Hot Dogs and Nostalgia
I miss summer so badly. What I miss about summer the most is the beach and camping. Then I think of camping food and I am reminded of home-made hamburgers and tasty smokies and hotdogs.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of anyone really craving hotdogs before. That is until this year. I have a friend who has had hotdogs twice in one month, during winter, and this is so unusual for her. She is pregnant so I chalked that up to pregnancy cravings.
Then at work they had a staff lunch a couple weeks back and the feature was, you guessed it, hotdogs. From what I hear that lunch was a huge success and when I was there last week I had people ranting and raving about the best staff lunch being hotdog day.
Hotdogs are not gourmet food. But for some reason we all love to eat them, especially when camping. Thinking about camping made me think of hotdogs. If I was to eat a hotdog right now, I am sure it would remind me of camping.
I love how food triggers memory and vice versa. I don’t have hotdogs in the fridge. I also don’t feel like going out and buying any. So, I will just pine away for summer time food and try to remember the good old days of camping last summer to get me by.
Pizza
I like a lot of types of food. I enjoy a variety. I like so many different things I am pretty sure I don’t have a favorite. So, it’s probably easier to blog about food that I dislike first.
Dear Pizza, I do not like you. I like cheese, I like bread (such a treat!), I even don’t mind sauce. I do not like each of these things thrown together. Add meat and veggies into the mix and I want to gag.
I honestly am not sure exactly what about pizza makes me hate it so bad. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s mostly how I feel after I eat pizza. So overfull, bloated, and like I would sink if someone threw me into a pool. Unpleasant.
I’ve had good tasting pizza before. Interesting toppings, good crust, extra cheesy goodness. Still I walk away from any pizza experience vowing to never eat the stuff again.
That’s kind of the boat I am in right now after this weekend. We were away and ordered pizza to be delivered to our hotel room because I was too tired to go out for dinner. I know I should have paid more attention to the name of the pizza place and whatever to do a review here but like I said I was tired. It took over an hour (they said 35 minutes on the phone) to arrive. The pizza was okay. They made it spicy for us on request which was nice. Overall ok. But if I never see pizza again I will be ever so grateful. It was just overkill.
Sorry pizza. I officially want nothing to do with you. Don’t be too sad, I am sure there are millions of North Americans who love you anyways.
Potluck-a-licious
I love me a good potluck dinner. Lucky us, there’s a potluck dinner as part of a friend’s wedding tomorrow. I am bringing 2 lasagnas. My recipe is pretty top secret.
But I am not really here to talk about top secret recipes or lasagna. I wanted to talk about potlucks.
I’ve taken the liberty of compiling what I consider to be some of the best reasons to love potluck dinners:
The abundance of food. A potluck supper is a lot like a buffet. Except it isn’t Chinese food. You can take as little or as much as you want. You can go back for seconds and there will probably be more there than when you went for firsts.
The variety. You can take a bit of everything, go for the old favorites like perogies, lasagna, meatballs, etc. You can effectively eat food from almost every corner of the world if you have the right mix of potluck food-makers.
The intrigue. There’s always going to be a few dishes where you aren’t quite sure what exactly it is, or even what is in it. There is something about taking a scoopful of mystery casserole, or trying the jellied concoction layered with meat that adds to the excitement and experience of potlucking it. Maybe you’re into the mystery desserts – although rarely can you go wrong there.
The pride. This is probably going to make me sound so snobby and (gasp!) conceited but I am going to be honest here. I actually love to make outstanding, even if its difficult or complicated, dishes to bring to potlucks. I want to look impressive. I want people to be excited to eat the food I bring. There is nothing sweeter than taking home a completely cleaned out dish which was empty long before the crowd could go back for seconds.
So tell me, what is your signature potluck recipe?
Tasty Food Fail
It happens to the best of us. Dare I say, even the experts and professionally trained culinary geniuses screw up. Welcome to the Tasty Food Fail.
I am no perfectionist. In fact, I don’t even mind making a few mistakes because usually I learn.
Sometimes I’ll share my epic food failures here. Sometimes I will sweep them under the rug and hope nobody ever finds out about them.
Today – the very first Tasty Food Fail: grilled asparagus aka black charcoal stick of death
This would be somewhere between never wanting to admit this happened to having to share it here because it’s pretty damn funny.
I love grilled vegetables. I had a bunch of asparagus in the fridge and 2 small zucchinis I had to use up. So I sliced the zucchini, trimmed the asparagus, drizzled in olive oil and seasoned lightly. Ready to go on the grill.
image courtesy of woodleywonderworks on flickr
I don’t really grill. Might be partly because I step near the grill and someone (not mentioning names – ahem Levi) takes over. I don’t want to blame Levi for this or anything but… they came out looking pretty interesting – and semi-blackened. (I love you Levi. haha)
I am all for a little char on my veg. In fact, the flavor can be quite good. But if all you taste is char, not so much. I regret not taking a picture of my supper last night, or my leftovers at lunch today.
Note to self/lesson for next time: Cook asparagus less. Like maybe don’t put it on at the same time as a chicken breast. Just sayin’.
Brand spankin’ new
This is a new blog. It’s not my first foray into the blogosphere but I do intend on trying out some new things with this blog.
First, let me tell you what this blog is all about. I have high hopes of being able to share some great recipes, funny stories, anecdotes, wisdom, ramblings, and more. The title of the blog is TastyFoodBlog but there’s more than just actual ingredients that go into making real food real tasty.
I want to add that I am not a professional chef by any means. I have no formal culinary training. Scoff if you wish. Say you don’t believe I can help you with anything since I do not have a chef’s hat on, if you must. I still think I am good. People like my food. Mostly though, I like to make food an experience.
One other thing I want to make clear…I like to give my opinion. That’s what a lot of people do, but they probably aren’t so open about it. I am opinionated. I know that sometimes I say the wrong thing. I don’t think I care all that much about it. I have fun doing what I do and I look forward to bringing that fun to all my readers via this blog.
I have a great circle of friends who I hope to get involved in this blog a bit too, possibly with guest posts, appearing in some of my off-the-cuff videos, undercover restaurant reviews, etc. I have so many fun ideas and plans I can’t wait to get started.
Thanks for joining us and please return often. Leave comments, share your own opinions, and join in the conversation.
Ciao.
The Tasty Food Blog 