Tag Archives: food

Paris: Let me talk about eating…

24 Apr

You can’t visit Paris without at least one post about the food.

Our first night in Paris, Kelly and I struck gold when we had dinner at Café Constant. If you’re a foodie, that name probably rings a bell because it’s one of four restaurants in Paris (three of which are in a neat little row on the same street) by Chef Christian Constant. Also worth noting: it was a bargain – dinner was only 16 Euros per person in a city of often over-priced meals.

It was a hopping Friday night and the café had a nice little hustle going on, so the only place available to seat us was at a small table tucked under the stairs. Some diners might not find it desirable, but I enjoyed it, feeling like a little turtle tucked up in its shell as I ate.

Though most people in the café were French, two older, American-sounding women sat at the table next to us. We didn’t try to eavesdrop on their conversation, but when their dessert came, we gathered that one woman had ordered the roasted prunes in some sort of red wine reduction.

“Nasty,” I whispered to Kelly. “I would never think of a prune for dessert, would you?”

She was just shaking her head when we both heard something that caused us to lock eyes, raise our eyebrows and lose ourselves in laughter: The woman had raised her spoon and told her companion, “I might just shit myself at the table after eating this!”

You can take a girl out of ‘Murica, but you can’t take ‘Murica out of the girl.

That gave us one just more reason to split the profiteroles rather than try our luck on the prunes…

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Eat to live or live to eat?

18 Oct

Image Source: © 2014 pithypants

We all learned a lot about each other’s eating preferences on our trip to Italy. If I had to summarize, here are our dietary tenets…

Mom:

  1. It’s not breakfast unless it involves orange juice and milk.
  2. Every table should include a salt shaker.
  3. There is such a thing as “too much” marinara sauce.
  4. Meat makes it a meal.

Me:

  1. Live to eat.
  2. Salami is like a blood-sugar insurance policy – one slice at every meal keeps things ticking.
  3. There’s no such thing as too much pasta.
  4. If a restaurant has bruschetta, we’re ordering it.

Alicia:

  1. Eat to live.
  2. Black tea, hold the sugar – hot/cold throughout the day.
  3. Have yogurt, will travel.
  4. Coronettos whenever possible.

Further demonstrating how differently we approach food, shortly after returning, my sister shared this link for Soylent. I encourage you to check out the page and see if anything about the concept appeals to you. (Soylent is a food replacement product that provides nutrients via a powder that mixes into a drink.)

The stated benefits are:

  • Time: Prepare multiple meals in minutes – no need to shop for individual ingredients or plan ahead
  • Money: Spend less than $10 per day on food, and less than $4 per meal – get more than a day’s worth of meals for less than the cost of takeout
  • Nutrition: Eat balanced and wholesome – get all of the essential nutrients required to fuel the human body

Sorry. This guy’s value proposition falls apart for me with the first bullet – I enjoy taking time to shop for ingredients and cook dinner. And more important than money or nutrition to me is TASTE. It might be wrong, but I eat for enjoyment, not nutrition. My sister on the other hand…

Granted, all you need to do is look at us to see how our eating philosophies have shaped our bodies. She’s an easy size 4, and I could definitely stand to lose a pound or, um, fifteen. Details.

Finally – because I’m mildly obsessed with Soylent and the fact that this guy thinks enough people are wired like my sister that there’s a market for this product – can we discuss the name? Is it a terrible or brilliant marketing move to name his product after the 1973 sci-fi movie Soylent Green, which is summarized by Wikipedia as “…the investigation into the murder of a wealthy businessman in a dystopian future suffering from pollution, overpopulation, depleted resources, poverty, dying oceans, and all-year humidity due to the greenhouse effect. Much of the population survives on processed food rations, including “soylent green.”

I mean, the plot does seem to be playing out in real life, so I can see where Soylent’s founder drew a connection. The problem, however, is that at the end of the film, you discover that “soylent green” is actually PEOPLE. So here’s guy in 2014, selling an unrecognizable nutritional powder and he’s deliberately named it something that calls to mind cannibalism. Interesting brand strategy.

Which camp are you in? Love to eat or eat for fuel?

This almost feels blasphemous.

22 Jun

Anyone who knows me is aware of my addition to Mac-N-Cheese.

If I go to a fancy restaurant and there’s a version with truffle oil and gruyere? Yes, please. Make that two.

If I’m home and my cupboards are bare? You’ll always find a box of Kraft Mac N’Cheese on hand, even if you have to move spices to find the emergency box.

If I host book club and find myself with odd bricks of left-over cheese? Come back in 24 hours and I’ll have a Pyrex dish with the homemade variety, including chunks of smoked ham in it.

What I’m trying to say is, I’m something of a fan. I wouldn’t say connoisseur, because that implies I’m picky. And really, it’s pretty rare for me to meet mac-n-cheese that doesn’t make my flip my wig.

So it’s a bit painful to write this review of CapMac, because I really wanted to like it. But I didn’t.

Pesto Pasta Salad. Big Whoop.

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Not all food on wheels moves me.

21 Jun

My first forays into food trucks were wildly satisfying. So much so that I felt like my mini-reviews had all the bite of Helen Thomas’s coverage of the White House.

Fortunately (for my credibility as an objective reviewer, if not for my stomach), I’ve had a few less impressive experiences this past week.

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Lunchtime Haiku: My Suspicious Meal

21 Apr

Michaelangelo:
What meat is in your meatballs?
I don’t want to know.