Food is good

I think Juliana's inspired me to make a post about food. She just started a blog about finding fine dining during the recession. Check it out here.

My blog will be very different. I'm going to write about food that has been particularly memorable, that I've had only once, and that I don't think you can get anywhere else. Plus, I'm not quite as eloquent as many of my foodie friends about food... I mean, seriously, I think they have a love affair with it. And I'm sure many of them wouldn't disagree with that statement.

I think I'm going backward in time here...

The first on the list is the BBQ Pulled Soy Chicken Sandwich at the Spotted Dog in Carrboro, NC. The sandwich comes on toasted buns, with a side of crinkled chips. The toasted buns are just right, and the BBQ inside is soft and warm and brings happiness to your palate. At least, it did to mine. But here's the thing - I loved that meal so much that after I got back from NC, I dreamt I had gone back, and ordered the BBQ Sandwich...and was just about to take a huge bite of it when I WOKE UP. If anything, I will go back to NC soon just for that.

Napa Valley has one huge, well-known restaurant called Farm. Attached is a little cafe, managed by the same company (I think) called Boonfly Cafe. I was at Boonfly cafe a couple years ago on my way down from Sacramento en route to San Francisco when I met up with Lauren there, took some pictures, walked around (I think that was the first time I talked to Alexei too - albeit, it was on thep hone), and had a really nice breakfast. This year, I was there again, but Sanmei had taken up a managerial position at Farm, so she joined us at Boonfly for breakfast again. I can't remember what I got for the actual meal, but per her urging, we ordered mini donuts. These mini donuts are AMAZING. They're basically small pieces of heavily dense dough, FRIED, and sprinkled with powdered sugar. So so amazing. And I think we dipped them in chocolate or something. That part I can't remember well. I could eat those for a meal. Really really.

The third food item I will talk about is the Mahi Mahi sandwich at Duke's in Malibu. I was there a couple years ago with Liz - we sat in the back, on the barefoot patio. Because it's right next to the water, during high tide, the patio gets wet. I can't remember the sandwich itself at all, other than it was really good. But, as we ate, Anne Hathaway walked in with her entourage and sat at the table next to us. She's beautiful in person. Lucky Adam. Yes, OUR Adam Shulman (from Twixter) is the Adam Shulman currenty dating Anne Hathaway. I didn't believe it and thought it was another Adam Shulman until I saw his picture with Anne Hathaway in some trashy tabloid magazine...

The last food experience I'll talk about tonight happened in Guangxi in 2001. We were at a banquet (the nth one of a medical mission trip I went on). By that time, we were pretty afraid of banquets and were begging for them to just give us rice and veggies. I think this meal was pretty tame compared to some of the other ones we had. There are two things I remember most about it. One was the sweet potato cakes - patties made out of dough and sweet potato, and lightly fried. The second was the rice wine. Sweet rice wine - you could drink a gallon of it and not feel a thing. And then it hit you like a truck about 20 minutes later. But it was delicious. I wanted to take some of the sweet potato cakes to go, but was warned that that there were monkeys where we were going, and they would find and steal my sweet potato cakes.

Ok, time to do some actual serious writing...