50 favorite foods

(subject to change, multiple answers allowed)

cribbed from c(h)ristine...

okay, i'm a *little* obsessed with food.

1. favorite main entree:
risotto. or seared duck breast. or poached salmon. or braised oxtails. or roast chicken. or butter-poached lobster... (i could keep going)

2. favorite salad:
either caprese or butter lettuce with herbs and a simple vinaigrette. Nicoise and frisee lardons is also nice.

3. favorite soup:
potato leek, french onion, chicken matzo ball and noodle, or just about any asian noodle soup

4. favorite appetizer:
brandade, oysters

5. favorite dessert:
pavlova or some kind of fruit tart.

6. favorite fruit:
peaches, pluots, cherries, lychees, longans, mandarins, fuji apples, strawberries...

7. favorite vegetable:
pea sprouts, tomatoes, swiss chard and asparagus

8. favorite sashimi:
toro

9. favorite sushi roll:
generally, hamachi negi, but hideki (my local sushi chef) makes a spicy tuna roll that is truly the bomb.

10. favorite soda beverage:
mexicoke

11. favorite non-alcoholic beverage:
green tea

12. favorite alcoholic shot:
lemon drop

13. favorite alcoholic drink:
bordeaux or the phantasm at slanted door

14. favorite cake:
cupcakes! or canneles.

15. favorite pie:
peach or tarte tatin

16. favorite ice cream:
rocky road

17. favorite milkshake:
oreo malt

18. favorite cut of beef:
oxtails or hangar

19. favorite cuisine:
based on this list, i'd say french, but really, i can't pick one! i love them all! chinese, italian, mexican, japanese, vietnamese, korean, thai, spanish, indian, burmese, basque, singaporean, filipino, pakistani, greek, middle eastern - you get the idea

20. favorite part of chicken: (leg, wing, thigh, breast)
leg. but really, the "oysters" are what it's all about!

21. favorite fried food:
calamari

22. favorite cookie:
parisian macarons

23. favorite indian curry:
chicken tikka masala or navrattan korma

24. favorite gum:
orbit bubblemint

25. favorite candy:
hi-chews, grether's currant pastilles, marrons glace, passionfruit pate de fruit

26. favorite crepe:
sugar and butter

27. favorite sandwich:
croque monsieur, roast beef dip, mushroom cheesesteak, italian sub or cheeseburger. hey, it's technically a sandwich as well.

28. favorite pizza:
mushroom or salt-packed anchovy

29. favorite mexican dish:
carnitas tacos from a truck

30. favorite vietnamese dish:
shaking beef and broken rice

31. favorite korean dish:
dolsat bibimbap

32. favorite chinese dish:
too many to name! salt and pepper ____ (shellfish), steamed whole fish, peking duck, snow pea sprouts, dry braise string beans, the "bird's nest" thing made of fried potatoes filled with sauteed scallops, mushrooms, shrimp and snow peas, sizzling rice soup, stuffed tofu, lion's head meatballs... I'm chinese. Whaddya expect?

33. favorite filipino dish:
Lechon. shrimp lumpia, especially if made by my friend joann's auntie. And her mom's soup (sinigang).

34. favorite southern food:
blackeyed peas, fried giblets, yams, smothered oxtails

35. favorite instant noodles brand:
neoguri

36. favorite juice:
coconut or pomegranate

37. favorite snack food:
fruit

38. favorite fish:
salmon or tuna. skate's also pretty damn good.

39. favorite cereal:
rice chex

40. favorite pho:
pho tai gon (rare beef and tendon)

41. favorite breakfast food:
shirred eggs, bacon and toast

42. favorite french food:
if you can't guess, just about everything! what haven't i already named? cassoulet, confit, coq au vin, boeuf bourgignon, sole meuniere, moules frites (technically belgian)

43. favorite mcdonalds food:
don't eat at mcdonalds, but the fries are damn tasty.

44. favorite pasta dish:
aglio e olio, sepia alla nero, salvia con zucca or a good old pomdoro

45. favorite bread:
pain epi

46. favorite tea:
green. currently enamored of mariage freres' "la route du temps" (ginger green tea)

47. favorite 7-11 slurpee flavor:
can't hang with slurpees. love them, but they give me a terrible stomachache

48. favorite hershey's kiss
almond

49. favorite flavor of m&m's:
dulce de leche, but it's been discontinued. i'll have to go with peanut

50. favorite candy bar:
can i say the charles chocolate dark, with caramelized rice krispies? otherwise, baby ruth or butterfinger crisp.

Is there a "Your ass is out the door" card?

I didn't think greeting cards could get any more ridiculous. But I was wrong. The "Secret Lover Collection" appears to be marketed towards people engaged in adulterous relationships. There's Valentine's Day, birthday and holiday cards... and then there's the "let's dump our partners and be together", the booty call, the "weekend is over" and "this shit is too much drama, so fuck it!" cards. But perhaps, the worst of all is "your sweet scent" or, "dude, your skanky ass needs a shower."


Cover

I just love breathing you in...

Inside

I love your sweet smell...”your” scent.I can’t find it in a bottle...it’s the delicious smell of your soul.

Sometimes after I leave you I still smell your sweet scent and it makes me smile.

I wish I could keep your scent in a bottle so when we are apart I can imagine you next to me.
I can’t wait to breathe you in again.

Ewww! That one really skeeves me out. Not only is it gross, but it's just wrong. On so many levels. And all the other greetings are nearly as bad.

Cover
Just when I thought I would never find my true love – you came along... Inside
My soul has been searching for you since I came into this world.

All my life I have had this emptiness inside, like a part of me was missing and I was incomplete...
And now I can’t imagine my life without you...
Even if I have to share you.

I love you

It's horrible! And not because of the context. Anyone who sends these cards is asking to be dumped. If you're going

On the bright side...

Thank God for Jon Stewart. And one thing has come out of this... the news media appears to be doing its job. (not that the Daily Show counts as a news show)

Heartbreak

The Nagin interview is infuriating, but the Broussard interview on Meet the Press is absolutely heartbreaking.

Livid

I'm not the only one.

There is so much I want to say, but my thoughts are jumbled and chaotic. Watching CNN is like watching the trailers from 28 Days Later.

I'm angry. I'm angry at our government, angry at ourselves for being so slow to respond. I feel guilty for having a roof, dry land, clean running water and electricity while others have so little. I already felt ashamed of our government and its actions in Iraq. Now, I'm livid, upon learning engineers and hurricane experts had been asking for better levees in New Orleans, but budget cuts had not allowed for them. And that a class 4 hurricane in New Orleans was one of the three (earthquake in San Francisco and terrorist attack upon Manhattan were the other two) major disasters that FEMA predicted. And after 9/11, the FEMA began focus to focus on one. I don't think I need to say which.

There is a very faint glimmer of hope. I remember 9/11, and thinking that the world was going to become a different place, and not for the better. Both thoughts have held true. Here is another moment where the world will change. Perhaps we'll learn for the better. This tragedy has highlighted the disparities between race and class that our government likes to pretend doesn't exist, but do. Maybe there'll be a sea change, a true paradigm shift. Maybe instead looking to outside threats, we can focus on healing societal fissures domestically.

On a random note, I picked up Kanye West's new album not long ago. Upon the first listen, it blew me away. Meticulously produced, it is everything it's hyped up to be, and more. I predict it'll be rocking the cPod through the rest of the year. But first, I'm gonna load some Satchmo and put the Ken Burns documentery on.

Helplessness

Maybe I'm too cynical. Maybe I'm overly critical. Maybe I lack perspective. Maybe I'm ignorant of disaster relief procedures. But as I learn about conditions in New Orleans, I can't help but wonder. Is our federal government doing enough? It seems like it's been awfully slow to respond. A tiny nagging voice wonders... is it because those left in New Orleans, mostly African American, mostly in a lower income tax bracket, matter less to those currently in power in the federal government? FEMA's head stated that those left behind in New Orleans bear a responsibility in their fates. What an insenstive thing to say. What if you had no place to go? What if you couldn't go? What if you had no car and no money? Do the elderly, the invalids, and the disabled bear a responsibility in their fates? And what about their families, who didn't want to leave them behind? Can you blame people for wanting to care for loved ones too sick to evacuate? And even if what Mr. Brown says is true, how does it help the relief effort?

Why is it that we're so ready to wage a war in search of those still-to-be-found WMDs (in actuality, it's not only oil, but a scheme to turn our tax dollars into a slush fund for the current government's supporters), yet we're allowing our own helpless, our own elderly, our own sick, and our own young to starve and fester in anarchy, filth and disease?

I was listening to This American Life on Saturday. A 9/11 fireman's widow who was quite vocal in her opposition to the war in Iraq spoke about a White House dinner she attended. When she told President Bush that 9/11 was supposed to have been her wedding anniversary, he replied (verbatim), "Wow. You got the double whammy." Not a simple, sincere, "I'm sorry for your loss." President Bush's remarks now seem almost just as flippant.

Something tells me that if a catastrophe this huge happened in say, Texas, our government would be a lot quicker to respond.