ‘enlightenment values’
vacuous
conform
misused $64 words
“this gal” KILL MAIM ABUSE CORPSE
RIGHT?!!! I love how that was just nonchalantly plopped in there. Also, I don’t know why she became “my” writer.
Did that pop up in the comments about insulting nicknames? I can’t think of many uses of “gal” that aren’t demeaning.
I posted the same article and put this warning on my post “And don’t bother arguing with me on this because (a) I’ve got an honors degree in English literature, so I’ve read a few books and (b) I don’t care.”
I’ve been a bit strident lately, but my husband’s butthead cousin keeps just “jokingly” making really misogynistic comments on my Facebook posts.
The warning worked.
I just mark it all as offensive & report it to facebook. If nipples & breastfeeding & periods are against the guidelines, I think misogyny (and racism) should also be considered offensive. Like, don’t pull that “free speech” card out on me when we’re already censoring female life.
I do that with people I don’t know, but I would find that awkward to do that with family members. However, he did finally clue in that I was upset with him after he left a stupid comment on a photo of my new (feminist) tattoo. But in his apology he said he was only joking, so I never responded to his apology. It felt good.
I like this approach!
For my birthday this year my parents took me to a Japanese restaurant (trying a different Japanese restaurant every year is my birthday tradition) where I ordered the chef’s choice, and one of the things they brought was teriyaki eel. I need everyone to know about teriyaki eel. It doesn’t have a ton of flavor, which is where the teriyaki sauce comes in, but unlike other not-very-flavorful foods like mushrooms, its texture is smoother and more tender than I had ever imagined food could be. You could take your dentures out to eat it.
In conclusion, teriyaki eel.
OMG the best thing ever in my mouth (food-wise) was the ‘Warm S’mores Pie’ from Bannock in Toronto. I ate it and wanted the devil to offer me a Faustian bargain right then.
The best thing I ate this year was fresh dungeness crab with my dad. He is a recreational crabber, but our schedules never lined up well enough to have very many big feasts, but we got one good one. Kitchen table covered in newspaper, big pot of drawn butter, fresh green salad from my mother’s garden, fresh white bread, and a massive crab for everyone, ready to be eaten by hand. And lots of cold beer.
Yum! Simple but decadent. And bonus family time!
One of the best things I have ever eaten was something that translates to duck rice with taro. I do not know if there is a more helpful name than that (Google was unhelpful with this), but it was so decadent and every bite was an explosion of flavor in your mouth and so creamy and amazing. We had this for Thanksgiving and I ate the leftovers for every meal that week and it was heaven. My ideal Christmas present this year is for my mom to buy out the restaurants’ supply of this dish, freeze it, and then let me transport it all to my freezer 10 hours away.
I am also happy to gush over Taiwanese food with anyone because that collectively is also The Best Things I Have Ever Eaten
I second this emotion. I came here to talk about mango/coconut/condensed milk shaved ice, night market Things On Sticks (curry fish balls! rolled up beef and scallions!), beef noodle soup (if anyone’s in the Boston area, hit up Jean and Lee Kitchen in Newton, of all places) and my husband’s ma po tofu.
My favorite meal ever is the first Korean meal my sister cooked for me. We went to the market together and brought everything home and she was trying to show me how to make everything as she went, but (a) I was so happy just to be with her doing this thing that I wasn’t paying close attention, and (b) SHE DOESN’T REALLY MEASURE THINGS, SO. She made pajeon and kalbi and kimchee and a soybean paste soup. Oh, and we made some sushi and tempura too, just because we like those things. The whole time I kept thinking about how we’d have done this sort of thing all the time if we’d grown up together, like it wouldn’t be special or novel because we’d have always done it, and I’d be able to help more instead of mostly watching/chopping/eating what she put in front of me. I try to make Korean dishes from time to time, but my sister is still so much better at it, so I only get really GOOD home-cooked Korean food when she’s around.
That’s so sweet! Really good food/family story.
SEE WHY I CRY AT THE END OF OUR VISITS
My roommate is a brilliant cook, and he also subscribes to the “eh, just toss in the right amount” system of measurement and it drives me insane to watch/assist with, despite the results being almost uniformly wonderful. YOU HAVE TO HAVE RULES, DAMN IT…wait, this is delicious, ok, fine, this time.
Oh Nicole, you know me so well! I am obsessed with El Chapo! Goodbyeeeeeeeeee productive morning.
I’m a glutton, so generally the best thing ever is the last thing that was in my mouth. Particularly memorable though. Crunchy rice appertizer at Lotus of Siam in Vegas, fiddleheads at L’Affaire Est Ketchup in Quebec, and fresh sopillas in Colorado.
I love that Alden Nowlan poem, it’s my favourite kind of poetry (the kind that just reads mostly like flash fiction) and also it makes me think they’re in a poly triad which might be just me projecting but he’s describing three people “woilly enveloped in love”, so.
it is about being with his partner and their son but you can read it as a poly triad all you want bc FREEDOM
Oh man, I’m sure I read it as three people in their early 20s because getting up at 4:30 on purpose is something I definitely did back then, but now if my kid wakes me up at 4:30 I am NOT HAPPY because my late 30s requires consistent sleeping.
My relationship with James Cameron is complicated because I think he is a jerk, but he also brought us the guns of T2’s Linda and Aliens’ Pvt Vasquez (my two arms day inspirations).
SAME.
Please enjoy this recipe for my second favorite meal on Earth, my mother’s noodle kugel:
Synagogue cookbooks are a joy and a gift
I worked in a synagogue for three years and the noodle kugel is my primary regret about leaving.
I don’t know if it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten, but the thing I want to eat all the time is a dish called Greek Fries that a gyro place near me serves. They’re crinkle cut fries drenched in Greek dressing and smothered in feta. Mmmmmmmmmmm.
Some really good food experiences, off the top of my head:
*Shakes at Good Stuff Eatery (dc area), especially the Toasted Marshmallow
*The chocolate mousse at Rays the Steaks (arlington va)
*Peruvian Chicken, various locations in NOVA
*Hand Pulled Noodles at Gene’s Chinese Flatbread Cafe (boston, woburn)
*Hungry Ghost Bread (northampton ma)
*There was this balsamic reduction on a crostini thing that was sort of an afterthought next to my eggplant parm at South End Buttery (boston) that I can’t stop thinking about, the rest of the dish was really good too, don’t get me wrong, but I can make a good eggplant parm and i’ve never made a balsamic reduction that good. I suppose I’ve also not really tried.
*Corned Beef Hash- Deluxe (town, station) Diner (watertown, newton ma)
*East Side Pockets (providence ri)
Also, last night I finally made no-knead bread INSIDE MY DUTCH OVEN (correctly) and the crust was so so so so much better and i highly recommend 1) making your own bread 2) doing the no-knead thing 3) buying a dutch oven to make the bread if you like a really crisp chewy crust and 4) it doesn’t need to be the crazy expensive le creuset stuff, my lodge was something like a fifth of the price and works beautifully.
The Hungry Ghost is the SHIT. I have a friend who is so obsessed with one particular type of bread they only make once a week that he will call days in advance and reserve a loaf.
Best thing I ever ate was probably the first time my boyfriend made slow-cooker carnitas for me around this time last year. I was working all day at a horrid restaurant job and asked him to “surprise me” for dinner that night. He texted me updates about the smell all day and by the time I was done with my shift I was practically slobbering. I’m pretty sure I personally was responsible for eating at least 25% of that 8-pound hunk of meat THAT NIGHT.
My boyfriend is not a good cook. He can make about 5 things really well and everything else is a disaster. But oh man, the carnitas…best thing I’ve ever eaten. I was really sad when he made a batch for a party recently and I was too busy playing hostess to get any. 🙁
I thought my parents were arriving tomorrow evening. They are, in fact, arriving this evening. Theoretically, this means I should not be reading the Toast, and should instead be frantically cleaning all the things in order to maintain the illusion that they’ve raised a competent adult who puts her clean laundry away instead of dressing from the basket like a teenager. And yet, here I am.
Putting away laundry is for suckers.
One time my in-laws came for Thanksgiving, and we hid like six baskets of clean laundry on the far side of the bed, but they saw it for some reason, and then the next time I saw them, MIL started gushing, for REAL, not being snarky, actually pleased with herself and me – “oh, lemonadefish, I’ve adopted your system for just keeping the laundry in the basket, it’s so wonderful!” I was cringing, and tried to convince her it was less a system than a tendency to avoid boring maintenance-type chores, but she wouldn’t hear it, and truly seemed to enjoy that I showed her how to be a lazy slob.
That might be the best MIL reaction to lazy housekeeping ever.
That is so perfect. Sadly if my mother ever becomes anyone’s mother-in-law, it will not work on her. Other things that will not work on her or in her vicinity: stuffing socks and underwear into a drawer without folding them individually; hanging up ordinary t-shirts as a means to avoid folding them; forgetting about the laundry in the washer for five dang minutes between cycles.
I also need to wrap their presents, clean the kitchen, and make enough progress on my SIL’s Christmas stocking (that I promised I’d have finished by this Christmas, since I started it last Christmas) that my mom doesn’t look at me in that worried way she has.
First presents, then stocking, then they can help clean the kitchen when they get here 🙂
Heaps of empathy for you over here. On Saturday I learned my in-laws were arriving an hour earlier than expected, and I had a mere 90 minutes to make it look as though I am not the kind of person who lets the mail pile up into a teetering mountain of paper that can only be tended to when it is imminently about to collapse, crushing the cats. Sending you vibes of strength and an air of responsibility!
I also need to move the kitchen table away from the wall so that we can sit down and eat like grownups, since both my roommate and I eat on the couch while internetting/watching TV.
Mine are getting here at 5. I’m giving myself 10 more minutes to screw around online. Then all the cleaning
It’ll be fine. Wrap their presents and that is enough.
I can at least pause for breath, since my dad just called and said they’re driving through PA, and their overly-optimistic GPS says they won’t arrive until 4. This means they won’t actually be here until 5:30 or 6.
They raised a thoroughly delightful, awesome person. Any portion of domestic chores you find time for is just a minor addition.
I’ve made the bed in the guest room, vacuumed the carpets, and have bread rising in the oven. I’m calling it a win.
Also, thank you! 😀
UPDATE: my mother just called me and told me their GPS is telling them it’s 28 minutes to my house. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
There is a tiny little sushi restaurant near my auntie’s house that only serves SUPER TRADITIONAL Japanese food. Like, no ‘fun’ rolls or orange sauces. Once a month (iirc) the chef does a meal where you just eat whatever he gives you. When I went to visit over spring break, Auntie took me and my cousin and my cousin’s best friend to this planned meal thing and jfc. Everything was SO fresh and so delicate and amazing. He would pass out whatever the new cut of fish was and would tell us whether we were supposed to dip it in shoyu or not (& was very firm about this). I don’t speak ANY Japanese & the man was heckling me and my cousin (who speaks a little, but is v shy) about it. It was just such a great, fun time.
I had a chef’s choice meal in Kagushima and it was 100% the best meal I have ever eaten with the exception of the degustation meal at a japanese hotspring ryokan. Just everything about it was so perfect and i have No Idea what i actually ate. In either meal.
Dear Toasties, I won’t be around for the next open thread, so let me provide you with a boatload of fanfic recs now–they are, granted, from last December’s Yuletide rare-fandom fanfic exchange, but still, there are 75 of them, carefully organized by fandom source, so if you would like to read a sequel to Pamela Dean’s _Tam Lin_ or some _Black Beauty_ hurt/comfort, or to revisit your childhood with _Mathnet_ casefic, or to admire an absolutely perfect bit of Steerswoman femslash . . .
The rec posts are: books; movies, TV, games, and sequential art; crossovers and stories compatible with multiple version of canon; fairy tales and mythology; and no-canon-needed stories. You can also just browse my journal tag and use the little arrows to expand only the sections you’re interested in.
ha one of those was written for me last year! a+ rec!
Lucky you!
I can’t wait for 2015 Yuletide to go live.
“The Affair of the Filched Fic”! Read it last year and loved it!
Yes, that’s great, and there’s _another_ one, such riches!
Bless you. Yuletide is perhaps the best fandom tradition there is.
When I was in fourth grade, we had a Jamaican classroom aide who one day brought in trays full of jerk chicken for an international cuisine day type of thing. Most of the class wouldn’t eat it because it was super spicy and grilled to the point of being blackened. But I did and I’ve still never managed to find jerk chicken as good since.
Oh my gosh this reminds me of the time I made mashed plantains. It was so much better than mashed potatoes. Partly because coconut milk.
Mmmm, mashed plantains.
Plantains are the BEST, I fry them regularly and even though I have no idea what the hell I’m doing and just pepper them with random spices and then cook ’em till they look nice and done, they are still fantastic.
In kindergarten a student’s uncle brought in pemmican he made from, I think, actual deer, and I remember how good it was to this day and how bemused I was that only 2 or 3 other white students in our show and tell circle were willing to eat it???
re: Times Square, not far from there is the Afgan Kebab House which has the most amazing stuffed bulanee (think thin dumpling) and yogurt sauce and it’s byob. The City Kitchen food hall at the Row hotel ain’t half bad either and it’s right across from Shake Shack so you can feel smug.
One of the best meals I ever had was in the resteraunt that’s inside the Armani store …because it’s INSIDE THE ARMANI STORE but is somehow not unreasonable for midtown east? As a set menu? And they give you amazing bread products which no one does anymore? And little perfectly made stake tartare and the people watching, oh lord the people watching. It’s like walking into an episode of Ab Fab and all the waiters look like ex models that had Something Happen To Them and working there is like being sent to a nice farm to live out their days.
It was impossible to eat there and not feel like an international spy.
Rich and Caity visited the Armani restaurant in their sadly late “Best Restaurant in New York” column.
http://gawker.com/the-best-restaurant-in-new-york…
That’s why I went! Everything was SO GLOSSY.
Best thing ever: a plate of zaru soba in a run-of-the-mill shop in Tokyo. You go buy a ticket from a machine, hand it to the guy at the counter, he dishes it up, you eat it. Cost somewhere between ¥170-200, and I think about it at least once a month. This was 7 years ago. Hot tsuyu, pungent negi, wasabi, sesame seeds, nori, noodles. Perfection.
A cream scone with jam and a pot of black-as-my-heart tea in the cafe at the Tate Modern after sitting in the Rothko room for a while.
Tex Mex or Indian. Weird vegetarian tacos on soft corn shells. Tandoori eggplant. Fresh baguette or challah with jam and butter. My own homemade vegetable stock. The macaroni and cheese at Balzac in Milwaukee (omg you can get it with Brussels sprouts now!?). The red curry fried rice with tofu at Ha Long Bay in Madison. Possibly all falafel.
I desperately miss when I lived in London and would treat myself to fancy afternoon teas and the incredible scones and clotted cream and jam. You straight up cannot get true clotted cream in the U.S.
I don’t know if it’s the best food I’ve EVER eaten, but my fondest and most mouth-watering food memory is when my best friend and I went to Montreal for the weekend, and on our way out of the city, picked up a few dozen warm bagels from St Viateur’s and a pound of butter. We put the pound of butter in the cupholder of the car and just kind of…dipped our warm bagels into the butter, as we drove off into the sunset, listening to the soundtrack of the Lion King musical. Sesame seeds everywhere.
Years ago (and years before I moved there), I was in Montreal with my friends and we walked more or less from McGill to Fairmont to get bagels, which was too far AND too much up the Parc Av hill for being first thing in the morning, but good god eating bagels on the sidewalk with my dear friends was heavenly.
When I went to Montreal over the summer, at the end of a late night out, my friend and I made the cabbie make a pit stop at Fairmount to get bagels at 5:30 am and we ate them on the sidewalk in front of our hostel. So delicious. There should be more 24-hour bagel shops in this world.
Ah I’ve got tears in my eyes at the memory. IT WAS A PERFECT MOMENT
The best thing I’ve ever eaten in recent memory is a fried green tomato BLT on perfect thick bread with the right amount of mayo. Drooling thinking about it. Also, my mother’s brisket which I do know how to make, but it doesn’t come out the same as when she does it because…magic, maybe?
Mom food magic is real! My husband makes really good fried chicken. What is his mother makes is transcendental. He has cooked it with her so many times and there is no discernible difference in their ingredients, prep, or technique, but hers is undeniably more perfect.
The best thing I have ever eaten is Mr. Ada’s short ribs, which are slathered in mushroom powder and some Vietnamese fish sauce that happens to taste like parmesan cheese, and then cooked in a sous vide for some insane number of hours. Then he takes the liquid and dumps in a pan with a bunch of red wine and reduces that to a sauce to spoon over your meat and thyme-infused mashed potatoes. After I eat it, I always feel like I could die happily in that very second. There is nothing left to want to taste or feel.
Also, my mac and cheese is pretty good, even if I’m not willing to drift into the void after I eat it.
Holy umami bomb! That must be SO delicious.
That Alden Nowlan poem has been one of my favorites for a few years now – thanks for the reminder <3
Best thing I’ve ever eaten: a sausage & cheese crepe, with a meringue the size of my hand for dessert, while standing in the rain in the middle of a tiny medieval town in France that I now cannot remember the name of.
It’s not the best because of what I ate, but because of the fact that the woman I bought it all from spoke no English, and I (at the time, an eighth-grader with a year’s worth of French under her belt) had to make myself understood in a foreign language all on my own. I’ve eaten better, fancier, tastier meals, but none that ever gave me as much of a sense of accomplishment as that one.
This whole thread is like reading the best parts of a Redwall book, if Brian Jacques had been born in 1985 instead of 1939 and wasn’t so uncomfortably barely-stealthily racist.
The best (or at least most obsession-sparking) meal I ever had were kogashi (burnt) ramen at Gogyô Ramen in Kyoto, with a side of rice and perfect karaage chicken. It was just about the fattiest, heartiest bowl of ramen you can imagine & I was living surrounded by Hakata Tonkotsu at the time, so the bar was high.
I had it again when I went back six weeks later, moped for about a week when I learned there had been a branch restaurant in my city that had just recently closed and have been telling people about it ever since.
A friend of mine went to have some and actually borrowed a fellow eater’s phone to send me a picture because she knew how much I missed them.
HAKATA TONKOTSU. Oh god I miss hakata ramen so much, you can’t even get the instant version of that in America!
Aren’t they incredible, with the garlic and the creamy umami-ness? I got a really great Japanese “everyday” cookbook & when I got to the ramen chapter it basically said “here’s how you make all the broths, except tonkotsu because why bother, that’ll never work” and I was all D:
The best meal I have ever had was at the now-closed Sutra in Seattle—sorry it’s unattainable food but I think some of the former owners are opening a new place! They had one seating (i.e. everyone there eats at the same time) of five vegan courses, offered non-alcoholic drink pairings in addition to wine ones, including a kombucha that I actually liked (it tasted like champagne), they began with a gong and giving thanks for farmers, the food is prepared basically in the same room with you, it was bliss.
This is not what I ate there, but the menu still online gives a sense of the thing http://www.sutraseattle.com/menu/
We had a slightly-fermented cabbage leaf stuffed with something lentilly and astonishingly good. The food was art!
Also I read a yelp review in which someone complained that they had some issues making a reservation and got testy with the staff, and they kindly told him that maybe his energy wasn’t right for the space and he should have dinner somewhere else. AHHHH!
Next best thing was probably mushrooms we foraged ourselves in Indiana and did not die from! Butter is magic.
Whenever I need to psych myself up to go to the gym, I look at pictures of Linda Hamilton’s Terminator 2 arms. Pushups are much easier when you’re thinking about Sarah Connor’s sweet, sweet biceps.
I have two Best Food Ever:
-In Reykjavik, there is a wonderful little restaurant called The Sea Baron, or Saegreifinn (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g189970-d1209708-Reviews-Saegreifinn_The_Sea_Baron-Reykjavik_Capital_Region.html ). You can go there! If you do, be sure that it is a cold day (not hard in Iceland), and that you have been walking around and enjoying the sights, but now you are just a little bit cranky because you are both cold and hungry. You are thrilled to be in a place of such unusual beauty, but even the best adventurers get hungry. Keep an eye out for it, it is not big or flashy. But go inside, and order the lobster soup at the register. Do this even if you do not overly love seafood or crustaceans in particular. Sit yourself down at one of the skinny little tables, and if you can overcome your crankiness, maybe say hello to one of the people you are squished next to. Soon they will bring you a large and inviting bowl of the most delicious lobster soup you’ve ever tasted, with a large hunk of fresh bread and icelandic butter, which is somehow creamier and better than other butter. You will find yourself warmed and delighted and sipping this salty, gorgeous soup and dipping your soft and flaky bread into it, and you will be restored to all your former warmth and fullness.
– OR: get a nice wheel of camembert, and a clove or two of garlic. Depending on how much you love garlic (A LOT) it is up to your discretion how may you use. Chop up your garlic nice and fine, and make several little cuts in the camembert -wedge your garlic in there. Next, drizzle your favorite honey all over the top. I mean, drown that sucker. Then pop it all in the oven until it all gets nice and gooey. I suggest lining everything with tinfoil to avoid mess. And then serve with a nice bread, preferably a good baguette. The first time we made this I ate nearly half on my own, and would have asked for an entire one myself if it had been polite.
ummmmmm that camembert sounds potentially life-changing.
Disclaimer: It is both life-changing and pants-size-changing so consume at your own risk, etc, but you will not regret it.
I will endeavour to remember this recommendation until I go in March.
Oh god have so much fun!! I was only there for a glorious 18 hours but it was just enough to make me want to go back ASAP. Enjoy!!
I went for a week 14 years ago and have been hankering to go back since!
Definitely putting that camembert recipe into my holiday plans now, thank you!
My friend does brie thing where he fries up some onions and diced apples in butter then puts a brie wheel in a baking pan and throws the onions and apple on top and then bakes it until it’s all gooey and it’s so good.
Oh gosh, that sounds AMAZING. Mmmmmm. I loved the camembert thing for how idiot-proof and easy it was, but this onions-and-apples-in-butter thing is RIGHT UP my alley. Thanks!
Agreed that lobster soup in Iceland is the best lobster soup ever.
When you bake a cheese wheel are you supposed to slice the top off? Or should I leave it on and cut it open when serving?
Leave the top on, slice into tiny wedges to serve (they won’t hold together, but it gives you a bit of all the flavors that way).
The best thing I’ve ever consumed was the cup of Dunkin’ Donuts French vanilla coffee the day after getting back to New England after living in Dunkins-free Alaska for four months.* The vanilla was perfectly artificial, the amount of cream was just right (i.e., I was basically drinking a cup straight from the udder), and my dad went Peak Dad and pulled into the parking lot that morning without even asking me. He just knew it was what I’d want.
*Alaska has a wonderful coffee culture of its own! Go experience it.
dunkin donuts is such a comfort and I have gotten into really heated verbal fights when people try to say it’s “bad” (these are people who did not grow up with it usually). After 3 weeks of being away from dunkin donuts the only thing I wanted was a giant black dunkin iced coffee, I honestly dreamed of it, I can’t imagine 4 months, I would be so sad.
The comfort foods of our youth cannot be questioned. I, for instance, love the gritty, way too hot and somehow watery hot chocolate you get at hockey rinks. Objectively, I know it’s kind of terrible. Subjectively, it is a joy and a comfort.
Ski-slope hot chocolate for me! In a styrofoam cup with the unmixed sludge at the bottom. If I haven’t been skiing it doesn’t even occur to me to drink hot chocolate; it’s like tomato juice on an airplane, perfectly suited to its proper situation.
Up there on the list of best things I’ve ever consumed was a breakfast sandwich from Dunkin Donuts after spending a week in the woods in New Hampshire. It was transcendent, mostly because I didn’t have to cook it over the fire.
I generally didn’t consider myself a big Dunkin person until I moved to the west coast. Now when I return back it is a very necessary ritual (wandering around Boston in the summer while it is too hot drinking a gigantic dunkin iced coffee is the perfect reset to SF summer).
Didn’t grow up with Dunkin’ but it saved my sanity many times over when I used to take a regular flight from NYC to Cleveland that left LaGuardia at 6.30am and got to CLE at 8. The Dunkin’ just past security at CLE, in the wide passageway between the B and C terminals, sold me a large hot cup of wakefulness and surprisingly good taste every trip, without fail. The United plane coffee was too vile, especially after a flight attendant told me that the coffee from any plane’s first flight of the day is often the remnants of the last pot from the evening before, since the evening flight crew is usually too tired to wash the pot. Gah.
I’m lucky enough to eat great food fairly often, plus i have a terrible memory, and get cranky when I’m hungry-so usually what ever I’ve eaten most recently is “the best thing I’ve ever eaten.” Two things DO stick out, though-fresh lobster, simply cooked, seasoned with nothing, in New England, and this chicken schnitzel sandwich from this food cart in Portland that…man. It was messy and perfect and this sauce, and the chicken, and even the roll…I think about that sandwich a lot.
I love eating and exploring new food and cooking so I’ve been incredibly fortunate to eat a LOT of good stuff in my life. Here’s some highlights!
Somewhere in Italy, after I spent six weeks at field camp and just wanted to go home but my parents and sister came out and we were doing Italy and France for two or three more weeks and I was so fucking done, we ate at this lovely restaurant. For dessert I had a chunk of romano cheese drizzled with honey and a glass of sweet dessert wine (I can’t remember what the wine was now — Vin Santo I think based on where we were). The way the flavors combined with each other was amazing, then taking a sip of the wine and everything suddenly exploded in my mouth. Such a revelation!
When I turned, oh, 13 or 14, my mom asked what I wanted for my birthday dinner. I asked for steak au poivre, because I was on a big black pepper kick. So my mom, being an amazing cook, whipped up some filet mignons with a beautiful black pepper crust, and also this AMAZING sherry sauce. Of course she didn’t measure anything or write anything down, so future attempts were good but not the same, and it was just fucking DYNAMITE. As good as you’d get in a steakhouse. Go mom!
I bought some chocolate bars as gifts years ago that might have been Mast. It was wrapped in paper like theirs, but I think they’re not the only ones doing that. I’ve been feeling weirdly guilty about it since that article came out. But really, how was I to know? It was pretty, it came in interesting flavors, and it was sold in a shop I like; you can’t generally try candy before you buy it. I wouldn’t spend that much on chocolate for myself but it seemed like a nice present. And the recipients wouldn’t have told me if the chocolate turned out to taste bad, so it was kind of a foolproof transaction on the merchant’s part.
The Mast Bros. scandal, if it is such, is having oddly significant ramifications for me. That chocolate has been recommended to me by people whose tastes I absolutely trust, so I feel weird and awkward about it! (Currently slowly consuming a bar of Mast Bros. “Brooklyn” chocolate, which was a gift from a dear friend…it is not bad, but not the transcendent experience I had hoped for.) Anyway, I don’t think you should feel guilty, it was certainly a nice present given in a very generous spirit!
I’m not sure if I’d class it as the best thing I’ve *ever* had, but my family’s eggnog recipe is amazing and I have so many happy memories attached to it that it comes pretty close. It’s actually a recipe from my late aunt’s ex mother in law, but the rest of my family has all co-opted it as our own:
Czerny Eggnog
12 eggs, separated
2 1/4 C sugar
1 qt brandy
1 pint rum
3 qt whipping cream
1 C powdered sugar
1 qt 1/2 & 1/2
Beat yolks, add white sugar, brandy & rum. Beat well. Add cream. Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold half into mixture. Beat remainder with powdered sugar, then stir in 1/2 & 1/2. Pour into main mixture. Letstand 12 hr in fridge. Serve with nutmeg. Keeps at least 2 weeks in the fridge.
Thank you, I will make this this week!
Be warned, it goes down like velvet, but there is quite a kick!
I have eaten a lot of very good things so I’m trying to narrow it down based on what i think about the most.
1. Mozza and tomato salad that I had in Monaco. Literally just stacks of tomatoes and mozzarella and basil and I think some oil and balsamic, so good.
2. Eggplant parmigiana pizza from the fancy pizza chain here in Toronto. Covered in garlic. Heaven.
3. Pad Ba Me (I think that’s what it was called) from this vegetarian Thai place in the neighbourhood I lived in in Ottawa that no longer exists.
Dessert-wise it’s this lemon merengue donut I got at Von Doughnuts in Toronto. And my grandma’s Lemon Luscious.
“vegetarian Thai place in Ottawa….” !!!!
“…..that no longer exists” Noooo! 🙁
It was so good and I used to go like once a week.
WHICH FANCY PIZZA CHAIN because eggplant parmigiana and pizza are two of my favourite things and also I am in Toronto.
Mamma’s Pizza.
Thank you!
I’m terrible at remembering specifics of meals very well. The most memorable recent one was in Oahu and my sister in law and I were wandering around looking for a place that was advertising fresh fish. After wandering down about five side streets we gave up and started walking back to the place we were staying and through dumb luck we stumbled upon it. Turns out the dude runs his business (Ken’s Fresh Fish) out of his garage and we bought three different kinds of poke for $15 total. The tuna they used had been caught earlier that day and was better than any sushi I’ve ever had.
https://www.facebook.com/Kens-Fresh-Fish-29954934…
It’s such a small business they don’t have a Yelp page.
My most memorable meals are all situational–like, it’s not just the food, but where it was, when it was, who I was with, etc. And I am lucky enough to have had more amazing meals in my life than I can even remember! Reading this thread is bringing up lots of happy memories–the Korean soup called “Karubi Kuppa” (?? that’s how you say it in Japanese, no idea what it really is in Korean) at the little place at the bottom of the hill in Akebonobashi where I would go on cold winter days–a massive, coconutty bowl of Curry Laksha after a long day of wandering around in Kuala Lumpur–the duck confit at the tiny little six-table French restaurant where I went for my 40th birthday–two perfectly-shaped, still-warm onigiri (one with umeboshi, the other with baby sardines and shiso) accompanied by miso soup, pickles, and a salty boiled egg at the little shop next to the publishing company I used to freelance at in Gokokuji–a chicken liver taken from a chicken butchered not three hours previous, seared briefly in butter with a tiny bit of salt, slapped on a piece of homemade bread and eaten standing due to severe hunger and period anemia–the lamb burger I ate after 20 years of being a vegetarian–oh man I could go on for days…
But when I die and go to heaven, the following is what I will be eating:
* 1 slice of bread made by my dad (my dad makes the best bread, he uses fresh-ground whole-wheat flour), toasted and buttered
* Slathered with comb honey from a nearby beehive
* Topped with fresh-picked raspberries from the garden by the house
* Eaten while sitting in the sun on the porch, looking out at said garden, beehive, and other scenery, with absolutely no other obligations or duties to distract, possibly accompanied by a cup of good Yunnan tea with milk.
So grateful to have had a life where I could experience this not once, but many times.
the lamb burger I ate after 20 years of being a vegetarian
YES. My first burger post-vegetarianism was actually from Shake Shack, and I almost cried in the middle of the park.
*reformed vegeterrarium fistbump*
Some people say they felt sick after going back to meat, but not me–I felt like I could slay giants! I imagine that Shake Shack burger was absolutely amazing.
Once I was in Victoria, BC and I had these glorious Thai spiced ribs that came with sweet potato fries and aioli and I wish I was eating that right now.
Were you at Ferris’?!
Maybe??? I looked at the website and the place does look vaguely familiar, and it’s near where we were staying! But they don’t have the ribs anywhere on the menu that I see. It was of course, seven years ago though.
Re: the caviar sandwich–
A friend of mine (who works in the wine trade) once got invited to a very fancy banquet, which had originally been planned for several hundred people. However, there was a massive snowstorm that day, and only a handful actually showed up.
They had laid in a huge amount of caviar, and (since practically no one was there) he started making caviar sandwiches that were several inches thick. He said they were amazing, and it was one of the highlights of his life.
I can’t think about caviar sandwiches without thinking of a)the part in The Bell Jar where the main character goes to a luncheon and eats caviar slathered on chicken cutlets and b)Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.
I’m not sure either of these are The Best Ever, but:
1.) A few years ago I went to a conference in the French Alps, and got to the small town on a Sunday. Naturally everything was closed, so I ended up having lunch at the kitchen of a small inn. There was like one vegetarian thing on the menu, so I got a vegetable and hummus plate. I don’t know what sort of sorcery was involved to make tomato bruschetta that delicious in February, but I have yet to see it repeated.
2.) I went to another conference in Vienna, and again, not much vegetarian food there. I went wandering around town after the conference to poke around the city, found a farmer’s market (with, incidentally, a stall selling outstanding chocolates), and in the middle of it found a falafel stand. Best falafel I have ever had.
I think my best meals have all been “whew, finally something different” meals. I remember studying abroad during college, in Dakar, and eating the same 5 meals over and over again, and one day going to a Chinese restaurant. It was the best dang Chinese food I ever ate. And then on the way home we traveled through Paris, and I ate a crepe with fresh raspberries, which I hadn’t seen in months. Oh, and always the first greasy gas-station snack of any road trip, followed by the first home-cooked meal full of real vegetables at the end.
When I lived in Spain, I got so unbelievably tired of eating the same food over and over (a diet of ham, cheese, bread, potatoes, and fried food sounds great in theory but not in practice). I ended up traveling to other countries as often as I could possibly afford just to eat something different.
Yes, having something different is so great. One of the meals I have enjoyed the most in recent memory was the one I had after flying back from Australia to London – I had just been eating over-processed, salty and fatty aeroplane/airport food for the last day, and hadn’t slept in far too long. My boyfriend’s mum had thoughtfully bought us some ready meals in case we weren’t up to cooking, but I begged him to go out and get something fresh instead. We had chopped potatoes cooked with white beans and cabbage, and it was amazing to have something made from scratch.
The best thing I’ve ever eaten was Kobe beef (the real thing, imported from Japan). It was like…… meat butter, is the only way I can describe it. It was incredibly tender and delicious. That was probably the most expensive meal of my life (Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend at a very fancy inn), but SO worth it.
On the other end of the economic spectrum, the next-most-delicious thing I ever had was deep-fried haggis and onion gravy from a late-night food stand in Edinburgh. It’s pretty much the greatest thing in the world when you’ve been out late drinking, and you’re staggering home.
Apropos of the Heartbeat International piece(s), what are some of your go-to arguments, links, or discussion points when trying to engage with someone who is anti-abortion while claiming to be pro-woman in every other possible way, but who genuinely, absolutely, unequivocally believes that a fetus is a living person no different from a child, that the science has proven this, and that therefore abortion is in no way different from murder? This one otherwise-reasonable woman I know is fervently opposed to abortion for that reason, and I can’t figure out how to discuss it with her (not that I have to, I’m just interested).
Abortion can be a compassionate choice. It’s not all “birth control for the irresponsible”. It can also be for fetuses who won’t survive birth, or will live short, painful lives. Those diagnoses can’t be made earlier in the pregnancy, and some women spend thousands of dollars to fly half way across the country for someone to kill the fetus in utero so that it can be spared the pain. It is by no means an easy choice to make, but a compassionate one all the same
A list of assumptions I’m making: 1) that your friend is really interested in bringing down abortion rates, and is not opposed to birth control. 2) is religiously-ish motivated, (if not, ignore me discussing the soul) 3) believes that all humans, including women, deserve funding and resources through education, welfare, healthcare, than shutting down clinics that provide domestic violence support, cervical screenings, STI testing, etc. and that the fight for the rights of the “pre born” are as important as the fight for all. Because the thing that got me in these articles, if all these crisis pregnancy centers & politicians took their funding for ultrasounds and put it toward feeding and clothing and educating and housing the children who are born in crisis, it would just feel so much more sincere, and less like regulating women’s bodies.
I tend to begin by discussing how we talk about “when life begins,” because “at fertilization” conversations fall apart when we realize that our best scientific evidence says about 20% of fertilized eggs never implant & flush with the next period. So, there’s a whole lot of death happening that is never grieved or even considered by the antiabortion league. And maybe they should consume themselves in this grief, if that’s where their ethics take them? And then, while estimates are shaky, another 1 in 5 pregnancies and perhaps much more, will miscarry in the first trimester because the embryo isn’t developing into a human properly. Miscarriage is body’s healthy response to *not* developing a baby–in other words, it isn’t a baby yet & the body responded accordingly. For me very very personally, I feel that when we talk about the “soul” that makes a fetus into a full-fledged human baby person, we need to think about the very real biological responses to pregnancy that do not bring a baby into the world. I don’t have faith in a God that would just make our own bodies killers of 40% or more of lives willy-nilly like because the development process went wrong beyond survival. Since the statistic on naturally terminated pregnancies is so much higher than induced termination, that I feel like if we’re so concerned with dying babies, maybe we should look at when, where, why, the embryos are being flushed and the fetuses are “dying” all the time? I occasionally feel like it’s possible to talk with rational people (not the ones just interested in controlling sexuality but actually the ones who are against abortion specifically) about viability. Because if an embryo or fetus it isn’t an individualized soul to survive outside of the womb–because that’s the majority of the time we’re talking about, not late term abortions–then it is *a part of* the woman’s body in an intrinsic way that she has agency over.
So, I kind of don’t think it’s about changing someone’s mind here, because it’ll be pretty well made up. But I think it’s possible to propose enough questions about what pregnancy really is, and how it actually works, that puts holes into the “what makes a human worth grieving” conversation. And, it would help a lot of women through the shame of infertility, or the idea that wombs are always perfect, or that there is a moral failing in miscarriage/failing to implant, or that a woman’s place in this world is to be the sacred vessel of others’ lives and to not do that is to be less than a woman.
Memorable Meals*:
This whole head of califlower with a spicy cheesy crust and somehow the cauliflower retained its shape but was textured like pure silk, along with roasted eggplant mash from Ruby Watchco.
A pizza somewhere in Manhattan. We had heard the food was great in New York but we hadn’t had anything to write home about until we came across this pizza place. And now I can’t remember the name.
A blueberry cheesecake paired with a dark chocolate stout as dessert in a meal that was fully course-beer paired at Granite Brewery & Tied House.
And when I cook – Vegetarian Moussaka._
*vegetarian, sorry
Sorry it’s not a food, but I want to thank everyone who offered thoughts and prayers to my neighbor who underwent brain surgery recently; what we feared was cancer turned out to be a cluster of blood vessels that were safely removed! She’s currently staying with friends to recover, and her dog is couch-surfing between the homes of other friends. Feels like a minor miracle. Thanks again, the mojo here is real.
It’s incredibly hard to choose the very best thing I’ve ever eaten. I think I’ve narrowed it down to two choices?
Either the lobster bisque at this tiny little restaurant on the way to a glacier tour in Iceland (no clue what town or the name of the place, unfortunately). It was perfectly creamy and lobster-y.
Or a catch of the day sandwich (two different days, two different fish) at Kalapaki Beach Hut in Lihue, Kauai. Must be eaten in the upstairs dining area, staring out at the ocean (while on honeymoon optional, but can’t hurt.)
There was a time in college when the ol’ gall bladder needed to come out, but I wanted to wait until a break to get it removed, so my diet was rice, bread, and water, and it was MISERABLE. A guy I was semi-seeing at the time said we should go to R. Thomas. (It was like 2am.) I was skeptical. He cajoled me into it, and put a dish of extremely ripe and perfect pineapple in front of me.
Best thing I have ever, EVER put in my mouth.
I would not recommend the eight weeks of misery required to recreate the experience, however.
There’s a little French bakery in Seattle that has this lunch special that’s any pastry under $3, the drink of your choice, and an entree (quiche/salad/sandwich) for like $10. If I am sans children, I stop in and get the tuna sandwich, a slice of mille feuille, and a bottle of Perrier and it’s the absolute best lunch in the world. Mr Ipo used to hate tuna until he had theirs.
Wait, which bakery?
Yes, I want to know too!
Two top favorite things I’ve eaten that I can think of right now:
Roasted cauliflower with labna, pickled chilis, and marcona almonds from Surly Brewing.
Crab bisque made by an aunt who won’t give me the recipe. She makes it once a year and it is the subject of much anticipation.
This dish looks rather plain, but was extraordinarily luxurious:
http://momofukufor2.com/2010/04/soft-cooked-hen-e…
And then there was the uni sashimi at Ichimura at Brushstroke. Uni is one of those foods you can really only eat with confidence at a very ambitious place.
Those are the two dishes that come to mind first, but I will always look back at the decade I lived in NYC and had an actual income as being the culinary highlight of my life.
The very best thing in all the world is the chicken and waffles with savory gravy and sautéed mushrooms at Flight in Memphis.
Choosing the best thing I’ve ever eaten is like choosing the best book I’ve ever read: pretty much impossible. But maybe I’d choose the one and only time I’ve ever eaten pheasant, at a super-fancy restaurant in Philadelphia, years and years ago. It had a sauce that tasted like hazelnuts. Everything that night was amazing, but the pheasant was a standout.
If we’re talking about favorite restaurants near where we are: right now I’ve got a serious craving for the spicy cumin lamb noodles at Xi’an Famous Foods. Mmmm, lamb noodles.
Toastssss! Best thing I’ve ever eaten…my mama’s chicken noodle soup, probably! I haven’t eaten meat for about a decade, and so there’s an extra nostalgia layer around the memory of eating it too.
Not sure if anyone will see this, but you guys seem like by far the best people to ask about this…how do you Toast creatives deal with creative malaise/professional jealousy/”just do the damn work”??? I’m in a not great headspace about my writing and I want to get back to enjoying it for the right reasons, but I can only see the shortfalls in my work and the GREAT work other people are doing. I know rationally that their success doesn’t detract from mine and I want to be big and gracious. How to get there again? I’m hoping I can start 2016 in a better place.
I am having the exact same malaise/jealousy (except in my case I’m barely writing at all and feeling guilty and incompetent about it) and would love to hear some thoughts on this as well.
I may not be the best person to speak to this ’cause I thrive on having a bunch of really short assignments that I can just peck away at (for work and/or fun) and until I had a tiny brush with a potential book deal last year never even thought about it all leading to some cumulative total *thing*. But that approach–small chunks that can be switched out if one thing is boring or not going well and then returned to later–means I am always doing *something* and rarely bored or tempted to look around and start comparing myself to others (it still happens, just not as much as it could if I was trying to hatch a novel and procrastinating vs. writing chapter outlines or whatever). One of the books I reviewed this year was Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, and she has a lot of useful things to say about this, too, and is very cheering to hang out with as a reader.
I was just in Brazil for Thanksgiving with my family and for Thanksgiving dinner we went out and had moqueca, which is this amazing seafood stew…thing that involves coconut milk and palm oil and god knows what else. I kept fishing out things covered in tentacles and things with questionable numbers of legs and being like I DUNNO WHAT THIS EVEN IS BUT I’M GONNA PUT IT IN MY MOUTH NOW. It was amazing, turkey can suck it.
When I was a school-aged kid my grandparents took me on one of their patented Sunday drives all over what I seemed to be every back road in the state. I don’t remember what the destination was anymore (probably a state park or a covered bridge or something like that) but when it was time to stop for lunch we stopped at a shiny glass-and-chrome roadside diner where the cook served up a fried hot dog, sliced on the edges to make it curl into a circle and served on a hot buttered toasted hamburger bun. I remember thinking it was the most amazing thing ever.
…Now I have something in my eye.
A few meals that come to mind:
-fried chicken and waffles at Buttermilk Channel, which was my first real, honest-to-god non-fast-food fried chicken after seven years of not eating meat
-omakase meal at Sushi Yasuda, made in front of you and served one piece at a time
-khao soy at Chiang Mai in Red Hook, which has the most flavorful, rich, chicken-y, coconutty broth I’ve ever tasted
-community lobster roll suppers eaten in the fluorescently-lit basement of a Masonic Lodge in Cape Cod–you pay $15 or so and you get a lobster roll, lemonade, a brownie, potato chips, and coleslaw, all served up by little old volunteer church ladies and it is THE BEST
-the veggie ramen at Chuko in Prospect Heights, which somehow beats all the meat offerings hands-down–the first time I tasted it I immediately said “I want to take a BATH in this”
I don’t like saying “best” but the thing that springs to mind is the birria at Birreria Zaragoza in Chicago. I only had it once several years ago but the goat was just so absurdly tender and the broth was so flavorful and everything was so fresh and good it was just absolutely amazing.
Sansa is a dream. She may come shake off snow at my house any time.
Toast. Helps. I am sort of chasing my tail in a panic because… getting married tomorrow. In secret. Which means he knows, the officiant knows, my two best girlfriends who are too far away to be here in any capacity know, the florist who is making my bouquet knows (shut up. I didn’t need flowers, YOU needed flowers), and the person who ruined my hair on Saturday and his manager know. Too much to do. Hosting Christmas eve for my parents who we are not telling (they get a wedding in their backyard in spring, we needed this for ourselves – complicated). Still dealing with last minute getting ready details (which dress? what shoes work with a broken toe and outdoors and with a hill and still fit after pregnancy? oh goddess how do I cover all this stress breakout madness on my face that will be immortalized forever and why is my hair doing that thing again and did I remember to order the turkey for Christmas, etc)…
For those of you who caught it before, we had a total, end of the world “is this it?” fight that lasted for about a week and five therapy sessions before hacking out that actually, we were in fact ride or die and I needed to stop dragging my feet about marriage while simultaneously accusing him of being withholding. This is my put up or shut up moment. I feel right about it, albeit terrified. I get now why this is done with a flotilla of bridesmaids and attendants and handlers and keeps and People Who Do Magic With Hair and Make-Up and Psyches because holy cats do I need help.
So here’s where The Toastnation comes into play.
I need vow help in a MAJOR way. He wrote very simple, very awesome, authentic, personal vows and somehow I went off the rails and wrote half a novel and none of it is vow-worthy. Help meeeeeeeeeeeee. What did you/would you say? Where did you or would you start? What’s the single most romantic but still real thing anyone has ever said to you?
And if anyone wants to volunteer to beta read vows and/or discuss girly femme face/hair/dress shenanigans, I would not be sad about it.
I have no useful vow advice, but CONGRATULATIONS and I am glad you are doing what feels right for you and your dude.
Since you already wrote a thing (albeit a too-long thing), would it help to try to extract the main point(s) of what you want to say? (e.g., maybe you included a million anecdotes about stuff he’s done for you, but the sentiment you’re ultimately trying to get at is “it makes me feel good to know that we’re a team and you will always have my back.” Or whatever–I am making it up obviously.)
Extracting the main points is always smart. Which is why I haven’t done it yet. Naturally. Thank you!!
I found some really great guides to vote writing when I was doing mine, and if you reply to this I will try to find them and dig them up when I get home. We wrote ours together because I liked the mirroring/ symmetry that comes with traditional style vows, but with extra equality.
I am also here for shoe commiseration as I had had a large portion of my big toenail removed to fix an ingrown nail a week before our friends and family ceremony and managed to find what I still think of as the most magical shoes ever as they didn’t hurt at all. (Seychelles, but heels, so not ideal for broken toes)
Ooh, pleaaaaase. I may see if I can find someplace in town where I can go retrieve magical shoes as well. I do not know this brand, but I am intrigued, should they have flats. I broke it in two places very near the foot, so heels of any kind are just… no.
Okay, I have found our brainstorming Google doc, but I would rather not link to it on the entire internet, so if you will email me at [email protected] I will send you the link of all the random stuff I aggregated working on ours.
And for the foot- don’t know if you’ve got any kind of brace, etc. on it, but if you don’t, sports tape and some time looking up how to tape your injuries would be time and money well spent.
Holy cats, congratulations!!! It sounds like you went through some serious processing and work to get to your marriage, which is, in my opinion, the best way to get there. Well done!
Re: shoes–I have super wide feet and toes that have been broken (but are healed) and my most comfortable heels are Clarks. They make a lot of nice-looking pumps, the ones I have are similar to this: http://www.clarksusa.com/us/womens/womens-view-al…
As for vows–you said you guys are “ride or die” and that sounds amazing, so maybe start there? What does “ride or die” mean to you? –Just an idea…
Good luck, you’ll look fantastic and everything will be fine!!!!
I have heard good things of Clarks and may look into this. Or may fall back on Chuck Taylors with my protective insert. Eesh.
That’s a great idea and I will throw it against the wall post-haste – thanks!!
And thank you for that. I was really needing a chorus of, “it’s going to be fine.” And the looking fantastic. Heh. Thank you.
Hey! You’re going to do great. I would be happy to read stuff you’ve written so far and maybe make some suggestions – my email is my username at gmail.com.
Do you have the vows he’s saying? Mirroring their structure can be great and can make things a little simpler (there’s a reason the enduring mental image of vows are both people saying the same thing; we like stuff that matches/mirrors other stuff and it makes things feel more symbolic in the lizard brain). So if he’s got five things he’s promising, you promise five things too.
The classic Catholic vows are a pretty great starting place:
“I, ___, take you, ___, for my lawful wife/husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.”
There’s the broader symmetry of both people saying the same vows, and then the symmetry within the vows themselves. It hits the big things: fidelity/loyalty, fights/interpersonal relations (I would shoehorn “communication” in there), economics, and health. The Seven Steps from Hinduism are very similar in terms of what they cover, as are most Protestant denominations’ vows.
When I have helped people do this in the past (a few times; haven’t said any myself yet), I’ve suggested they think about what they want in their marriage, what they would want in their lives from their partner, and maybe one or two personal things, although I tend to caution against overly informal language – it can be fun, but it can also be nice to maintain some gravity, depending on your personality and your relationship.
Good luck! Remember: even if you totally screw things up, you’re still married. This is just the beginning of the journey. The first time I officiated a wedding, the bride forgot two lines from her vows and the groom had to whisper “pronounce us man and wife” at me because I forgot to end the wedding; they were still married, we laughed about it later over drinks, and we’re all still friends years later (and they’re still happily married).
His are a bit Gestalt but also somehow perfect and clear, which only serves to make my Gestalt approach all the more chaotic and overarching. We had in mind to maybe structure them together for more sense of correlation. I love literally everything you have said and the categories of what vows get made is tremendously helpful. I actually wanted to do an adaptation of the Seven Steps for the sake of structure and formality.
I will be emailing you probably this evening or afternoon and THANK YOU. This is tremendous. I am passing it on to partner-mate.
Congratulations! We “wrote” our vows by mashing up three or four nice things we found on the internet (UU, Quaker, something else? I don’t remember.) Something about treasuring the journey we were undertaking, I think? It was only a couple sentences. Everyone thought they were very lovely, and it made Mr. LF cry when he said his, and then everyone else started crying, which I gather is a sign of a good ceremony.
Crying guests is definitely the hallmark of having won the wedding (as a duo, of course – team sport, naturally). I am very touched by that and smiling right now. Thank you. Also noting that I need waterproof mascara. Thank you for that, too!!!
Congratulations! I hope all the stressful bits disappear overnight in light of the big important good-feeling stuff.
I feel like “I feel right about it, albeit terrified” is a good simple summation of the WHAT, actually getting married?!?! feeling, perhaps that’s a good start to riff on in vows? I have not written vows yet, but what i wrote for my proposal was starting with how I once thought to myself “I’m crazy about this guy” and realized no, I was perfectly reasonable about him, and how great it was to realize that it didn’t take any great leap of faith to decide I wanted to spend my life with him, I actually KNOW he’ll be the best. i hope that helps! vows seem really hard but I hope the deadline helps you get the most important thing down!
That is ridiculously charming. I love the crazy to reasonable understanding. Thank you for this!
If you are not somewhere very cold/snowy, what about Toms for the shoes? I wore the off-white crochet ones for my outdoor October wedding and they were great.
I’m not going to be very helpful on the vows, I’m afraid – we just repurposed a chunk of Walt Whitman for the question/answer part, picked two readings for our friends to do, and our officiant wrote the rest himself. I was pretty definitive about not wanting to write my own words, but searching through poems/readings was really fun and inspirational. Also, have you checked out A Practical Wedding? They have many an open thread about vow-writing and reading selection.
One last contribution re: face/hair/dress: the consultant at the makeup store when we went in the day before the wedding said that the one must-have item for photos is good foundation. She recommended Urban Decay’s Naked foundation, we both bought it, and it has been my favorite item of makeup ever since. It’s a bit pricey but I am still using the same bottle two years later!
Anyway, tl;dr, it will be great and (the best part for me) then it will be over and you will be married!
If I had the time, I would draw from the slew of poems I am mad for, but since he is less a poetry slut, I would want to be really sure it worked for him, too. We did pick a great Carl Sagan passage. I think we’ll revisit that idea for our public wedding.
I adore Urban Decay and wish I had time to go stock up. I have something that I think will more or less work for general skin tone evening but the stress breakout I am suffering may be more than it can handle. Ah, well. He’s marrying me anyway. Photos can be photoshopped. 😀
Thank you very much for your suggestions – I am digging your Walt Whitman repurposing and am filing the concept away for spring.
Congratulations! Others have given way better advice on vows than I could, so instead I shall say that all will be well and I wish you all the best!
That is deeply appreciated. Thank you.
“No matter what happens, no matter what you do, I will always love you.”
Congratulations! I’m sure it will all go brilliantly; try not to worry about the little things too much and remember to breath every so often!
I have no advice for vows, but I can commiserate on the novel writing, I do exactly the same thing! Maybe have a look and see if you’ve repeated anything in there? Also I love the idea of thinking about what made you first think ‘I love this person’, was it something he said or did, or a random Sunday on the couch?
I can also commiserate on the broken feet, I have many broken toes and I recently twisted my ankle pretty badly; I’ve just been wearing Converse, and personally I think they are appropriate for any occasion; maybe if you have time run out and get a new white pair. Alternately, get a pair of ballet pumps or something for the actual ceremony, and then change into what ever is comfortable when you’re all done|!
Very, very fresh produce in season (all kinds, I don’t particularly discriminate) is hard to beat in the “best thing I’ve ever eaten” category, but the saffron ravioli at Olive and June in Austin comes close.
In food experiences, nothing will ever beat the tiny glass of Barolo Chinato I had at the end of a delightful meal at the Pink Door in Seattle. I would seriously bathe in the stuff, or at least put my entire face in it. Perfection.
The best thing I can remember eating this year was some incredible home-made mac and cheese, seasoned with tears and accompanied by whiskey, force fed to me by a friend while watching Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael after I got dumped on Valentine’s Day.
ugh the store where I usually buy my mom some kind of artisan jewelry is closed/gone? so all I have is soap and I just have had no time to deal with Christmas gifts this year. /whine
I wasn’t yet regularly reading The Toast when the “You Can Eat Sweeter Chocolate, If You Want To” piece happened, but now that I have discovered it I appreciate it deeply.
Can we have a similar discussion about how all caramel is now RUINED by SALT? OK tbh I don’t *hate* salted caramel but I love and prefer caramel in its pure unadulterated form and it seems like now everyone that sells caramel-containing items has had to up their game to compete with fancy salted caramels. YOU GUYS, CARAMEL WAS JUST FINE BEFORE.
YES! I don’t mind salted caramel as an accent flavour, but it seems like its every where all of a sudden!
My worst experience was ‘salted caramel’ ice cream, I thought it would be regular ice cream with salted caramel chunks. Nope. It was salty ice cream. yuck.
The best thing I’ve ever eaten was the appetizers when my boyfriend took me to the Uoshin in Nogizaka. There was this shredded cabbage salad for Y300 that for some reason had a frankly ridiculous quantity of saffron threads piled on the top of it? I don’t even know how this works for them financially, because it was easily 5x the saffron you get in a $12 American supermarket bottle. Delicious, though. They also fry the bones from the fish they serve and sell them to you as chips (which is an ingenious way to avoid waste) and those are mindblowingly good.
I’m having a hard time picking an absolute best of meal, but most of the ones I remember are nostalgia heavy rather than absolute food quality. The extremely sketchy falafel hut 5 minutes from my apartment in Jerusalem that had stupidly good falafel. Fried seafood at a clam shack on the Cape when my friends and I fled Boston because it was entirely too hot not to take the sea for a day. My friend’s nutella donuts that she makes for Hanukkah. The sandwich I got from a veggie food truck at my college ( <3 you clover, come to SF) after having been away in the UK for 6 months, when the girl taking my order remembered me and remarked on me having not been around in a while, then gave me a perfect sandwich.
Also, this is fairly deep in the comments, but regardless, here is a shelter pup wishing you all a happy Monday and a happy week:
I don’t know if it’s the Best Thing I’ve ever eaten, but I had a lobster parfait at Longman & Eagle here in Chicago once that made me have to close my eyes and put my head down on the table, it was so good. Oh! And when I was in Paris for my thirtieth birthday, I randomly stumbled on a restaurant that made a chocolate mousse so good that everything else chocolate has been ruined for me. I am perfectly happy to just relive the memory of that meal, over and over.
The current Best Thing I’ve ever eaten that I made myself are teriyaki turkey meatballs.
And finally, unrelated to all of this, but I just have to share. I weight-lift, so I’m used to dudes mansplaining to me at the gym. This morning takes the cake, though. I was doing bicep curls after my regular bench sets today and a dude actually interrupted me while I was doing them and made me take my headphones out so that he could explain how I was doing them wrong. Bicep curls. I channeled something I read in the comments of a previous Link Round-Up and told him flatly, “Okay, cool,” and went back to what I was doing.
Jumping in here before I’ve finished reading because the BEST food I have EVER eaten is at a place called The Pit near downtown Raleigh and oh my good gracious God the food. It’s a sort of mid-upscale place and they do southern food, particularly Eastern N.C.-style barbecue, which is vinegar based a unquestionably superior. They also offer something called “family style” which is two appetizers (fried chicken livers or pimento cheese crackers a must) two mains (one is ALWAYS brisket) two sides (literally think of every delicious southern thing, they have it) and a dessert to share (BANANA PUDDING ALWAYS). It’s $25 a head, and if you’re eating with more than four other people it is SO worth it, omg. I think I have to go there for dinner this week before I head back to the desert for xmas.
Yes! Vinegar-based barbecue is the best barbecue and I will defend it so hard (have defended it so hard actually).
My ex-husband “surprise” proposed to me in my favorite place in Paris (we had talked about marriage but I wasn’t really expecting it then). Only after he was done, did he tell me that he had set up the camera to take video of the whole thing and then he put it ON A WEBSITE FOR ALL OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS TO SEE! I had so many cringes about that and it should have been a definite sign.
A restaurant near me does beer-battered deep-fried bacon, and it is HEAVENLY.
The best thing that I have ever eaten was one year at the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy, in the early nineties. It was a little chocolate cake soaked with amaretto with some kind of chocolate custard or pudding on top, topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate shavings. Mouthgasm. I could have sworn it was from Ferrara’s, but they didn’t have it when I stopped by there later.
Yes, Terminator 2. I started being less impressed by David Foster Wallace when I read his criticism of it.
Best thing I’ve ever eaten was tacos al pastor made last week for my husband’s birthday. More or less followed J. Kenji López-Alt’s recipe and it was absolutely deadly: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/05/tacos-…. One of the guests told his girlfriend that every time he’s hungry for the rest of his life, he will think of these tacos.
15-ish years ago there was a restaurant in Washington DC called Enriqueta’s and they had the best mole poblano I have ever had in my life and I can’t explain it. The first couple of tastes were too bitter but after that the flavor changed and was everything you have ever wanted in life and more. I didn’t even know they were famous for mole when I went there (I went because I knew the margaritas were perfect and I have Standards) I just like to try mole and apparently the owner thought I was hilarious because I kept trying to tell him how good his mole was and my friend kept reminding me that the walls were covered with awards and articles all talking about how good the mole was but that really wasn’t enough for me.
I forgot about my favorite meal: this breakfast place in Montreal everyone recommends, which had a huge line, of course. When we got in we ordered two of the only vegetarian things on the menu: grapefruit and french toast. I don’t even like grapefruit (my ex ordered it) but it was just so juicy and wonderful: I have no idea what they did to it to make it that way (or if they were just really good at choosing fruit). And the french toast was just the perfect combination of custardy and crispy (with real Quebec maple syrup, of course): I’ve never had any nearly as good.
All my best meals ever were on my year abroad in Italy and I know there were TONS of amazing ones, but the one that most sticks out in my memory was a pear and gorgonzola risotto made by a count that me and several women in my program befriended. The setting was amazing (a palazzo along the Arno, lots of wine, great people), it was one of the few times I really enjoyed a dish that mixed sweet and savory (so it stands out in my memory) and I’ve never managed to recreate it in future attempts working from recipes or trying similar dishes at restaurants.
I also studied abroad in Italy in college, but I think you did Italy better than me.
I had an amazing time and it was about 15% because Italy’s amazing, 10% because the group of women I was there with was the BEST, and 75% due to how ridiculously good the program I was there with was. My school just stupidly closed down that program because they’re stupid (I feel like I need 10 more “stupids” to really emphasize how stupid of a decision this was). I was always planning to start giving money back to my alma mater once I paid off my loans, but this stupidity has me convinced I now owe them nothing.
I had a pesto in Rome? I think? That made me completely forget that thing Sophia Petrillo said about pesto originally being an ear salve (confession: that was literally the only reason I never ate it before). But that pesto was transformative, and now that I think about it, it may have been in Venice, but the point is that is was in Italy and also a life changer.
Oh, man. There’s this tiny little soup place at the bottom of my second favorite ski mountain. It’s supposed to be an organic hipster place, but they couldn’t find real hipsters to run it, so instead there’s just a bunch of snowboarding bros who always look a little bit hungover, even on Tuesdays. Anyways, if you order it with enough authority, the bros will sometimes let you have the super delicious, ridiculously great fried egg + tomato + avocado breakfast sandwich for lunch. Other times, you will get an Evil Bro who will lay down the law about not eating breakfast sandwiches as a lunch food. The random chance has become a huge part of the mystique of this sandwich, which we covet year-round & only speak of in hushed tones.
I work in the theater district near Times Square and my fave eats (Market Diner) just shut down and I am NIGH INCONSOLABLE. Theater Row diner is also pretty decent tho. Thanks for posting that list.
The best thing I’ve ever eaten was a tuna tartar at La Reine Blanche in Paris with my mom. It was our last night in Paris and I honestly wondered if something terrible was going to happen because our day was so perfect.
I get to head home to see her, starting off tomorrow. I’m super excited but just found out that my advisor wants me to send her the final revisions and formatting for my paper by tomorrow, before I leave. I sent her these revisions three weeks ago, but of course she can take weeks to finish her edits and then ask me to get a bunch of stuff done in 24 hours.
I got told by my committee at the beginning of November that I have been doing too many experiments and not “thinking” enough (which I had been telling my advisor for the last six months) so I’ve drastically scaled back but I’m still so frustrated and burned out.
Anyway, TLDR grad school is awful, does anyone have any tips for dealing with burnout? How do you keep balance and simultaneously stop feeling guilty for not doing enough work?
Two of my best food memories are from the year I was in Spain on exchange.
The first, a dozen prawns, caught that morning, grilled for a few minutes under a pile of rock salt so that they stayed juicy. Served with half a lime to squeeze over the top and eaten with my fingers, whilst drinking a cold, cold glass of white wine.
The second, a rotisserie chicken, stuffed with garlic and white pepper and who knows what else, roughly sectioned with kitchen scissors, put into a foil takeaway container and doused with a ladleful of ‘salsa’, which was just the juice and fat and drippings and more garlic that had collected in the bottom of the rotisserie oven. We would sit in a run down plaza in the dodgy part of town where the chicken shop was, struggling through our hangovers, ripping the chicken apart with our hands, dunking bread in the garlicky, greasy sauce and barely talking until the container was essentially licked clean.
Several years ago I bought Theo Chocolate. I ate part of the bar, didn’t like it, and gave the rest away. The person I gave it to didn’t like it either. The end.
The moral of the story is: Don’t eat food that is trendy just because it’s trendy. Eat it because it is good.
Oh my word can you let me know the place in Shepherds Bush please? I live in north east London but would absolutely make a trip to a place which exclusively serves my favourite things.
Ah I've got tears in my eyes at the memory. IT WAS A PERFECT MOMENT
Once I was sailing in the British Virgin Islands (will life ever be as good again – absolutely not) and we landed, starving, on a bright blue morning at an island marina. There was a decaying colonial hotel serving one of those massive breakfast buffets and thus I first encountered johnny cakes. Crisp and greasy and still hot, with a fluffy buttery inside oh my god.
I’ve been trying to find an equivalent recipe for years. This comes as close as possible, perhaps http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Jamaican-Jo…
– but then all versions are lacking that smell of ones own salty hair and the crackle of ones own sea-caked lips
The best food item I’ve eaten would either be an apple pie in Amsterdam (it was in cafe in the central transit centre I think) or some Churros with chocolate sauce in Denmark from a gelati place.
I kid you not, in both instances the food was so perfect I actually forgot what I was doing (and when eating the Churros this meant I stopped mid step and mid sentence in the centre of a street, so as to fully appreciate the deliciousness).