In Step With: Mattpod
When was the last time you ate an entire, full-size candy bar? What kind of candy bar was it?
A few weeks ago, I had a Take 5. I don't particularly like candy bars and I definitely do not like pretzels in my chocolate. My coworker conviced me to try it and despite the fact that it had FIVE ingredients I didn't especially like it.
What is a food you ate all the time as a kid, but which now disgusts you?
Hot dogs -- but I still eat them sometimes.
A quirk of fate leaves you in each of the following cities for long enough to have only one meal. What/where do you eat? Boston, Cambridge, New York, LA.
Ok, I would probably change my mind about this a bunch, but here goes (I am going to pick one assuming I had no budget and one assuming it is me).
Boston: No. 9 Park, Pino's Pizza (largely nostalgia)
Cambridge: Rialto; Bartley's
New York: Per Se; Nicky's (a total cop out but I don't have a better one yet)
San Francisco (I know nothing about LA restaurants so I'm taking this liberty): French Laundry (this isn't actually in SF, but tough shit); some place I went to when I was little and visited San Francisco and had great waffles that I'm sure I could never find.
What is a recent food impulse buy which you regretted? Which you were delighted by?
(A) Coconut juice drink documented a few weeks ago. Why put clumps in a drink? (B) I know there is a more recent one that I am forgetting, but I guess I'll say miso. I had never cooked with miso paste before and it was great in a stir fry sauce and also in a salmon marinade.
What was the most satisfying meal you ever prepared for yourself and ate while totally drunk?
When I was passing through Chicago this past summer, we got home after a great night and sliced up the leftover steak we had grilled for dinner (I'm pretty sure it was a ribeye, but it could have been a nice skirt or hangar steak), sauteed some onions and peppers and had some pretty serious fajitas.
If you had to have one of the FoodFriends design your diet for a week, whom would you select?
I guess this is bordering on platitude, but the answer is MMW. Turtle soup!?
What food staple would it be most difficult for you remove from your diet?
This probably isn't quite how this question is supposed to be answered, but I am going to say meat. I say this because I often find myself debating the morality of eating animals and I have difficulty really convincing myself that it is a good thing, but the truth is that I just can't live without it.
If I told you that you could only eat one of the following for the rest of your life, but you could always get whatever you chose as fresh and as good as possible, which would you choose? Also, assume that whichever you chose would be seedless: (1) Oranges (2) Clementines (3) Tangerines
I think I am the first to say clementines on this blog.
Also, do you prefer plastic wrap or aluminum foil?
This depends on use. Aluminum foil is is great for certain cooking applications, and I tend to wrap leftovers in it if I am not going to put the plate in the fridge. I use plastic wrap for storing other things, especially things that I want to be able to see (cheeses, marinades). (This question is strangely posed as an addendum to the question about citrus fruits.)
I have a teleporter, and can send you anywhere in the world for dinner. Where will you go, what will you have?
Toss up between a 3 star French restaurant (ie Bocuse) or a top sushi bar in Japan. Both seem like a certain height of a food culture. I wouldn't mind being teleported to some place where I know how to fly fish really well and could catch a trout and grill it immediately, I bet that would be special.
Name a food that evokes a strong memory of a particular time and place in your life.
When I was little, my babysitter used to cook dinner or lunch with me and we would make "concoctions." The one we made most often was ramen noodles, ground beef, and peas (sometimes with cheese), but they varied.
What is your relationship to caffeine?
I drink it often and without too much effect as far as I can tell. My jim beam and cokes seem to keep me up when I am out, but this might be either the alcohol or placebo. I drink diet coke very often and will drink it at any time of day. I love tea, but I do not drink coffee. I just never really have. I have no problem drinking caffeine before going to bed.
What is the best burger you've ever had?
I may have had objectively better burgers in my life, but the one I remember enjoying most was one I made at a bbq at my home in Wellesley a couple summers ago. I think I topped it with chedder, avocado, grilled portabellos and grilled scallions. It was a mouthful.
I have a food replicator from Star Trek Next Generation, what do you order and how do you order it?
Computer: Gagh, Sem'hal stew, Taspar Eggs-in-a-Nest, Plomeek soup. I got these names from this website. It turns out that despite asking this question, I know next to nothing about Star Trek.
Are there any foods that would receive an f- grade from you?
I can't think of any ingredients that would get an F-, but a quick way to get one would be to overcook meat or fish. Oh, canned tuna. I have always hated the smells and could never get myself to try it. Maybe I'd like it? Also, baby food, that stuff smells like shit and my sister feeds it to her dog.
Along the lines of "Salt," "Cod," and "History of the World In Six Glasses," what foodstuff would you most like to read a book about?
Cabbage might be interesting since it has been cultivated to produce many different vegetables that we eat. I'm sure tea would make a great but lengthy subject. Potatos, corn, wheat. I don't know, a bunch of foods have been pretty important for human history. A food that is really important to some crazy cult. Maybe a book that just lists a bunch of fake foods like the Redwall series.
Is there any food you are embarrassed about how much you like it?
I can't think of any, but I am often embarrassed by how much I like / think about food. I am sometimes too embarrassed to tell people when they ask what we should do for dinner that I have probably already thought of several specific foods or restaurants I might try for my next dinner no matter what time of day it is (this often happens up to a week or more in advance).
What was your favorite meal in the Harvard dining halls? How much would you pay to eat this meal tonight? If this meal were available in Staten Island, would you be willing to travel there to eat it?
I am going to go with chicken parm as it was cooked in Annenberg my freshman year. I would pay $8 for this, maybe $10. I would not travel to Staten Island for chicken parm.
A few weeks ago, I had a Take 5. I don't particularly like candy bars and I definitely do not like pretzels in my chocolate. My coworker conviced me to try it and despite the fact that it had FIVE ingredients I didn't especially like it.
What is a food you ate all the time as a kid, but which now disgusts you?
Hot dogs -- but I still eat them sometimes.
A quirk of fate leaves you in each of the following cities for long enough to have only one meal. What/where do you eat? Boston, Cambridge, New York, LA.
Ok, I would probably change my mind about this a bunch, but here goes (I am going to pick one assuming I had no budget and one assuming it is me).
Boston: No. 9 Park, Pino's Pizza (largely nostalgia)
Cambridge: Rialto; Bartley's
New York: Per Se; Nicky's (a total cop out but I don't have a better one yet)
San Francisco (I know nothing about LA restaurants so I'm taking this liberty): French Laundry (this isn't actually in SF, but tough shit); some place I went to when I was little and visited San Francisco and had great waffles that I'm sure I could never find.
What is a recent food impulse buy which you regretted? Which you were delighted by?
(A) Coconut juice drink documented a few weeks ago. Why put clumps in a drink? (B) I know there is a more recent one that I am forgetting, but I guess I'll say miso. I had never cooked with miso paste before and it was great in a stir fry sauce and also in a salmon marinade.
What was the most satisfying meal you ever prepared for yourself and ate while totally drunk?
When I was passing through Chicago this past summer, we got home after a great night and sliced up the leftover steak we had grilled for dinner (I'm pretty sure it was a ribeye, but it could have been a nice skirt or hangar steak), sauteed some onions and peppers and had some pretty serious fajitas.
If you had to have one of the FoodFriends design your diet for a week, whom would you select?
I guess this is bordering on platitude, but the answer is MMW. Turtle soup!?
What food staple would it be most difficult for you remove from your diet?
This probably isn't quite how this question is supposed to be answered, but I am going to say meat. I say this because I often find myself debating the morality of eating animals and I have difficulty really convincing myself that it is a good thing, but the truth is that I just can't live without it.
If I told you that you could only eat one of the following for the rest of your life, but you could always get whatever you chose as fresh and as good as possible, which would you choose? Also, assume that whichever you chose would be seedless: (1) Oranges (2) Clementines (3) Tangerines
I think I am the first to say clementines on this blog.
Also, do you prefer plastic wrap or aluminum foil?
This depends on use. Aluminum foil is is great for certain cooking applications, and I tend to wrap leftovers in it if I am not going to put the plate in the fridge. I use plastic wrap for storing other things, especially things that I want to be able to see (cheeses, marinades). (This question is strangely posed as an addendum to the question about citrus fruits.)
I have a teleporter, and can send you anywhere in the world for dinner. Where will you go, what will you have?
Toss up between a 3 star French restaurant (ie Bocuse) or a top sushi bar in Japan. Both seem like a certain height of a food culture. I wouldn't mind being teleported to some place where I know how to fly fish really well and could catch a trout and grill it immediately, I bet that would be special.
Name a food that evokes a strong memory of a particular time and place in your life.
When I was little, my babysitter used to cook dinner or lunch with me and we would make "concoctions." The one we made most often was ramen noodles, ground beef, and peas (sometimes with cheese), but they varied.
What is your relationship to caffeine?
I drink it often and without too much effect as far as I can tell. My jim beam and cokes seem to keep me up when I am out, but this might be either the alcohol or placebo. I drink diet coke very often and will drink it at any time of day. I love tea, but I do not drink coffee. I just never really have. I have no problem drinking caffeine before going to bed.
What is the best burger you've ever had?
I may have had objectively better burgers in my life, but the one I remember enjoying most was one I made at a bbq at my home in Wellesley a couple summers ago. I think I topped it with chedder, avocado, grilled portabellos and grilled scallions. It was a mouthful.
I have a food replicator from Star Trek Next Generation, what do you order and how do you order it?
Computer: Gagh, Sem'hal stew, Taspar Eggs-in-a-Nest, Plomeek soup. I got these names from this website. It turns out that despite asking this question, I know next to nothing about Star Trek.
Are there any foods that would receive an f- grade from you?
I can't think of any ingredients that would get an F-, but a quick way to get one would be to overcook meat or fish. Oh, canned tuna. I have always hated the smells and could never get myself to try it. Maybe I'd like it? Also, baby food, that stuff smells like shit and my sister feeds it to her dog.
Along the lines of "Salt," "Cod," and "History of the World In Six Glasses," what foodstuff would you most like to read a book about?
Cabbage might be interesting since it has been cultivated to produce many different vegetables that we eat. I'm sure tea would make a great but lengthy subject. Potatos, corn, wheat. I don't know, a bunch of foods have been pretty important for human history. A food that is really important to some crazy cult. Maybe a book that just lists a bunch of fake foods like the Redwall series.
Is there any food you are embarrassed about how much you like it?
I can't think of any, but I am often embarrassed by how much I like / think about food. I am sometimes too embarrassed to tell people when they ask what we should do for dinner that I have probably already thought of several specific foods or restaurants I might try for my next dinner no matter what time of day it is (this often happens up to a week or more in advance).
What was your favorite meal in the Harvard dining halls? How much would you pay to eat this meal tonight? If this meal were available in Staten Island, would you be willing to travel there to eat it?
I am going to go with chicken parm as it was cooked in Annenberg my freshman year. I would pay $8 for this, maybe $10. I would not travel to Staten Island for chicken parm.
posted by mdp at 1:49 PM
6 Comments:
Shame on everyone who didn't independently decide to also include budget restaurant picks for the four major metropolises of America. Any other suggested modifications to the Food Questionnaire are welcome.
Also, have to disagree with you about chunks of crap in drinks. What about aloe chunks/basil seeds?
I should have been more specific. There are drinks with solids in them that are good (mint julep with mashed mint comes to mind). In fact, there were entire, mostly failed, businesses predicated on this theory (Orbitz). What I should have said is that snotty lumps of tasteless crap should be in my drink.
I obviously meant to say "shouldn't." I need a better editor. Also, is Orbitz the name of the drink I am thinking of?
Ok, here is some autobiography of no interest to you, but which I feel compelled to write since I am thinking about it now. My baby sitter (who it turns out is a little crazy) used to do lots of fun cooking things with us. We used to have camp outs in my backyard and cook pancakes on slate stones found outside over a fire, and then roast popcorn in the coals, and sometimes even cook things with makeshift spits. I remember one time she brought fresh venison which she had killed on a trip (I think with a bow and arrow -- I should mention that I am not pro hunting), and we made a grill in her backyard and had a pretty good steak. Just some thoughts about where I learned to love food.
Yeah the questionnaire was meant to be a constantly changing, constantly updated start-point for GRs. Any additions should be sent to Jack. And let's not forget to keep a lively dialogue going with our GRs.
You cooked pancakes you found on stones outside? Silver dollars from heaven!
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