Food Question Challenge

This is almost a super tough call, right out the gate. I don’t know if I can actually nail down a single item that was my favorite. So, here’s a few of my favorites, in no particular order. Probably.

• Sorullos. Sunday mornings for most of my childhood – at least as far as I can recall – my mother would make sorullos. Simple as. Water, cornmeal, salt, sugar. Mixed, shaped, fried. Served hot, we would slice them open and stick a little sliver of a Kraft single inside. Let it melt, then eat when entirely too hot.
• My father’s home fries. Again, simple as. Potato and onion seasoned with some adobo and sazón.
• Rellenos de papa. Meat-filled, fried potato ball. These were a big ask, so we didn’t have them all that often. Busy parents, big mess, it’s a recipe for rarity. For a while after I moved away, my mother would make them whenever I would go visit, and sometimes even mail me a frozen batch.

Here’s the thing. I live in a meat town. This time of year in particular, there are signs all over the area for meat raffles that are happening all over the place. I, however, have not eaten meat for roughly 20 years. It’s weird to me, for me, to call something I don’t eat my favorite food. Nevertheless, I can say that while some folks might think the answer would be wings (buffalo wings), I think the answer is probably beef on weck. Served veganly, please.

If we’re talking food item, easy. Potatoes, hands down, no question, by a country mile. Boil ’em, mash ’em, but maybe don’t stick ’em in a stew. I’m not too big a fan of soups, stews, or chowders. When I was in high school, I would pay for two lunches just to get double the fries. After I stopped eating meat, I still went to fast food drive-thru windows to order french fries. Just last night at around 10pm I boiled a couple of potatoes for a snack. I. Love. Potatoes.

This is hard. Trying to bring to mind something I’ve had only in the last year, I keep mentally running up against things I’ve had much, much longer ago. Like the vegan wings at … was it called Smoke and Barrel, in D.C.? Or the ribs and mozzarella sticks from The Ground Round when I was a child. But if we’re restricting it to just the last year, not too long ago I made a kimchi faux-ried (fried) rice a few times over the course of a week or two, and the second time I made it, it was really, really good.

If I ate things I don’t eat, I would love to try authentic Khachpuri, a Georgian cheese-filled bread. Alternatively, in my favorite cooking competition show, they use a lot of Australian native ingredients and I have no idea what they might be like, but I’d love to try wattleseed and ooray. Finally, I would love to get my hands on a vegan Spice bag. I love potatoes.

I don’t. I don’t know why, but I’m terrible at it. Other people seem to have an ability that is completely absent from everything in me.

There’s no answer here. Yes please. But I guess, if I’m thinking about it, there are times when I want to eat something or am hungry, but there is no sweet thing that you could offer that would satisfy me. And even though it’s probably not true, I feel like there’s always a savory thing that would do the trick. So I guess my answer is savory. Even though I love sweet things and if it wouldn’t make me sick or eventually kill me, I would like always to have a bucket of candy on hand. Honestly, even though it would make me sick and probably eventually kill me, I still would like always to have a bucket of candy on hand.

Probably at least a little bit. Sometimes for breakfast I’ll make what I call spicy apple pie oatmeal. It’s a marriage of apple oatmeal and the sauce from Maangchi’s sweet and crunchy tofu. If the choice is there, there’s at least a 50% chance I’ll take it, but it’s not a sure thing.

I have coffee every day. I have tea maybe once every few months. I think I have to be in a particular mood for tea, but I think about coffee … um … am I gonna say “constantly?” Yeah. I think about coffee almost constantly. I considered having a cup of coffee last night just a couple hours before I went to sleep.

This was fun. I’ve been struggling with a reason to write anything lately and this was a pleasant way to get going.