Mmmm ... I'll second that opinion.

I had rose ice cream in England one time. I was so sure that it was going to be gross but I'm glad that someone made me try it because I loved it. On the other hand, now I have cravings for it and no way to get it.

Bubbacat - I've had cheesesteaks in Philly.

labral - I just climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge a couple months ago! I totally forgot about the TAR connection though - season 2 right? The amusing thing about the bridge is just what your family said - you have to wear these jumpsuits with a little ring in the back. They give you anything you need - hats, scrunchie/hair elastics, handkerchiefs, etc, and they all clip to the the little ring. The suits and accessories are all gray so you blend in with the bridge. It's a fun experience, and so beautiful on a sunny day.

Yay, lila! Hi! And aww, bubbacat, that's so sweet. Er, depending on how you intended to finish that sentence, that is.

Here in LA (actually Hollywood) there's a place called Mashti Malone's (owner originally from Iran) that makes incredible creamy roseawater ice cream. They also have saffron and orange blossom flavored with rosewater that are equally as tasty. You wouldn't expect something so perfumey to taste so spectacular, but it does.

Empress1, I can vouch for the flying fish in Barbados. Terrific, but you have to be careful about all the bones. [daydream] Barrbbbaddddooos [real life] Damn.

auntlada, although I love mustard on hot dogs, I'm with your husband about relish. Anything that that vile stuff touches goes immediately in the dumper, cause even if you scrape it off, the taste remains. Same goes for Miracle Whip and Dijon mustard. But I love pickles straight. Go figure.

Heee. Thought I'd leave it to your imagination.

And oh yeah, lila! Cheesesteaks are the best things about Philly. Put enough cheese on them and you can just hear your arteries hardening.

Empress1, are you referring to souse? My folks are from Barbados and I spent 5 years in school there. They have this dish called puddin' and souse and I believe souse is the meat stuffed into an intestine. What kind of meat it is and how it's prepared, I don't know and don't want to know, heh.

Worst dish there is something called cou-cou. It's some okra-based meal that you cook for some time, smells horrid, but many locals love it. Acquired taste, perhaps. I won't touch it.

El Guapo, I hear you on flying fish. If it's properly deboned and seasoned well, then you're eating like a king. Otherwise it's just annoying to watch for those little bones pricking your gums and everything. Some of the guys down there don't debone their fish too well.

In Bermuda, mayonnaise is king of condiments, although I avoid it. Give me mustard though.

Because heat and mayo go so well together.

As for me, I like dijon or other spicy mustards, but not too much. Ketchup on the other hand is the most vile stuff ever for me. I have a complete irrational hatred of the stuff. I quit a dishwashing job once when I was a teenager, because I couldn't stand plates with ketchup all over them.

piperdown-- you and whereverthemom would get along fabulously. She can't staaaaaand ketchup, to the point where I had to beg her to keep it in the house when I was a kid. Of course, her reason is that she thinks ketchup is "peasant food." Nope, not kidding. For some reason, she's decided that certain foods are only eaten when you have no money/choice, and those she has dubbed in the most bizarre of all snobberies as "peasant food." (In protest of this craziness, I dump ketchup all over her meatloaf. Mmmm... meatloaf.) Also on the list? Peanuts. I have no idea why.

And yet the woman has been known to eat white bread with mayo as a snack. Um... ok.

Ok, the "peasant food" thing is a little weird, but I am also guilty of the above. Except with wheat bread, because I think white bread is vile. And only Miracle Whip, not actual mayonnaise. I don't know. But then, I also love ketchup, and when I was little was known to pour some into a Dixie cup and slurp it up with my fingers. I know, gross. Now my guilty pleasure is grilled cheese sandwiches with ketchup and potato chips. Mmmmmm.

yet another ankle update: So, I didn't get screwed (tm JenEx) today afterall. I met with the actual surgeon today, and we decided it wasn't worth it to do surgery. The main reason to do so is to prevent instability, and if I walked 4km on it, and it's still stable/properly aligned a week later, the chances of it becoming unstable are low, and surgery may create more problems, so we'll just keep an eye on it (meaning I have another 5 weeks on crutches).

condiments: I've never been a mayo fan, and don't often like ketchup, either. The only dipping sauce I love with fries is the spicy sauce at Swiss Chalet. Speaking of fries and jumping back to the poutine discussion from the other day, one of the restaurants in town has '10 pounds of poutine' available. They have one of those deals where you can get your meal free if you manage to eat the whole thing in a certain time period, so of course some friends had to try and meet the challenge. I saw pictures of the plates with huge stacks of poutine - I can't even imagine trying to eat that all!

fermented food: I was in the Canadian Arctic a few years ago, and one of the tradtional foods for the Inuit is muktuq, which is fermented blubber buried in the ground until it's ready. There have actually been some cases of botulism when it has been prepared/stored incorrectly - one of those rather useful traditional skills that has been lost.

Glad to hear that you won't be going under the knife Kanuck!, but too bad about the extended time on crutches. So they can't give you a walking cast after a few weeks? Are you in plaster (itchy!) or fibreglass?

Re: the condiment discussion. I love ketchup and relish, hate most mustards, though I don't mind it mixed in with other things. I think it's actually the bright yellow colour that turns me off. Ew. My absolute favourite condiment in the whole wide world is tamarind sauce, the stuff they serve with Samosa in Indian restaurants. Mmmm! I ate tamarind at every opportunity when I was in Thailand. It grows in these giant bean pod looking husks and tastes divine - kind of a cross between a Sour Patch Kid and a raisin.

I myself enjoy a grilled cheese sandwich with grape jelly. Nummy!

Hello all! I’m sort of re-new to the TAR boards, so I wanted to introduce myself. I haven’t been around since probably mid-TAR4 (I used to be luna_t, but for some reason that name went poof, so now I’m moongirl), but I’m all giddy about TAR5 coming out, so I wanted to stop in and say hi. I went back a few days to see what you’ve all been chatting about, so I thought I’d pipe in on food.
I’m from St. Louis, and most of our specialties come from “The Hill” (our version of Little Italy). Arguably the best is toasted ravioli – basically fried ravioli (usually beef), sprinkled with parmesan or romano cheese and something - maybe oregano? It's awesome finger food best dipped in a good marinara sauce. Legend goes that it’s invention was a happy accident involving butterfingers and hot grease. St. Louis style pizza is pretty unique – it has a super thin, crispy crust (closer to what you would actually find in Italy, but with more Americanized toppings) and is topped with gooey provel cheese (also a St. Louis thing, and not to be confused with provelone) and cut in squares instead of the usual wedges. Also on the St. Louis Italian front, you can’t go to a “native” St. Louis wedding reception without coming across baked mostaccioli, which is tasty and cheap, and therefore a staple.
In the dessert arena, apparently unique to my little corner of the Midwest is gooey butter cake. This I cannot understand – the world should not be deprived of something so nice. Anybody else know about it?
Ooh - also concretes, which Dairy Queen, and then everyone else, eventually knocked off (poorly) with their blizzards – are a fact of life in St. Louis. There’s only one place to get them – Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. It’s a super-thick frozen custard concoction you can get with literally dozens, if not hundreds when you think of all the combinations, of options, including the Dottie, named after Ted’s wife, which is mint, chocolate and macadamias. It’s an old walk-up window type place, and if they know it’s your first time, they’ll turn the concrete upside-down for you before they hand it over, even in the middle of August, just to prove they can.
Pork steaks are another thing I didn’t know were unique to my area till I lived elsewhere for a while. They’re po-folks’ food I guess. We had them all the time growing up. They’re tasty but fatty, and can get tough pretty easy if you don’t get them off the grill fast enough. I honestly was in my 20s before I had an actual pork chop.
Sometimes I love my home town!

ETA - oooh, devajd - tamarind and samoosas! a favorite of mine from when I lived in Mauritius. Excellent! But I don't like any of the basic condiments at all except for barbeque sauce. I even eat my salads dry, or just with lemon squeezed on and some black pepper.

boohoo!!! my prof's superior decided I deserved the 'B' so...no grade change. Although I know it would've been highly unprofessional of him, I wish he'd told me that she got reamed...or canned. Oh well.

Wierd food/drink....have any of you ever drank (drunk?) a Green River? We used to get them at an icecream place in woodfield mall in Schaumberg. We also got huge honkin' jaw breakers that were bigger than golf balls. Those were the days.

I just returned from a beautiful weekend of backpacking up in the Tahoe National Forest. I went out with 3 girlfriends and it was a total princess backpacking trip, complete with snow daquiris and lounging in the sun by a lake for hours and hours. It's taken me *all day* to catch up on the TWoP forums. Y'all are busy!

*waving at all the Michigan people from pages and pages back*

I spent the first 22 years of my life in Michigan. Grew up in Traverse City, went to UM. Moved to CA (where I have done u-pick strawberries in Watsonville and fresh artichokes from Castroville, nyah nyah) when I got married after college and hubby started his PhD program out here at Stanford. No offense to Michigan, but now that I've had a taste of the west coast I don't see myself moving back. But pasties rock. Luckily there is an English guy who makes them and sells them at a local farmer's market each Thursday night. I always fill my freezer with them. I spent my 19th birthday in Windsor. Good times. I miss Tim Hortons, Dunkin Donuts, and Meijers. [/end michigan nostalgia]


Sort of related to the food topic, I discovered something about myself this week. Ever since I was little I HATED cottage cheese. I remember recoiling like my mom was trying to feed me dog poop when it was given to me. Up until recently I still was very squicked out by cottage cheese.

So, I was at a restaurant the other day where I got a fruit salad that came with cottage cheese. I was telling my husband about my HATE for it and he asked what I hated about it. Well...I didn't know. I don't even remember trying it, ever. So I took a little itty bitty tiny bite. Hmm. Not bad. Some more...this is pretty good! Suddenly I cannot get enough cottage cheese. I can't believe that the giant tub of it that I just bought is almost gone. This is not me. What did I do with me?! My mom thinks that aliens kidnapped the real me and replaced me with a clone, but one that likes cottage cheese. I wonder if I'll start liking broccoli next (ew).

Time for TAR5 yet? No? Okay, back to sleep for another month. Zzzzzzsnerk!

Wait, no. Stupid People Names. Must contribute. My hometown had an 8th-grade teacher named Harry Butts. Not Ben Dover. Not Hugh Farted, but Harry Butts. Spelled just like that. The stuff of legend.

K, back to lurking until July. :)

If we're going back to the odd names topic, my sister's father-in-law is named Robin Hood. And, I work with a guy named William Williams.

No weird food here, at least not that I can think of. I'd love to take a culinary tour of North America just to try everyone else's weird food!

My uncle likes them! I never got into them, I blame it on growing up in Seattle during the Green River Killer days ...



That stuff is hard to beat! Mr. Blevins says its basic spice is curry, which I can't taste in it, but I still like the sauce. We buy packets of the mix at Costco to serve with chicken done on the George Forman. True story: back when we were first dating, Mr. Blevins gave me a stuffed rabbit, which I named "Curry" after the sauce. (Any real or stuffed animals requiring my naming them are named after spices. I've been doing this since grade school. Yes, I'm weird.)

Chalet sauce pales in comparison to St. Hubert sauce. Mmmmm. My sister and I will drink the dregs from the little dipping cups they give you.

That actually doesn't sound half bad...buy my husband's favorite is grilled cheese with mustard...not bad either.

And best of luck with the Relay for Life, timeonmyhands...we just did our version of the Relay at our school about a week and a half ago--ours is a bit different though. I work at a female juvenile correctional institution (and, yes, it is also a school). Since the girls are actually in prison, we can't join the local high school's Relay, but they take the day to walk for the cause and to pledge money from their own accounts to the American Cancer Society. We've done it for four years straight now and it's always a success--good luck to you!

THANK YOU! I have grown up eating grilled cheese this way, and haven't met one person that understood the appeal...until now! (Although, even better is raspberry jam on grilled cheese.)

Regarding condiments -
I love all kinds of mustards except maybe the super fake electric yellow hot dog mustard. I've never been a ketchup fan but I won't puke if it's on some things, except eggs which just grosses me out.
I like mayo but I hate HATE Miracle Whip. It has the strangest sweet taste to me that just isn't right. I'm also not a fan of fat-free mayo for the same reason - funky taste.
I too love the tamarind sauce served in most Indian restaurants. I love the cumin/coriander/cilantro/what have you yogurt sauce they also serve.

Grilled cheese with jam is really good, but I'm not a fan of grape. I usually do marmalade or apricot.

Kanuck!, glad to hear that you didn't get "screwed". Although additional weeks with crutches is not going to be fun.

Funny names? I do believe I grew up in Funny Name Central. Here's the short rundown: Let's see...in grade school there were my two best friends, September (cute little African-American girl) and Cactus (cute little white girl). Of course, her middle name was Flower. I'll spare you her last name for her privacy, but if you know a girl named Cactus, well, I'm guessing there's only one, so you know her last name too.

There was also my good friend Penny Nichols. Great name, totally normal, except when you really think about it.

High school brought classmates named Joe King, John John, and Lenashashala. That was her first name. Then there was also the girl named Snow.

And finally, when I was out of college, my second real job had a receptionist named Tondaleahyandera. Not kidding - that's 7 syllables on the first name. I think her middle name was Marie.

I am the queen of weird food. I can put peanut butter on anything....grilled cheese (with ketchup too), summer sausage sandwiches, with french fries, with pickles...the list goes on. I also love dill pickles dipped in chocolate ice cream. If you get the chance, try dipping Doritos in an onion dip. It is divine. I eat ketchup on almost anything too; it's about the only condiment I use. I'm not as obsessed with ketchup as my friend Kyle is though, because he once said that he's eat babies, as long as he had ketchup. I was assuming he was kidding, though.

I only know one person with a weird name, and that's Mitchell Mitchell. There's also a Mike Hunt (say it out loud several times...you'll understand.)

I bet I'd like grilled cheese with jelly because I always put it on my sausage mcmuffins with cheese and my crossainwiches from BK. Everyone thinks i'm weird for that.

My mother eats cheetos dipped in french onion dip. We tell her that if she's gonna do that then she has to have her own container.

For the record I've never heard of Poutine, Green River, or Swiss Chalet.

And now I'm sufficiently hungry.

Now that so many of you have 'fessed up to jelly on grilled cheese, I'll mention one of my favorite "treat" breakfasts, that Mr Rabrab introduced me to--cheese and jam omelets--we use colby or cheddar cheese and strawberry jam, but its also really good with apricot jam (with apricot add some bacon crumbles and it's even better.) Also jam and cottage cheese.

And here I thought my father was the weirdest in the world for putting a slice of colby cheese on sweet rolls. Apparently he's not as strange as I thought. (Well, maybe he is...)

I had a friend in college that had a nephew with the name of Steven Olsen Barnhurst (or something close to that). My friend always couldn't wait to meet this baby and say, "How's the little..." well, you get the idea!

ETA: Oh, and jennblevins, we name our pets after elements on the periodic table--I still miss Hydrogen the fish. (Just kidding on missing the fish. Fish are NOT my kind of pet--you can't cuddle them very easily.)

And can someone tell me if the Swiss Chalet is a restaurant? And if it is, does it have a Rathskeller in the basement? Because I seem to remember something like that from my childhood.

One morning, my hubby made waffles and then sandwiched Andes mints between two of them and topped the confection with whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Sugar high for the rest of the day.

I know Green River phosphates -- you can get them at Ted & Wally's in Omaha -- but I can't stand 'em, personally.

Hee! For years Mr. PrincessLola has said he'd know if I'd been kidnapped by aliens (or better yet, if I'd been caputred and was being impersonated by my evil twin....don't ask....too many soap operas years ago I guess) by preparing me a ruben sandwich with extra sauerkraut, a huge dill pickle, and a glass of soda. I can't stand any of the above, so if I suddenly request the above items....he knows Stefano has me on the island with Marlena.

Bwah! We used to use this name in high school when I did the musicals there. Right before the first performance, we would all go around telling the freshman how excited we were that Mike Hunt was in the audience, and asking them if they liked Mike Hunt, if they had met Mike Hunt, and if they would like to meet Mike Hunt. Most of them eventually caught on. Most of them.

I will put ketchup on EVERYTHING. Mustard, however, is the devil. My ex and I used to get in actual fights over mustard. I'm also a fan of mayonaise, but I have to stay away from it because I will use way too much. And Miracle Whip? No way. That ain't mayo, yo. I'm not sure if I have any strange combinations, but green grapes dipped in salsa are excellent.

I never met this girl myself, but a friend of mine apparently went to school with a girl named Crystal Lear, which seems normal enough, until you find out that her middle name was Shanda. Yeah. That poor girl!

Finally de-lurking because I just have to join in on the grilled cheese with jelly love. Yum! Strawberry and raspberry jam are even better.

And while I usually love my french fries super-crisp and dipped in ketchup (I'm anal about the dipping. Can't stand my fries smothered in ketchup. Bleh.), I do have a weakness for french fries dipped in a Wendy's™ frosty. Mmmmm.

I think I know where I'll be heading for lunch today...

I went to high school with a guy named Jack King. Not bad until you add the word "off" after it--which we all did, of course.

Mmmm, grilled cheese with strawberry jam. Or the cut-rate version I used to make for myself after school - strawberry jam and Cheez Wiz (a substance not known to nature! Yet still strangly appealing!) How about one of my favorite snacks - a bite of banana, followed by a bite of cheese?

I'll have to try grilled cheese with jelly (what's the difference between jelly and jam anyway), it sounds interesting.

I like Heinz ketchup but some of the other kinds I find way too sweet for my liking. Often I'll use barbeque sauce instead of ketchup on fries or burgers, et al. I'm with Thallia on dipping rather than smothering. Too much ketchup is just nasty.

Any of you old enough to remember the old song, the "Name Game"? My friend Marty was NOT a fan of it, for obvious reasons. ("Marty, Marty, bo-barty, banana fana fo....." well, you get the idea!)



I grew up hating mushrooms and cottage cheese (separately, not together), but today they are two of my favorite foods. I've learned that tastes really do change. (Except oysters -- I still think they're the most disgusting thing one can put in one's mouth, not excepting any of the shit they eat on Survivor or Fear Factor!) I especially like the really small curd cottage cheese. None of this lowfat shit for me. Mixed with fruit is good, too, particularly watermelon. Yumm, I'll have to find me some for lunch today!

Ahh Devaj, my husband and I do the same with the St. Hubert sauce, that is the most delcicous stuff, my husband slurps it like a pop. For those wondering Swiss Chalet is a restaurant, whose main claim to fame is roast chicken that they serve with what some call a 'flavourful' dipping sauce, that I think is really just coloured chicken water. St. Hubert is the same type of restaurant but their dipping sauce is divine (I could use it as perfume and my husband would go crazy) and they are known also for their coleslaw.
I like ketchup, I'm a dipper, except for I break the rules and put it on my poutine. I also like to dip my pickle spears in ketchup when we have grilled cheese sandwiches. I have a friend that is terrified of mustard. No joke. And my favourite summer treat (before I became lactose intolerant) was a McDonald's chocolate shake and fries. MMMMMM.

I put guacamole on top of my grilled cheese on rye sandwiches sometimes. When I realized quesadilla is simply spanish for cheese sandwich and how much I enjoy that, it was a natural.

Moongirl, I'm going to prove I'm also from St. Louis (well, during the high school years) by asking "what high school did you go to?" I'm Parkway Central, class of '85. The first person who points out that next year is my 20th High School reunion gets an asskicking at TARCON :-)

I love condiments. LOVE them. When I discovered Europeans (some at least) use mayo on fries, I just about fainted. At any point, there's three or four bottles of salad dressing going in the fridge, not counting some olive oil & vinegars in the cupboard. If I didn't have normal human food, my fridge would look like that of a frat house - all condiments & booze. And some I've grown to love as I got older - couldn't handle mustard til about 17 or 18, and pepper couldn't touch my food until I went to Russia and craved flavor so much that I was putting it on everything. Now the pepper grinder is out at just about every meal.

My former BossLady, however, HATED condiments. HATED. Even at a Mexican restaurant near our office, she would order her dish as plain as possible - cheese & chicken, maybe rice - and god knows the salsa & sour cream & guac didn't touch her food. Salad? Dry as could be. Eck. It was like night & day with us ordering.

And Moongirl, the baked mosticholli is a staple in the Chicagoland banquet halls that I've been to, no matter the ethicity. That & lousy fried chicken has my mother steaming whenever she gets an invite to a wedding at one of these places.

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I went across the border into Western NY and we stopped at a McDonalds. When we asked for some packs of vinegar for our fries, the people looked at my parents and I like we were insane. (I really don't see what certain parts of the U.S. have against vinegar but whatever...) Then the kid behind the counter told us that they didn't have vinegar but it's was really yummy if you dipped your fries in your milkshake. I'm still baffled by that. Apparently it's a crime against humanity to put vinegar on your fries, but there's absolutely nothing odd about dipping a fried potato into strawberry ice cream.

For the record, I put ketchup on just about everything. If there's a condiment on the table, I use it! When I was little, I used to eat mustard sandwiches. Also yummy? Grilled peanut butter sandwiches!

It used to be McDonald's policy in England to charge extra for any packets of ketchup. Yet, they always put a ton of ketchup on the burgers. I never quite understood why they made you pay for ketchup for your fries. They don't do that anymore though.

Supposedly at Wendy's the thing to do with your fries is dip them in a Frosty. People are strange. Big steak fries and Ranch dressing though, are quite the taste sensation.

In Estonia, we stopped once at a local hamburger chain called Hesburger. It appeared to be the local equivalent of a McDonald's (which of course, they have in Estonia, but which we avoided except when I need to use a bathroom in Tallinn's old town). My husband was ordering for several people because he spoke a little more of the language than most of our people, at least enough to order food, and someone wanted ketchup. Condiments were not covered in our language lessons, so he sent me off to our Estonian friend to find out how to say "ketchup" in Estonian. I could have kicked him when I asked Andri and he looked at me oddly and said, "Ketchup." Duh.

Maybe. Sounds familiar. The dish is served cold, and the meat inside is all . . . mushy . . . I'm grossing myself out.

I hate mayo. I'll only eat potato salad the way my late grandmother made it because she didn't use much mayo. Love mustard, though, and its many forms (honey, spicy, dijon . . .) I once met a girl who was afraid of ketchup. Like, wouldn't come in the room when it was being eaten. I kept asking her friends, "The hell? Did she have some traumatic ketchup experience? Did she spill it in her eyes and nearly lose her sight? Is she allergic to tomatoes, what?" They'd just shake their heads, at a loss. And she wasn't allergic to tomatoes - she could do raw tomatoes and tomato sauce, just not ketchup.

I'm having money woes. I miscalculated the cost of my program, so I just called my bank to see about a loan. If I get denied, I'll have to [gulp] ask my family to loan me the money. I hate asking people for money. I only need about 2K, and I'll assuredly pay it back, but asking just makes me uncomfortable.


My best friend, the one who didn't know from chicken and waffles, does this. I thought it was the weirdest thing, but I guess it's the salty/sweet combo. And I can kind of see it, because chocolate covered pretzels are like manna from heaven, but I guess I can't quite get with cold fries.

Frosty + Fries = Good times.

And the charging for packets is still the norm over the pond in Russia, as I learned when I was seeking out flavor & non-questionable meat-esque products.

Fries for me get dipped in ketchup, unless they're the big steak fries, then it's malt vinegar sprinkled on.

Bermy Triangle the essential difference between Jam and Jelly (in the US, anyway) is that Jelly is the strained fruit juice, so that there are no bits of fruit; and Jam isn't strained (or isn't strained as thoroughly,) and includes pieces of the fruit. So Jelly is really smooth and Jam has lumps (or seeds, like in strawberry or raspberry Jam.) Preserves may be even lumpier than Jam, or it just may be a naming convention-I've never seen "quince jam", for instance, but I've seen "quince preserves" and it sure seems like jam to me. In UK usage, Jelly is what we call Jello--a gelatin, not a spread.

M. Darcy 20's not so bad; mine's 28.

Ginevra I've never tried banana and cheese, but I cut a slice out of the banana lengthwise, so that I've got a boat-looking thing and then fill the sliced-out section with peanut butter.

Other weirdness: I put black pepper on french toast, after the butter and honey. Don't know why I started doing that, but there you are.

Kanuck! let me add my sympathy and good wishes on your ankle.

I know what you mean. Just because something comes out of the ocean, it doesn't mean it's food! I once had a friend drag a sea urchin right out of the water, break it open, grab a spoon, scoop out the eggs and feed it to me. That was the nastiest thing I've ever had in my mouth. I couldn't even take the spoon, I just closed my eyes and let him shovel it in. The flavor hit me first. It tasted like salt, mostly, but it was also stinky/dirty, like licking a sweaty armpit or something - is that what brine is like? Then as it settled on my tongue and I closed my mouth - ick! I'm gagging right now, just from the memory. It was slimier than anything I can think to compare it to, and the eggs were like hundreds of little bubbles, rolling and bursting and creeping me right out. I swallowed it as fast as I could but it sort of spreads around, and your tongue gets coated with the slime. My stomach kept trying to get it out and I had to really force myself to hold down the retching. For hours afterward I would just randomly shudder. I think I drank a quart of Orangina to try to get the slime off my tongue. I'm a culinary wimp in a lot of ways, but I really think that most people would have reacted the same way. It's just gross. I mean, it's not even dead yet! Eaurgh! Blech!

ETA A wave to M.Darcy:

Cool! I was Kirkwood High, class of '89. You were closer to my sister's age - I think she was class of '84. I didn't know many Parkway types of any persuasion (North, South, Central...), but it's always good to meet a neighbor, even if a former neighbor. And what *is* that about us and highschools, anyway?

Thanks for the info, Rabrab.

Here, the local KFC charges I think 25 cents if you request an additional packet of sweet-and-sour sauce with your meal. Pretty lame. Mind you, people could easily walk into the neighbouring fast-food place and get all the s&s sauce they want.

Something I saw on a carton that is pretty nice: after toasting up a roll or bread, butter then sprinkle parmesan cheese and black pepper.

No mayo, no ketchup. It's either vinegar on fries or no fries at all. "Real" mustard on hot dogs. No oysters. No tomatoes. Only natural peanut butter with the oil on top. All horseradish is good horseradish. All garlic is good garlic. Pepper is great, but it must be freshly ground or it's just black dust. Hot sauce on scrambled eggs. And my herb garden is really a basil garden, because pesto is the most wonderful substance on earth.

Did I leave anything out?