A Day of Food Meme

Saw this on Lisanne's blog...

1. How do you like your eggs? Scrambled, over-easy, or hard-boiled.

2. How do you take your coffee/tea? I take my coffee in France! :P Believe it or not, I actually drank espresso and cafe au lait while on vacation. I started doing it in order to keep up with my coffee fiend husband, much to his surprise, but then I really started to like it. I haven't had any since we got home, though, partly because I'm afraid it won't taste as good and partly because drinking it out of a cardboard cup from Star*bucks leaves something to desire...mainly a nice, cozy cafe in Nice with coffee served in a porceline cup. As for tea, I like to drink it iced with either a little sugar and lemon or as an Arnold Palmer (half tea, half lemonade). I'll drink it hot on rare occasions.

3. Favorite breakfast food: Bacon, egg, and cheese on wheat toast or French toast with berries and crisp bacon.

4. Peanut butter - smooth or crunchy? I like crunchy but had to get used to eating smooth when Ben and I got together. Lucky for me, he's recently discovered fresh ground peanut butter at Whole Foods, so I'm back to eating crunchy again.

5. What kind of dressing on your salad? Blue cheese has been my favorite since I was a little girl. These days I also really like vinaigrettes, especially balsamic or raspberry.

6. Coke or Pepsi? Coke, please, the Classic kind (with sugar, not corn syrup, if possible). Lately I've gotten into Vanilla Coke Zero to cut calories. Doesn't taste as bad as regular diet.

7. You’re feeling lazy, what do you make? Tuna quesadillas.

8. You’re feeling really lazy. What kind of pizza do you order? If I'm by myself, I get a Hawaiian pizza. If I'm with Ben, some sort of chicken pizza with vegetables.

9. You feel like cooking. What do you make? I'd probably try one of the thousands of recipes I've clipped out of magazines over the years (I have a serious recipe collection issue) or something that looks good in the latest Cooking Light magazine (like the daube recipe in September's issue).

10. Do any foods bring back good memories? I miss my mom's cooking, so anything I think of that she made regularly always makes me smile: clam linguini, meatloaf with red sauce, potato donuts, fresh pasta, chicken and noodles, escargot (actually, my dad would make them for New Year's Day...I haven't had any in years), beer batter fish (even better if it was fish we caught with my grandpa), white cake with lemon curd filling (my mom and dad's wedding cake and what we used to have for special occasions when I was little...it was also one of the layers on my wedding cake)...I could go on forever. Of course, now I can add all of the great food we had in Europe...mussels, salad nicoise, daube, French ice cream...mmmmm!

11. Do any foods bring back bad memories? I really can't think of any. Probably because I equate food with good times and happiness. I lose my appetite when I'm stressed out or during sad times.

12. Do any foods remind you of someone? See #10. Especially the escargot and cherries jubilee my dad would make for the holidays...he was quite the gourmet chef.

13. Is there a food you refuse to eat? Liver and most other organ meats and leavings (ears, snouts, feet and any combination of such things). I also don't eat rabbit, veal, and lamb (the lamb mainly because I got food poisoning from a popular Irish restaurant in college not once, not twice, but three times from eating lamb burgers and roast leg of lamb).

14. What was your favorite food as a child? I've already listed a bunch of my mom's food, but the ones I really remember loving as a kid are her chicken and noodles and her beef vegetable soup. Also had a thing for peppermint stick ice cream and orange sherbet.

15. Is there a food that you hated as a child but now like? Radishes, onions, sweet potatoes, and most fish (definitely would have been grossed out by sushi back then)

16. Is there a food that you liked as a child but now hate? Liverwurst (but I've always hated liver, don't know why I liked liverwurst), Lunch*ables, and some of the sickening sweet candies (Spree...yuck!).

17. Favorite fruit and vegetable: Strawberries and green peas.

18. Favorite junk food: Pickles, chips, jelly beans, cookies, brownies, chocolate.

19. Favorite between meal snack: Yogurt, fruit, and lately string cheese.

20. Do you have any weird food habits? I used to eat carrots dipped in peanut butter in college (for breakfast, washed down with a mixture of orange juice and Mountain Dew...made my parents so proud, I'm sure), but I don't think I have any weird habits now. Others may disagree with me, though.

21. You’re on a diet. What food(s) do you fill up on? Turkey wrap sandwiches.

22 . You’re off your diet. Now what would you like? Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and green bean casserole with a slice of chocolate pecan pie (which upon completing would send me back on a diet).

23. How spicy do you order Indian/Thai? Spicy enough that my sinuses clear, which is pretty spicy. I hate when ethnic restaurants "dumb-down" the spices for American palates. When the menu says spicy, it had better make my nose run!

24. Can I get you a drink? I could go for a Cape Cod or a greyhound right now. Wouldn't turn down a dirty martini or a margarita on the rocks with salt, though, if you offered me one right now.

25. Red wine or white? I generally perfer reds, but in the warm summer months I like a nice glass of white, or better yet, a glass of rose preferably at a French cafe. :)

26. Favorite dessert? My mom's white cake with lemon curd filling, anything with copious amounts of chocolate and fresh berries,

27. The perfect nightcap? A nice glass of ice water or an Emergen-C. Exciting stuff, no?