THE FOOD QUESTIONNAIRE
When was the last time you ate an entire, full-size candy bar? What kind of candy bar was it?
For some reason the break room at work has a cabinet full of old-timey Annabelle candy bars: Big Hunk (nougat with peanuts), Look! (nougat covered in chocolate), and Abba-Zabba (nougat with peanut butter filling). On the first day they showed up, I ate one of each. I would say Look! is the best and Abba-Zabba is the worst. But they are all terrible.
What is a food you ate all the time as a kid, but which now disgusts you?
I had a pretty insatiable sweet tooth as a kid. Here are some things I did then that older, awesomer me would never do:
1. Eat an entire box of Lucky Charms marshmallows, discarding the cereal bits.
2. Buy up all the half-price Peeps at KMart on the day after Easter and eat them over the course of many months. My favorite way of eating them was to open a box, leave it on top of my bookshelf for a few weeks, then eat them when they were hard and stale.
3. Walk around sucking on a squeeze bottle of caramel ice cream topping (this was in high school).
4. Take powder drink mix, usually for kool-aid or hot cocoa, pour it into a cup, and add just enough water to make a thick paste which I'd eat with a spoon.
What is a recent food impulse buy which you regretted? Which you were delighted by?
I am a big fan of Pulparindo, a mexican tamarind candy that tastes like a salty, spicy fruit roll-up. But every other tamarind candy I've purchased has been gross. Also, a lot of them have pictures of tamarind on the package. Tamarinds look like turds.
In a truck stop in China last year I bought a package of what looked like thin pink discs of paper. The only English word on it was "hawthorn." The contents turned out to be dried fruit pressed into perfectly round, thin wafers. They tasted like strawberry and I liked them a lot.
What was the most satisfying meal you ever prepared for yourself and ate while totally drunk?
Danger already said this, but once we came back from a party and drunkenly prepared a rack of lamb in what Alton Brown calls the "Liz and Dick" style. We also roasted a foil pouch of root vegetables over the grill. The perfect meal, the perfect company...what a night!
If you had to have one of the FoodFriends design your diet for a week, whom would you select?
I would just be so happy that someone was doing this for me, I wouldn't care who it was!
What are the shows you watch the most on Food Network? What are your thoughts on: Rachael Rae, Alton Brown, Nigella Lawson?
When I moved to LA and was poor and eating cheap crap, I watched Food Network constantly, esp. shows with Alton Brown, Rachael Ray, Ming Tsai, and Sara Moulton. But now that I have a job and can actually eat good food rather than just look at it, I only watch Iron Chef America.
It's pretty hard to say anything original about Rachel Ray at this point. I'll try: I find the size of her butt to be surprisingly difficult to ascertain. I like Alton Brown but he's half the food nerd that Christopher Kimball is. Nigella Lawson is pretty irrelevant.
What food staple would it be most difficult for you remove from your diet?
Probably kimchi because nothing could take its place. Except I guess kaktugi, which is kimchi made from radishes.
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
Oranges. Yeah, definitely oranges. For sure.
Just kidding. Clementines.
Also, do you prefer plastic wrap or aluminum foil?
Well, for preserving the temperature of hot items, foil. For making an air-tight seal that keeps foods fresher longer, plastic wrap.
When and how did you learn to cook?
On the Lampoon, where I cooked for upwards of 50 people. Nowadays though I tend to cook for 0 people.
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.
Boston: The Barking Crab. I heard it was shut down for serving people poop or somesuch, but my family always ate there and it had a casual vibe that really made us feel at home.
Cambridge: Campo de Fiori.
New York: A really good pizza place.
LA: Bastide (although it's apparently being re-opened with a new, less crazy menu, which would suck. In that case I'd probably eat at Beverly Soon Tofu).
Name a fruit, meat, soda, and candy you despise.
Fruit: Papaya. Shit smells like cheese.
Meat: White meat chicken. It's so dry and flavorless.
Soda: I find Cactus Cooler to be too sweet.
Candy: I can't get into sour candies.
I have a teleporter, and can send you anywhere in the world for dinner. Where will you go, what will you have?
Either El Bulli in Spain or St. John's in London.
Do you have any well-loved or detested cookbooks?
I have this retarded cookbook called "A Man, A Can, A Plan" which is all about "man food" comprised of mostly canned foods. The primary ingredient is usually something gross like canned deviled ham, and then you usually add like mayo and beans and then bake it in Pillsbury biscuit dough or something. It sucks so hard. Also the meal described above would probably be called “5-minute Hoggy Pillows” or something stupid.
Name a food that evokes a strong memory of a particular time and place in your life.
Those chocolate eclair ice cream bars remind me of middle school, when most of our daily lunch period was spent trying to scrounge up the money to buy a Chief Crunchy bar. There was also a strawberry version, but most of us ignored it, I think because we thought eating it meant you were a homo.
What is your relationship to caffeine?
I only drink caffeine at night, in the form of vodka or jager redbulls. I once saw a news story about caffeine addicts, and it showed a woman who kept a fridge full of Mountain Dew, and that scared me from ever getting into coffee.
What is the best burger you've ever had?
I can't imagine a better burger than the one at Father's Office. Some people like to argue that the Father's Office burger isn't even really a burger, in which case I'd take Mo' Better Meatty Meat Burger, which I last had in late 2003, about a month before it got shut down because its workers were dealing drugs.
I have a food replicator from Star Trek Next Generation, what do you order and how do you order it?
Skooby’s French fries. I would order it quietly so Doogs wouldn’t hear.
Which comic book character would you most like to cook a meal for you? For which comic book character would you most like to cook a meal?
I bet Ben Grimm, the Thing, would be good at making chili. I would most like to cook a meal for Shadowcat as played by Ellen Page in X3.
Are there any foods that would receive an f- grade from you?
The chicken sandwiches at the Barnes and Noble cafe. Stick with selling a wide selection of books at amazing prices, guys!
Based on what you've read of the diets of each food reporter, which food reporter would you eat?
I don't know, you all look really good.
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?
Chili peppers. Garlic. Kimchi. Dippin’ Dots.
Is there any food you are embarrassed about how much you like it?
It's pretty embarrassing how I'm never sick of Beverly Soon Tofu, and whenever I am thinking of a place to eat, I'll think of like 10 places I haven't been to in a while and then just go to Beverly Soon Tofu. Extra embarrassing is the fact that the Korean staff there clearly knows who I am, and I must be one of their best customers, but since I don't know Korean we just kind of ignore each other.
What was your favorite meal in the dining halls of our fair college? How much would you pay to eat this meal tonight? To eat this meal, would you be willing to travel to Staten Island/Encino/a smelly cave in a swamp?
This is cheating, but my mom used to send in her recipe for Bulgogi (Korean barbecue beef) during that week when they'd make recipes from home. That was really good. I also had great fondness for the night when it was buffalo wings and WWII flyer wings (?), as well as the night when it was chicken fried steak, white sausage gravy, garlic bread, and that pasta with little shrimps in it. To eat any of the above meals I would pay infinity dollars. I would not be willing to travel.
Describe what you would consider, for you, in the college dining halls, a typical breakfast, lunch, dinner, and Sunday brunch.
B-fast: All bran.
Lunch, dinner, brunch: A little of everything, plus maybe a hot dog from Adams grill.
What are your favorite beers? What are your favorite wines? What are your favorite liquors? What are your favorite cocktails? Do you feel that you have a signature drink? If a FoodFriend ever had to order a drink for you while you were in the restroom, what drink should they order?
My favorite beer is probably Dos Equis lager or Fat Tire. Once Danger and I ordered a great cheap pitcher of some European beer from the Farmer's Market bar. A week later we returned and asked for it, and the bartender claimed it did not exist. I'm not a big wine guy. As for booze I usually just get a scotch, sometimes an old fashioned. In Las Vegas I only drink Jager Red Bulls and they serve me well.
If you are a smoker, how does smoking affect your meals? Do you eat less? If you finish what you consider a very good dinner, how important is a post-prandial cigarette to you?
Not a smoker, but a cigarette after a big meal is awesome.
Have you ever eaten food or consumed a beverage while making love?
I have never made love without a Taco Bell Crunchwrap in my hand.
Last question: What is your favorite food?
Kimchi.
