100 Things to Eat

There's nothing like a good, old-fashioned, on-yer-hands-and-knees kitchen floor scrubbing to eliminate self-pity and feelings of victimization. As much as I hate house-cleaning of pretty much any sort, I get a perverse pleasure in taking on a major task like this. (My kitchen is pretty big and floored completely in white linoleum.) I may not be in charge of my destiny or the people in my life, but I can damn sure be in charge of how clean my kitchen is. I feel like my old self again.

So I've been thinking about composing my own list of 100 Things since like any blogger I am under the illusion that random strangers are interested in my life. But since I've been so very self-indulgent and whiney lately, and also since my favorite food holidays are fast approaching, I thought I'd instead compose a list of 100 Things to Eat. They're my favorites in no particular order--mostly homemade by me or someone else, but I didn't want to have to keep typing homemade. Have I mentioned how much I love all things food? Must be a Cancer thing.

100 Things to Eat

1. home-grown tomatoes of any kind
2. a cherry tomato called "Sungold," I don't care who grows it
3. corn picked and immediately cooked and eaten
4. homemade jelly doughnuts, still hot
5. actually Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts, still hot, rock too
6. cornichon pickles
7. kimchee
8. bacon
9. fried chicken
10. biscuits and gravy
11. eggs over-medium
12. very delicious hashbrowns made from grated potatoes
13. watermelon rind pickles
14. ripe canteloupe slices
15. strawberries picked during a drought year (makes them super-flavorful)
16. mint sorbet
17. cheese grits
18. fresh oysters
19. also fried oysters
20. fried oysters on a salad with maybe some bacon vinaigrette and lemon slices to squeeze over it all
21. hazelnut sandies (These cookies are my all-time favorite. I'll give you the recipe if you email me!)
22. lemon chess pie
23. buttermilk pie sprinkled with cinnamon
24. really good butter used in baked goods (It does make a difference.)
25. foie gras
26. fried chicken livers
27. French fries that look like they were cut from an actual potato, with skins on and everything. With mayonnaise, not ketchup.
28. fried catfish
    
29. Can you tell I'm a Southerner yet?
30. fried chicken tofu (you heard me) from Ann Jackson's cookbook, Heart of the Home. (I can't seem to make this link to her book on Amazon work.) She's an incredible woman.
31. sticky buns made from brioche dough and fresh from the oven
32. cucumber and onion pickles
33. Japanese pickles from sushi restaurants
34. any good, sour, crunchy pickles
35. oh, and pickled okra
36. seafood gumbo
37. vichysoisse
38. split pea soup
39. crusty fresh bread
40. cherry preserves
41. manchego cheese
42. gouda with plenty of age on it
43. hand-made salamis from this cute New York Italian guy in Greensboro, NC (I know you New Yorkers have got this sort of place on every block, but everything this guy makes is incredible, and if you're in NC then it's worth a day trip.)
44. big hunks of fresh, ripe watermelon eaten on a wooden deck at the beach
45. medium rare hamburgers
46. rare steaks
47. Yo, did you know that I was a vegetarian for 8 years? It doesn't show anymore, I know...
48. Coke in a small glass bottle, so thoroughly chilled that there are ice crystals in it.
    
49. pork roast and sauerkraut
50. pierogis that Sister helps me make from my grandmother's recipe
51. Hey, I'm 1/4 Polish, too. I have in my possession a letter written to my grandmother from a cousin, giving her a recipe for calves feet in aspic. Haven't tried that one yet.
52. goat stew in a Haitian restaurant on my honeymoon with Husband in Miami
53. Also, I spent the first 10 years of my life in Miami, and I'm injecting all these autobiographical tidbits because all of them inform my culinary interests. Southerner, Pole, and formative semi-tropical childhood.
54. fried plantain chips purchased at a corner market in Little Haiti in Miami, or actually any large grocery store down there
    
55. pecan pralines made with a bit of good bourbon
56. very good chocolate
57. amaretti cookies reeking of almond paste
58. Actually, my secret baking vice is eating raw dough of any kind. Some people find it gross to eat raw pie dough, raw biscuit dough, croissant dough, that kind of thing. I wonder if I'm getting some trace nutrient that way, it's so delicious to me.
59. a really ripe pear
60. really ripe peaches
61. sour cherry pie
62. homemade chocolate ice cream with maybe some hint of coffee and rum
63. mushroom pate
    
64. rumaki!
65. fried rice with scrambled egg bits in it
66. fresh shrimp
67. Ooh! Ooh! Sauteed soft shell crabs!
68. those little warm chocolate cakes that when you cut into them they ooze out liquid chocolate batter
69. dried cherries
70. crackers with butter on them
71. bread and butter, too (Takes me back to toddlerhood. My mom claims I used to sneak sticks of butter out of the fridge when I was kid and eat them like popsicles. I don't remember this.)
72. MY cornbread (and no one else's)
73. posole verde, a traditional Mexican hominy stew I learned how to make from some line cooks from Guanajuato several years ago
74. popcorn popped on the stove, in a big pot, with plenty of melted butter, salt, and a sprinkling of nutritional yeast
75. cinnamon graham crackers
76. black-eyed peas
77. collard greens cooked the Southern way, with red chili flakes and diced salt pork, on the stove all day and with plenty of pot likker to soak up with MY cornbread
    
78. chicken and dumplings
79. chicken pie made like Gran made it
80. chicken pot pie like I make it for Sister
81. plain ol' cheese souffle (Everyone in our house loves this and I still maintain that if we have eggs, we have dinner.)
82. a cold glass of milk when I'm really craving it
83. homemade spiced apple butter (I'm kind of hooked on this lately, stirred into vanilla yogurt, with toasted almonds sprinkled on top.)
84. my mom's grilled cheese sandwiches (She uses, um...Velveeta.)
85. Breyer's mint chocolate chip ice cream
86. Should I list cocktails here, too? I make the most ass-kickin' gin fizz you'll ever taste, using fresh-squeezed citrus juices. I'll send you the recipe for that, too, if you ask me.
87. Mmm, cocktails. Gin gimlets are our house drink.
88. mojitos
89. Singapore slings are divine if you make them the complicated old way, using fresh pineapple, real cherry brandy and Benedictine. Oh my.
    
90. ceviche
91. calamari
92. bittersweet chocolate mousse
93. fresh salsa of any kind with freshly fried flour tortilla chips to dip into it
94. caramel sauce
95. any dessert anyone makes for me
96. but really any food at all that anyone makes for me. There is a certain grace that you have to practice as an adult woman to allow someone else to feed you. This appeals to me, and I'm trying to teach this to Sister. (Who, by the way, is a fantastic eater)
97. Okay, almost done, but this is still coming pretty easily. Real onion rings--the kind that actually have the stringy onions inside them
98. hot blackberry cobbler
99. I can't believe I didn't think of mashed potatoes sooner than this!
100. my Polish grandmother's weird compote made of sectioned grapefruits and oranges stirred together with a bag of butter mints. She used to serve this at holidays. The mints dissolve and it all becomes this deliciously sour, sweet, minty, unctuous, slurpy ambrosia. Strange but true.

And that's it! Hope you enjoyed it. Thinking about delicious food always cheers me up anyway.