ptrichmondmike's Profile
Potato Chip Afficionado
Classic only, PLEASE! Can't stand those flavored chips. Yuk, yuk, YUK! The perfect chip is extra-thinly sliced, crisp and light, slightly greasy and salty -- and, of course, potatoey. That's all there is. No ruffles, no ridges, no kettled cheddar, ranch, black pepper and sea salt, thank you. It is enough.
Which Two Cuisines for the Rest of your Life?
1. A highly spicy cuisine -- Various Southeast Asia, India, Caribbean, Mexico, (China)
2. A savory cuisine -- France, Italy, Middle East, Spain, (China)
Don't make me choose! My head will explode!!!
Your Perfect Sandwich
The BLT is not only the best sandwich of all, it is the Food of the Gods. Of course I make it myself, it's much tastier than in any eatery.
The great pork banh mi with extra jalapenos at Ba Le on San Pablo Avenue.
Grilled cheese...
Bacon breakfast hoagie...
Bacon cheeseburger...
NY pastrami on rye...
Cream cheese and black olives...
Egg salad...
Etc, etc etc...
And is not the sublime Eggs Benedict merely an open-face sandwich?
So many great sandwiches out there!
PS As an addendum to the nearby Guilty Pleasures thread, I'll add a marvelous Chicken Carbonara sandwich I once had at Quizmo's in Oakland -- about 3,000 calories, and decadent in all the very best and worst ways. I just love carbonara, anytime!
What is Chicken Fried Steak? Is Brown Gravy a Travesty?
Lol...I'm not quite sure exactly what I meant by "classless," but I do know great KITSCH when I taste it. And THAT is Chicken Fried Steak. In addition to KC, I had another great CFS encounter in Ely, NV....oh, about 25 years ago. Yum...so bad for you, and so very delicious.
Need Austin rec for Xmas gift certificate
Thanks much, DoD....Barley Swine it is. I only wish it was me doing the eating.
Bay Area specialties to give for Xmas?
I'm stumped about a gift for my son and daughter-in-law, who live in Austin TX. So I thought, maybe things we have/produce in the Bay Area, but aren't commonly available elsewhere. Special things...tasty things...yummy goodies. You know?
"It's Its" are all too perishable, and sourdough, salami and wine (etc.) are all available in "cosmopolitan" Austin. What do we have here that they can't get there???
All good suggestions are not only welcomed, they are acclaimed!
Thank you.
Need Austin rec for Xmas gift certificate
Thank you for your recs, I appreciate your reply.
Need Austin rec for Xmas gift certificate
Any cuisine is fine. These are sophisticated young folks.
Need Austin rec for Xmas gift certificate
My son and his wife live in Austin, and for lack of something better I'd like to give them a gift certificate for a dinner for two at one of Austin's finest restaurants. I need your help, people of Austin! Tell me where they'd want to eat, any cuisine acceptable. $$$ is no object.
What is Chicken Fried Steak? Is Brown Gravy a Travesty?
Chicken-fried steak in a creamy white pepper sauce is one of America's great sins -- a masterpiece of guilty classless pleasure. The best I ever had was in a roadside joint outside of Kansas City. Ah, I want some now...it's been years.
Popular flavors that you don't care for
Wow, I thought I was picky until I browsed this thread.
Of virtually all the chow mentioned here, I think I only really hate marshmallows (and artificial flavorings don't count). I'm not overly fond of mint and a few others mentioned, but the vast majority...REALLY? Olives, rosemary, hazelnuts...basil? All of these are wonderful. Strawberries and melons? Orange combined with chocolate? Delicious! Etc. etc. etc.
Of course, the OP excluded "mouth feel" as a diagnostic...yet it can override "flavor" for many, many people -- including me. No matter how tasty, there's no room for slimy flesh or its vegetable ilk in my mouth.
Humans are damned strange.
What was the worst food you HAD to eat as a kid?
Every time someone tells me they love liver and onions, I want to slap them...liars!
Fish Loins?
Fish "loins?" Lol...what's next, sirloin of Chilean sea bass? Rack of Calamari? Breast of mackerel
mignonne?
The truth about your local farmers' market
Alll I can add is that my local Point Richmond farmer's market is 2X the cost at Safeway. It's even more expensive than Whole Foods. And variety? Forget it.
What Foods Do You Hate/Dislike that Most Hounds Probably Love?
any offal (yecccccch!), lamb, venison, other game (i.e. aurochs, brontosaurus); slimy things.
What Foods Do You Hate/Dislike that Most Hounds Probably Love?
Lol...rum is DELICIOUS!
Foods that unreasonably gross you out...
I once ordered quail in a New Mexico restaurant near Taos -- the tiny little things looked so tender and...helpless, when they arrived -- I exchanged them with a colleague for his innocuous enchiladas. I just couldn't.
If all foods were nutritionally equal would you change your diet?
I'm healthier than my one and only "heir," sadly. I eat anything I want, just not too much of it. I weigh about what I did in high school 45 years ago. He eats what he wants, and is verging on obese. Exercise helps, of course.
Real Italian Food Vs. American Italian Food
Yes, I think a great many of N. California Italians originated in Liguria,
I lived in Brooklyn as a kid -- my much older sister married into a Sicilian family -- the dad had the last working "farm" in Brooklyn, two whole entire blocks of veggies.
Why is deli meat unhealthy?
I assume you are referring to nitrites. I have yet to read any studies demonstrating death through occasional consumption of deli meat. Like most everything else, it's not unhealthy if eaten in moderation. Only fanatics would claim otherwise, and they have nothing to contribute.
If all foods were nutritionally equal would you change your diet?
No, because my diet already consists largely of "forbidden" foods. I've never given one thought to healthy eating, and I never will. I know what tastes really, really good. " if it's also healthy, that's fine, but not the deciding factor.
I could just live on ______
Pork vindaloo
Fish and chips
Eggs Benedict
Grilled portabella burgers
Chicken Caesar salad
Lao green papaya salad (extra spicy please)
Do you go crazy for an item then stop liking it?
Lol...me too. I work right across the street from a Whole Foods, which is a constant lure. When I discovered Ines Rosales, I went nuts for a couple of weeks, gorging on them every day. Then...meh. I'll probably never have another one unless someone else buys it.
First REAL Food memory
60 years ago, when I was 4 y.o., I nearly drowned in a pond -- it took all the oxygen in two towns to keep me alive while I was rushed to the hospital. When I woke up in a hospital bed, I was starving, so they brought some mashed bananas for me. One bite, two bites...gag and vomit. I've hated the taste and smell of bananas ever since.
Foods that unreasonably gross you out...
Me, I love raw tomatoes -- assuming they are direct from the garden, not store-bought chunks of red wood -- but I worked for a guy once who couldn't handle tomatoes, or indeed any red-colored food. He was especially disgusted by strawberries, and believed that their tiny little seeds could choke him to death. He was 6'5"...lol.
Tomatoes, mushrooms olives...many of the things some people are averse to are among my favorites.
Some people like their fried eggs over easy, or even sunnyside up. When I see runny egg whites I nearly pass out with disgust. Liver in any form -- same thing. Uncooked flesh, whether sushi, steak tartare or what have you -- yecccch!
And as Axisgoddess says below -- BABY CORN! The horror, the horror...
Hummus is not Greek!
Greece has been influenced in myriad ways by the Middle East for thousands of years (and vice versa, of course, at least in ancient times). While specific fashions come and go, what could be more natural than for Greek Americans to assimilate hummus into "Greek" cuisine?
What is your "perfect breakfast"? [moved from Home Cooking]
A well-prepared Eggs Benedict is in fact the perfect breakfast, and nothing else comes close. I am fortunate to live in a neighborhood that has a little restaurant serving a great Eggs Benedict: Hidden City Cafe, Point Richmond, CA.
And another local restaurant, Little Louie's, makes a corned beef hash and egg breakfast that is to die for -- the O'Leary I think it's called. Think big, luscious chunks of corned beef, fried up with salty, tender, wonderfully greasy and utterly delicious potatoes and topped by a couple of perfect eggs over medium...sheer indulgence. Who cares that I just shaved five years off me life?
Mmmmmmm....not ME!
If you could only eat products from ONE animal for the rest of your life...
Pork -- no question. Just about every part of the pig is delicious, except the offal, which I won't eat no matter the animal.
Why are pine nuts so FREAKING EXPENSIVE?!
I think most nuts would go well in pesto (and many other things), but it's probably best to keep to somewhat milder flavors. But pistachios...sigh...so yummy. Among the Great Nuts, no question. What a good idea, at least as an experiment.
Domizetti-- Does anyone know what this is?
Domizetti = famous composer of the opera "Madama Butterfly." Or was that...Porcini?
