Meme: 31 Days of December: Day 6 Food

[escritoireazul]

Day 01: a picture of you taken this year
Day 02: talk about music this year
Day 03: talk about movies this year
Day 04: talk about television this year
Day 05: talk about books this year
Day 06: talk about food this year
Day 07: your week, in great detail
Day 08: your Hanukkah wish list
Day 09: a photo that makes you happy taken this year
Day 10: a photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11: your favorite photo this year
Day 12: your favorite website this year
Day 13: new items you’ve added to collections this year
Day 14: What you are proud of from this year
Day 15: something that made you laugh this year
Day 16: something that made you sad this year
Day 17: something that made you happy this year
Day 18: what is on your desk right now
Day 19: what you learned this year
Day 20: talk about hobbies this year
Day 21: what you are most pleased about this year
Day 22: talk about art this year
Day 23: What you did to have fun this year
Day 24: a photo of you and your family
Day 25: Talk about politics this year
Day 26: A list of what you got for Hanukkah
Day 27: A new years resolution
Day 28: Something which caught your interest this year
Day 29: Travel you did this year
Day 30: Your plans for New Years
Day 31: Best moment of the month


Day 6: talk about food this year

I don't know that I have anything to say about food. I love to hear about food from people who really love it, but that is not me. If I could switch over to pills and get all my sustenance, I would be fine. I don't enjoy cooking, I could eat the same thing every day and I would be fine.

That being said, I have had some delicious meals this year. A friend of ours is Hawaiian and used to own a Hawaiian restaurant here locally; she threw a giant party for the birthday of one of her grandsons, and the food was amazing. My grad school bffs and I ate our way through Memphis, which was a great time. I've had delicious alcoholic drinks in St Louis, Chicago, and Memphis, as well as here at the house. The two Thanksgiving dinners we had were fantastic. We've had a bunch of spicy deer sausage from Sister T's boyfriend, and it was great. I've found a sugar cookie recipe that will work for some of my art food plans this month, and Nephew was thrilled with the test run. Once a week or so J and I have dinner with friends at a little brew pub, and once a month they have a special burger, and those have been ridiculous but pretty great.

I'd much rather hear you guys talk about food. Tell me your favorite things?

Comments

[the_rck]

I adore baklava. It's got to be gooey and oozing honey/syrup, though, or it's nowhere near as good. I like to eat it layer by layer, starting from the top where there's almost no sweetness or syrup and ending with the bottom that's saturated. That means I'm not as keen on the rolled form of baklava. Those tend to be dry, and they can't be eaten in my preferred way.

I just have to be careful-- I'm allergic to walnuts, and a lot of baklava uses walnuts. I like pistachios in my baklava, mostly.

Fortunately, there's a Syrian bakery near us that has baklava that I can have.

[everbright]

I haven't looked to hard, but the only place I know I can get baklava does it... really weird. The *dry* pastry on top is usually floppy. :( Glad to find another fan though!

[the_rck]

I think that might be a storage problem. I've seen it with spinach pies that have been sealed up too soon after baking, while there was still a lot of moisture to be trapped. I think it can also happen when there's not much butter/oil on the layers of filo-- Olga's (before it went under) used to sell frozen spinach pies in our grocery store, and, at some point, they stopped using butter in the recipe. I learned that I had to apply some butter or oil before I baked the dratted things or they'd be soggy on top.

[escritoireazul]

This is really useful, actually. I hadn't thought about sealing up too soon after baking trapping moisture in things, but that makes a lot of sense.

[the_rck]

It's very noticeable with making bread in a bread machine-- If you leave the loaf in after it's done, the loaf gets noticeably soggy on the sides and bottom. Having the machine set to 'warm' after baking can help a bit but doesn't entirely make the problem go away. The soggy isn't nearly so bad if the loaf cools in the pan while the pan is sitting out, without being covered.

[escritoireazul]

Oh, man, that sounds amazing, and I would like some immediately. A+ writing, you absolutely sold me on. My mouth is literally watering at the thought.

At least down here, a walnut allergy would be such a pain. They end up in everything. (I am not a nut fan, so am constantly having to ask about ingredients, but glad I'm not allergic, because they sneak in everywhere.)

[the_rck]

I am, fortunately, not badly allergic. They just make my mouth itch a little. That, however, is a sign that the allergy could advance to my throat swelling shut, so I don't risk it.

It used to be that I could safely eat anything served at my daughter's school because they had a solid no nuts or peanuts policy, but the new principal says that being nut free is impossible and claiming to do it, even trying to do it, creates a false sense of security and makes people not prepare for the worst. I'm very, very unconvinced, but it hasn't seemed worth fighting her on it. I really don't think that designating half of a lunch table as 'nut and peanut free' does anything remotely useful for, say, a kindergartner with a life threatening allergy. It's probably adequate at my daughter's age, but she's twelve, and the school is K-7 right now.

[everbright]

Alton Brown's Adult one-pot mac and cheese recipe is A. easy, B. simple and C. tasty as heck. His stuff is notoriously WAY to complicated, so it was a nice surprise to try it and have it work.

[escritoireazul]

That is really great to know, thanks! I've looked at some of his recipes before, and you are right, way too complicated for me, but I think I could manage one-pot mac and cheese. I will give it a try!