meme the food yo

Thanks to Meg of Get In, Hang On for the softball. I love easy memes, because it makes it so easy to come up with a post, and this is a fun one. It's all about food, baby, so here we go.

What's the last thing you ate?
I whipped up a couple packages of ramen noodles and added some leftover chicken and frozen peas. I can go a little crazy with ramen if I have a couple of extra minutes, or I can just make them plain, or I can land squarely in the middle as I did tonight.

What's your favorite cheese?
Cabot makes a really nice chipotle cheddar that's really nice, and in general I'd have to go with cheddar as a fave. I also like Manchego and really good Parmesan.

What's your favorite fish?
I don't like much fish at all, but I do like tuna. It's good and fun to play with. I can also do scallops usually, and I love calamari when it's done well, but it's so easy to fuck up if you don't know what you're doing.

What's your favorite fruit?
Probably my fave fruit is mango, but it has to be ripe enough, otherwise it's really not good at all.

When if ever did you start liking olives?
I'm up and down with olives. I tend to like them, but so many of them are new to me and can be a bit much. I'd say, if asked, my favorite is the basic Kalamata.

When, if ever, did you start liking beer?
I'm a bit of a lush, and I tend to go with beer almost exclusively. It was in Charlotte, NC somewhere around 12-13 years ago, that I started drinking better beers than the typical American stuff, though I tend when on a budget to stick with Miller High Life.

When, if ever, did you start liking shellfish?
I really only like scallops, and I've liked them since I first had them, but like anything, they really have to be cooked right, because they are so easy to ruin.

What was the best thing your parent/s used to make?
My mom's lasagna was my absolute favorite food growing up, though pretty much everything she cooked was good. Her biscuits began my lifelong love of them, but I tend to use Alton Brown's recipe these days. It's actually not that different from my mom's, and while Alton calls for half shortening and half butter I just use butter.

What's the native specialty of your hometown?
Atlanta, where I grew up, doesn't seem to have a native specialty that I can think of. If you want to go with my current home of Knoxville then I would have to guess something like mets and beans or a full house which is a tamale and chili dish. These were popularized in my town's early days, and they aren't as readily available now, but that may the closest we have to a native specialty. Anyone showing up from around these parts is more than willing to argue this point and give me something different to check on.

What's your comfort food?
Probably beer. It gives me comfort. Other than that I might go with biscuits.

What's your favorite kind of chocolate?
Dark, dark and dark.

How do you like your steak?
I like them just past rare, almost medium rare, and I think the only cut of meat worth eating as a steak is a ribeye with a nice bit of fat around the edge, the fat a little crispy from cooking.

How do you like your burger?
Medium rare to medium, mayo, mustard, ketchup, bacon, cheddar, tomato, onion, dill pickle slices, messy and dripping down my fingers.

How do you like your eggs?
Scrambled usually, but I also love them fried till the yolk is firm and the edge of the whites is brown and crispy, and I love boiled eggs as well, but the latter two tend to give some irritating gas.

How do you like your potatoes?
Cooked, all sorts of ways, fried, baked, mashed, roasted, stuffed . . .

How do you take your coffee?
Strong with maybe half a spoon full of sugar and just enough half and half to lighten it a wee bit.

How do you take your tea?
I'm southern, so I like it cold and just a little sweet.

What's your favorite mug?
My coffee mug was in the house when we moved in, is rather large and has two finger wholes for a handle. Beyond that I like a large glass mug full of a hoppy pale ale.

What's your cookie of choice?
Chocolate chip or oatmeal, raisin, walnut. It's a toss up. I'll also take walnuts in the chocolate chip if it's all the same to you.

What's your ideal breakfast?
usually coffee, but given the chance I'll load up on eggs and sausage and bacon and grits and biscuits with gravy. I won't argue with some ham. A nice scone is always nice if a bit simpler.

What's your ideal sandwich?
I love a Reuben, but I don't like crappy Swiss cheese, so I usually opt for whatever other cheese is available wherever I happen to be.

What's you ideal pizza (topping and base)?
Basic thin-ish crust with pepperoni and green olives or ham and pineapple.

What's your ideal pie (sweet or savory)?
Hands down a good pecan pie is perhaps the greatest food ever created. I'd kick a nun in the cunt for a good piece of pecan pie.

What's your ideal salad?
Okay, here's my southern coming out again, but I don't give a shit so long as there's ranch dressing. I can eat and enjoy all sorts of salads, and I do love vinaigrette if it's well made, but give me ranch if you want me to be really happy.

What food do you always like to have in the fridge?
beer, milk, butter, soy sauce, ranch, mustard,

What food do you always like to have in the freezer?
I don't use the freezer a whole lot honestly. It's always nice if there's some ice cream, but other than that the only thing that regularly goes into and out of my freezer are chicken parts. We always have some amount of chicken parts so that we can always be a very few hours away from having stock.

What food do you always like to have in the cupboard?
ramen, peanut butter, graham crackers, steel cut oats

What spices can you not live without?
oregano, thyme, kosher salt, paprika, chili pepper (not powder because I can make that) cumin, coriander, peppercorns

What sauces can you not live without?
soy, I like to have some fish sauce tucked away in the fridge as well and Sriracha

Where do you buy most of your food?
Food City

How often do you go food shopping?
every couple of days. We tend to decided at the last minute what's for dinner, so we are often running to the store for last minute things. We try to keep the pantry stocked to the point where we don't need more than the basic ingredients for any meal

What's the most you've spent on a single food item?
I don't buy really expensive stuff usually. What I have spent money on are things that are just hard to find in a small town such as lemon grass. We pay a decent little bit for coffee, and I've spent over ten dollars on a six pack of beer before. Other than that it was probably a turkey or some fish that Momma got for something.

What's the most expensive piece of kitchen equipment you own?
I'm not counting appliances, so it would probably be the Kitchen Aid stand mixer, though it was a gift from my parents. Most everything I have was either a gift or hand me down.

What's the last piece of kitchen equipment you bought?
Probably the hot air popcorn popper I got for Momma last Christmas

What piece of kitchen equipment could you not live without?
Probably my knife. I can make do with lots of stuff or without lots of stuff, but a good knife can do so many things, and there are so many things you can't really do without a knife.

How many times a week/month do you cook from raw ingredients?
Almost daily, though there are a few things we get for convenience sake.

What's the last thing you cooked from raw ingredients?
I made a sausage and mushroom frittata and biscuits. I finished the leftovers for lunch today.

What's your favorite thing to make for yourself?
biscuits or scones. I know I seem a little one track with the quick breads, but I do love them so.

What meats have you eaten other than cow, pig, chicken and turkey?
elk and lamb, didn't like the lamb really, and that may be about it

When's the last time you ate something that fell on the floor?
I have no qualms about eating things that fell on the floor, depending of course on the floor.

What's the last time you ate something you picked in the wild?
um . . . perhaps never, though the church I grew up attending had pecan trees, and I may have eaten some of the pecans, but that's been nearly twenty years, give or take a couple years

Place the following cuisines in order of preference (greatest to least) Italian, sushi, French, Chinese, Indian, Thai:
Thai-absolutely love Thai food when I've had it
Indian-I'm putting second, but it's been years since the Sunday dinners at the Krishna temple
Chinese-I'm a sucker for soy sauce and what Chinese food I've had. I'm thinking my experience may be somewhat less than authentic, but it's really hard to know
Italian-cured meats and olives and roasted peppers and bread oh my
French-I think we're more used to a lot of French styles as their cuisine has so influenced western cuisine
sushi-texture issues and dislike of nori make it nearly impossible for me to enjoy sushi, but I want to love it because it may the single prettiest food

Place the following boozes in order of preference (greatest to least) whiskey, vodka, tequila, gin, brandy, rum:
Tequila-I love good tequila, chilled without the training wheels
Rum-mmmhhmm mojitos-spiced rum is also really good with sweet, iced tea
Gin-gin martini? yes please, though it has been too long. Gin makes me goofy
Vodka-is a giant meh for me because the whole point in distilling vodka is to make it as clear and flavorless as possible. At this point the only point is to get drunk, and I'm enough of a lush without insisting on it.
Brandy-really, I associate brandy with the smell it leaves on your breath, think bum asking for spare change in your personal space, and it's only not last because . . .
Whiskey-ick, gives me immediate heartburn. I don't mean some heartburn. I mean whiskey goes down, heartburn comes up, immediately.

Place the following flavors in order of preference (greatest to least) garlic, ginger, basil, aniseseed, lime:
Lime, ginger, garlic, basil, anise

Place the following fruits in order of preference (greatest to least) cherry, apple, orange, watermelon, pineapple:
Watermelon, apple, orange, cherry, pineapple

Bread and spread:
Have we covered this already? Biscuit with butter or apple butter or a mixture of mashed together butter and molasses

What's your fast food restaurant of choice and what do you usually order?
A) Chic-fil-a and I go with the chic-fil-a sandwich, waffle fries and sweet tea, or
B)Krystal where I tend to order the bacon-cheese Krystal, Krystal chik and fries, though their fries are only good when they're really hot and salty.

What are the three best dining out experiences you've ever had?
1. Probably Cha-Cha's which is sadly no longer open, and sadly, Momma and I were able to watch their demise as the food lost all relevance to the tapas bar that they were when they were good. The standout menu items were the calamari and the wild mushroom risotto
2. Brasserie(forgetting the whole name)-Christmas party for the sushi bar where Momma used to work. Standouts there were the escargot which I had for the first time and the calamari which they served with a tomato jam
3. Possibly, and this may be kind of gay, but the day I had to run errands and Cute Boyfriend went with me and took me for Mexican. Nothing really stood out other than getting to hang out with him and having most of the day to do the hanging out.

What's your choice of tipple at the end of a long day?
My new favorite beer would be Sweetwater Brewing Company's IPA, but at the end or the beginning or in the middle of any day, long or short, I'll generally be happy to enjoy a beer or two.

Favorite cookbook?
I still stand proudly by the Joy of Cooking. It's a great all around cookbook, especially if you know how and when to fix the recipes. Aside from that I love just reading any cookbook Julia Child wrote because I just love the voice she carries over into her writing, and I don't mean her actual voice voice.

Got any favorite food blogs?
Yes, David Lebovitz is probably the very top of my favorite list.

What's the next thing you'll eat?
If I can manage to get up in time tomorrow I plan to make some apricot scones, and given the state of my stressed out tummy, that needs to be the next time I eat, and I do need to be up in time to make scones, because Cute Boyfriend will be here and deserves them.

And I'm not tagging anyone. This damn meme didn't seem nearly so long when I was reading it at Meg's or at Frankie's. Go visit both those lovely ladies and see how they answered, then go back to your blog and play along. It's a true delight, and it's fun to see how others answer.