This list/meme has been going around the blogs, and it caught up with me when my friend the Baby Rambutan tagged me a month ago. Sorry I'm just getting around to it now, but here it is. :) This list made me realize I still have a lot of eating and tasting to do!

If you’d like to play along and check off what you've eaten, here are the rules:
1. Copy the list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2. Bold all the items you’ve eaten
3. Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4. Optional extra: post a comment on Very Good Taste, linking to your results.

The Omnivore’s Hundred List

Those I’ve eaten are in bold.
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart (Lucky Dog)
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake




Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

I have been meaning to join these Friday food events but I am so disorganized about my blogging sometimes that I forget. So here's another sporadic entry for the Four Foods on Friday Meme.


This week's questions are: (my answers in bold)
#1. Melon. What’s your favorite kind? - Mush Melons
#2. Orange citrus. What’s your favorite - oranges, nectarines, navel oranges, tangerines, etc. - When they're sweet, my favorite are navel oranges. I love the little navels :)
#3. Oreos. What kind is your favorite? (Don’t eat Oreos? What about olives?) I love the original, overstuffed one. Can't get enough of that creamy filling!
#4. Pot pie. Share a recipe. (No pot pie recipe? What about a casserole or some other hot meal you bake?) - My girls love pot pie but I never made one. We usually get the ones at Boston Market. I love the crust! However, it's not exactly a pot pie, but it's encased in delicious crust... Try out this delicious Pastry Wrapped Fish.






Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

I have seen food bloggers participating in the Four Foods on Friday meme for a while now and I have been meaning to participate, but I just haven't had the time or just not been organized enough to post on Fridays. Anyway, this is the 30th edition of FFOF, but this is my first, so here goes. All you have to do to participate is answer the following questions:

#1. What’s your favorite white beverage? If you don’t have one, what’s your favorite beverage with something white in it?
My favorite white beverage, although more on the cloudy white rather than pristine white spectrum, is coconut juice. NOT coconut milk the white stuff that is rendered by pressing the mature flesh of the coconut, I'm talking about the naturally sweet and refreshing juice that bursts out when you cut open a young coconut.

#2. What’s your favorite white gravy, sauce, condiment, dressing or topping?
Bechamel Sauce. Learn how to make this one sauce and you can do just about any other sauce there is. If you're still wondering what makes the greatest mac and cheese recipes great, it's this sauce. It is the starting point for a great cheese sauce to lather your macs with.

#3. What’s your favorite white item from the refrigerated section?
Cheese. Jack, mozzarella, swiss, provolone, cheddar, brie, feta, parmigiana, and on and on...

#4. Share a recipe for something white.
Try these delectable delicacies called Puto or rice cakes.

Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

BRUNCH = is the meal that is not breakfast, not lunch, but something in between.

Whether I knew it or not, I've always been a 'bruncher' because I've never been an early riser nor organized enough to have a decent breakfast at the appointed time. Brunch is more the time when I take my first meal; that period sometime after 9am but before noon.

Peggy at What's Cooking in Carolina asked, Breakfast or Brunch?

Well, ever since I moved to North Carolina, I've totally embraced Southern cuisine. Well, I would probably embrace any cuisine, but hey. A girl's gotta eat. So in our kitchen, breakfast usually means Southern or Filipino breakfast. So please indulge me as I re-post for this meme, a previous post I made last year about Southern vs. Filipino Breakfast:

My husband loves breakfast, and since the girls went on summer vacation, we have been indulging too much. We've even had breakfast food for late dinner! We got us some true blue country ham, which reminds me of tuyo (salted, dried sardines), strangely enough, because of it's saltiness, and it's strong smell. It smells a bit like funky feet, but if you can get past that, which really, it dissipates as it cooks, is really quite delicious.

On this day, since we had plenty of green tomatoes, we decided to have some fried green tomatoes along with liver pudding (another southern specialty) and country ham, of course accompanied with buttery grits. Yummy cholesterol heaven!

The ham is so salty that I parboiled it first and threw out the first water, added a bit more and boiled it down until all the liquid has evaporated and the ham started to sizzle and take on some color. After the ham has browned, my mother in law used to deglaze the pan with coffee, producing what they call red-eye gravy which is then drizzled over the grits. I like frying rice in the same pan and getting that good country ham flavor all over the fried rice.

I have also taken a liking to fried green tomatoes which is simply dredged in flour and fried. We couldn't wait for the tomatoes in the garden to ripen, so this was a great way to have a sampling.

In contrast, this is my hubby's favorite Filipino breakfast meat, tocino.

This was my first attempt at making tocino at home, and it wasn't too bad, if I do say so myself. I simply marinated thin slices of a boston butt pork roast in apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar, and black pepper. No coloring, so this doesn't have the usual reddish color, but the flavor was good. I cooked the tocino over low heat until all the liquid evaporated and the marinade started to caramelize and take on that golden color. Tip from my dad: cook it slow, don't over cook it, and you will have a tender tocino. It worked!

If you'd like to see more breakfast dishes, check our archives here. I tag everyone who reads this post and loves breakfast or brunch to tell about your favorite things to eat for breakfast or brunch. If you're into the liquid brunches, that's fine too ;-)

I was tagged by Iskandals for this meme which was created by Dan of Saltshaker.

Here is the guideline for this meme as originally written:

My thought in this meme is food items or events that changed your foodie life. Not some “oh, it’s the first time I didn’t put jelly on a peanut butter sandwich and used bananas instead” sort of change, unless you truly feel that affected you profoundly. That’s the key - it affected you profoundly, in some manner. A moment you can look back at and say “that was a defining moment”. The questions are simple, the answers might be harder - an item, person, event, or place that had that effect on you, and why. They don’t have to be big splashy things - sometimes it’s something very small and simple that changes the way we view the world - the famed “butterfly effect” (and I’m not talking about the Aston Kutcher movie). So, to those who want to participate, copy this and pass it on (and, if you’re so inclined, do a trackback to the originating post). Here are your categories:

1. An ingredient
2. A dish, a recipe
3. A meal (in a restaurant, a home, or elsewhere)
4. A cookbook or other written work
5. A food “personality” (chef, writer, etc.)
6. Another person in your life

1. An ingredient - cheese & crackers with apples, grapes & glass of wine while tutoring an 8 year old girl in English

2. Dish -

3. Meal - Chinese banquet - 20+ courses, 3 hours. Seemed more like a hundred courses.

4. Cookbook -

5. A food "personality" - Julia Childs, Galloping Gourmet, Naked Chef, Yan Can Cook, Frugal Gourmet

6. Another person in your life






Filipino Cookbooks

This meme is from the ever creative Toni of Wifely Steps which she sent to our email group but I chose to post my answers here. I tag all of you who love food and reads this.

How do you like your eggs?
I like eggs in any form except for poached. Just haven't developed a liking for it yet.

How do you take your coffee/tea:
Like my man, strong and black LOL!

Favorite breakfast foods:
Fried Rice, tomatoes & onions, sunny fried egg, and one of these: langonisa, tocino, or daing (dried fish)

Peanut butter: smooth or crunchy?
Smooth

What kind of dressing on your salad?
Italian, Greek, or Caesar

Coke or Pepsi?
Pepsi, but rarely

You're feeling lazy. What do you make?
Ramen noodles or boiled eggs

You're feeling really lazy. What kind of pizza do you order?
Papa Johns - Spinach Alfredo (mine), pepperoni or cheese (kids), meat lover (hubby)

You feel like cooking. What do you make?
Whatever strikes me and whatever is in the fridge. I like playing iron chef in my own kitchen.

Do any foods bring back good memories?
Yes, lots of them. Just about every memory I have seems to have food involved. Example: [Good]Kindergarten graduation, my dad took us for pancit loglog and chopsuey. [Good]When I was pregnant with my first child, I had an unusual hankering for eggs at every meal.


Do any foods bring back bad memories?
Yes, lots of them. I told you I can relate just about any memory to food! Example: [Bad]I burned my legs when I was 8 cooking lugaw (porridge). [Bad]I learned how to bake bread to get over a bad break up. During this time I also learned vodka does not freeze.

Do any foods remind you of someone?
Dinengdeng and Kamote Salad = my lola Dora
chicken feet and chicken heads tinola = my lolo (those were always his portions)
Suman = my lola Faus
Banana Bread & Bread Pudding = my mom
Pinapaitan & Dinuguan = my dad
Brazos de Mercedes = Aunt Liz, who can't cook but has mastered this
I can go on and on......

Is there a food you refuse to eat?
Haven't found food yet that is hygenically prepared and cooked well that I didn't like. I'll try anything at least once, provided it's clean.

What was your favorite food as a child?
Seafood even though I was allergic to them. I loved shrimps and crab, I still do.

Is there a food that you hated as a child but now love?
hmmm........NO

Is there a food that you loved as a child but now hate?
NO

Favorite fruit & vegetable:
I like them all, but am partial to leafy green vegetables and mangoes

Favorite junk food:
French fries

Favorite between meal snack:
Don't snack much between meals but when I do it is usually fruit and occasional chips or cakes

Do you have any weird food habits:
I don't like to mix flavors unless I know they compliment each other. Example: I don't like putting anything sweet on a plate with savory dishes.

You're on a diet. What food(s) do you fill up on?
Fruits and Veggies

How spicy do you order Indian/Thai?
HOT HOT HOT!!!

Can I get you a drink?
Water for the most part; of the alcoholic type, margaritas on the rocks, gimlet, or vodka tonic

Red wine or white?
Depends on what I'm eating

We only have beer:
Corona

Favorite dessert?
Tiramisu, creme brulee, flan (or anything creamy and sweet)

The perfect nightcap?
Hot cocoa

CeliaK, the English Patis has tagged me for this meme on foodbloggers. Since I haven’t been bloghopping much due to work and kid duties, here is my lopsided attempt at world-hopping through food blogs.

1. Please list three recipes you have recently bookmarked from foodblogs to try.

For this, all I have to do is pull out the top stack of printed recipes from my bag. Here are my recent print outs of dishes to attempt one of these days: (oh crap, I cleaned out my work bag so I’ll have to review my print outs when I get home tonight…promise I’ll add to this later)
•
•
•

2. A foodblog in your vicinity

The nearest one to me is the Ilocana Chef who is also a Southern transplant. One of these days maybe we’ll get to meet, right dexie? ;-)

3. A foodblog located far from you

Farthest from me would be all the Filipino food bloggers in the Philippines who I try to visit often to get ideas, especially the first food blog I discovered, The Sassy Pinoy Cook.

4. A foodblog (or several) you have discovered recently (where did you find it?)

It seems that everyday, I discover a new food blog. But since I haven’t been bloghopping as much, it’s been a while since I added a link to my blogroll. The latest additions though are:

● Pabulum who is hosting the latest round of Lasang Pinoy.
● Potlikker who is filling the void in southern food blogging
● Zita who I stumbled to by accident


5. Any people or bloggers you want to tag with this meme?

I will tag my fellow Ilokana blogger in the south, Dexie, Tin who has been suffering from allergies but maybe be well enough to do this meme one of these days, and Iska who blogs from far away Beijing.

Being tagged for a cooking meme by CeliaK brought back a flood of memories for me, so I decided on a slightly different take on the meme. I have combined the first three questions, so I can reminisce a little about my lola, who was an early influence on my cooking, and growing up in the province.

What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?
Who had the most influence on your cooking?
Do you have an old photo as "evidence" of an early exposure to the culinary world and would you like to share it?

Cooking, it seems, has always been a part of my life starting with the first tea set and kitchen set I received for Christmas presents. But my first “real cooking” experience happened during one of our many visits to my lola’s (grandmother) house in the province. As young as 7 or 8, we were allowed to play with fire. Actually, I remember her teaching me how to build a fire on her wood stove at this age. During harvest time, we are allowed to throw sweet potatoes or corn to roast in the fire. My favorite game growing up is playing house, because then I get to cook.

I had a miniature set similar to my grandmother’s own clay stove and pots. My set is long gone, but I found this set during our last vacation to the Philippines. I am glad I still have it to share with my girls.

The set I played with wasn’t this fancy, it was just as plain as my grandmother’s real stuff, and by the time I had used it a few times, it was as blackened are hers were.

Now that I have my own children, I fuss at them for all kinds of stuff including warnings about burning the house down. Then, I think back to this time in my childhood when it wasn’t unusual for us to build a fire to cook on. I had a clay pot just like this, and I would use the small kindling sticks that my grandmother would cut to build a fire and cook rice. She never hesitated to give us a small cupful of rice to cook as we please. We gathered vegetables and fruits from the farm to experiment on. Most of the time though, our recipes consisted of boiling them with a bit of salt. We would eat what we cooked too.

Mageiricophobia - do you suffer from any cooking phobia, a dish that makes your palms sweat?
I’m willing to try cooking almost anything, but the things I fear I tend to procrastinate on. Soufle’s are one of them, or anything that has the possibility of “falling”. That’s why I am still hesitant at baking cakes. I guess soufle’s and airy cakes are next in my repertoir.


What would be your most valued or used kitchen gadgets and/or what was the biggest letdown?
My most valued kitchen gadget would be my 16 year old Oster Kitchen Center. I bought it to mix cakes and breads but I grew to appreciate the other features that came with it like the blender and food processor. It is probably one of the oldest gadgets I have and it’s probably nearing its end. I would surely miss it when it finally gives up on me.


Name some funny or weird food combinations/dishes you really like and probably no one else.
This is a really hard one for me to answer as I don’t think any of my food combinations are weird. If it tastes good, I’m all for it. One of the the food combinations that most of my American friends find strange is Avocado as dessert/sweet. I grew up eating avocado as dessert, so I don’t find it unusual at all.


What are the three eatables or dishes you simply don't want to live without?
Fruits, vegetables, and rice.


3 quickies:
favorite ice cream … Haagen Dazs Coffee
you will probably never eat … anything that smells foul or unsanitary
signature dish … any Filipino dish becomes my signature dish, since most of the time, I am the only Filipino where I live now.

I pass this meme on to any who haven't been tagged yet, and I hope Jade will answer some of the questions too.