acautrell

I never had Kraft Mac and Cheese until I was an adult. My mom made her own from scratch.

I don't have the chest pain or burning. I was diagnosed after having daily stomach pain for a couple of months and after the ulcer test came back negative, they decided on something resembling GERD. Daily omeprazole has done wonders for me. I haven't changed my diet a whole lot. I can eat a lot of the trigger foods and not notice any difference. I eat tons of citrus fruit and tomatoes, and spicy food. I do notice issues when I go overboard on sodas, coffee or chocolate, so it seems the caffeine and carbonation is my main trigger. My stomach also seems to get irritated when I eat too often. I do better if I don't snack and stick to 3 meals that aren't huge. It's been about a year since I started on the meds, and as long as I'm diligent there and on the coffee front I've been pretty much pain free.

This is all from memory, since I don't have my set of Little House books anymore, but they were my favorites in elementary school and I've even made the pilgrimage to De Smet, SD twice to visit all the historical sites there. I had a major obsession with The Long Winter. I was really intrigued by survival-mode little house. I remember the green-pumpkin pie Ma makes in the beginning when they're just hinting at how small the harvest was that year and how they'll have to rely on Pa's hunting skills to make it through the winter. Before the end of the blizzards they're down to a single loaf of brown bread daily. Definitely nothing romantic about nearly starving to death on the prairie.

Korean for me. We eat/cook Korean at least twice a week.

Progresso lentil soup, coupled with fresh homemade bread. My excuse is that I'm trying to eat as much as I can from the pantry before going to the store, and I'm secretly hoping the quality bread will cancel out the crappy soup.

I used to love Campbell's condensed soup, especially the Noodle O's and the chicken with stars. Ate it again recently and the overwhelming taste is salt, complemented by the mush that is a canned noodle. The only spaghetti we had growing up was Kraft spaghetti dinner, with the little packet of seasoning that was dumped into a can of plain tomato sauce, then mixed together with hamburger and noodles as a sort of spaghetti pie. Parmesan from a tiny envelope as your topper. I made it a a couple of years ago knowing that one plate would cure me of any nostalgia I might have held for it.

Been there with the rotten potato. It's been more than once that we come out to the kitchen in the morning, realize something doesn't smell right, and find a lone black potato that was forgotten in the cupboard. The smell of sesame oil in any major quantity puts me right off. I can just barely stand the whiff you get from having the bottle in the back of the cupboard. We also had a recent experience with an exploding bottle of fish sauce. I haven't had the fortitude to replace the broken bottle yet, after having my entire refrigerator get coated in it. I still think I smell it sometimes.

Do you use fresh garlic? I invited a Japanese neighbor (moved to US from Yokohama at age 25) for Easter one year and used fresh garlic in the cucumber/salt/sugar/rice vinegar salad. She was entranced. Maybe that amount of raw garlic is not used in Japan, but everyone was scarfing it up. I did use fresh garlic, a couple of cloves worth. Cheated and had cucumbers for breakfast and they were great. I have a few more in the fridge and I think I'll do a spicy bowl, maybe something like oi kimchi.

Just made my cucumber bowl. Thinly sliced cukes, plain yogurt, some garlic, salt, pepper, a little rice vinegar for extra tartness and a spoonful of sugar. More fresh pepper to go on top when I eat them tomorrow at lunch. I like my cucumbers sweet, tangy and salty.

I can think of at least 6 Sonic stores within 20 minutes of my house, so I guess they're pretty popular around here. The actual food is pretty mediocre to me. I don't like their burgers and the onion rings have this weird bitter aftertaste. I do like their Limeades and shakes and the tots are okay. For me they're a place to go for a snack, not to actually eat.

I am more than happy to make my lunch out of a box of Triscuits (hopefully not the whole box) and some cheese. Never cared for any of the flavors though.

I love Trolingers! My only suggestion is to go early in the day for pulled pork, cause as the day goes on they often run out of it.

Yeah, I know hotdogs can be used in stuff, but I've never been presented a naked lonely hotdog as banchan. I felt somewhat cheated. I expect extra fish cake on my next visit to make up for it.

I get Korean takeout quite often and the banchan of course varies from week to week. Last week for the first time I received a single hotdog, diagonally slivered and lightly browned. I was just curious if this is traditional anywhere, or if the women at my carryout just really like hot dogs.

Ariane has bugged me from the beginning. I think I'd like her more if she'd grow out of her bewilderment and into some confidence about her dishes. The skate was interesting, most of what else has done wasn't. I'm also falling out of love with Fabio's cooking. The food in general hasn't been very appetizing in the last couple of episodes, or just meh.

I just bought a 20 pound bag of the green rice, per the suggestion of the friendly cashier at my nearest Korean market. I'm not sure what is different about it compared to regular medium-grain rice, but it cooks up soft and fluffy and I really like it.

Mayfield's a nice little community. I lived down the road in Murray for several years. You're about 30-40 minutes from Kentucky Lake. I don't fish myself, but I know it's pretty big around here. I've never seen mutton BBQ around here--maybe it's not that common? All the BBQ I've eaten has been pork. Chess pie is pretty popular, and meat-and-three kind of cooking--long cooked veggies and stuff like that. Restaurant offerings aren't that great in the area if you like anything other than BBQ, chains or homestyle cooking. The best meals I've had in West KY were all cooked in someone's home.

I think you'll be right around my area then, if I'm guessing correctly. I love seafood as well, but there's not much to be found around here except frozen and Red Lobster. If there's a fish market hiding I'd love someone to point it out for me. Tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers grow very easily in our little garden patches, as well as various squashes. As far as where the foodies are, I'd also like to find them! Nashville's very close at least.

Freshly brewed ice tea and leftover mussels. Yum. My snack will also double as lunch.

I buy organic milk occaisonally, maybe once every couple of months. I've noticed (though maybe it's all in my head) that the flavor of the organic milk can vary quite a bit, including one carton that just tasted so "grassy" that I couldn't drink it. In comparison, it seems like the normal store-brand skim milk always tastes exactly the same. And yes, I will pour organic milk on my processed Cheerios, or drink it with my Cheezits.

When I was 15 I had surgery to remove my wisdom teeth, and went on a (forced) all-popsicle-and-yogurt diet for about 4 days. After about 3 meals I was incredibly sick of sweet food. On the fifth day I was finally able to open my mouth wide enough to slip something more substantial in, and my mother cooked up a pot of heavenly chicken stew. I've ranted about my mother's inability to cook in a couple of threads here, but she really got it right that day. Nothing I've eaten since has tasted nearly as good as that stew. I raved about how good it was and I know I ate at least two bowls. It was one of the best things she ever cooked, but for some reason she's never cooked it again.

I love In and Out, but thankfully I live thousands of miles from the nearest one. Best fries in fast-food land and the only place that I'd order a double anything. I have a thing for fast-food or chain breakfasts: IHOP or Cracker Barrel pancakes drowned in maple-flavored goo or fake fruit topping. Bacon Egg and Cheese biscuits from Hardee's. Their plain biscuits are great too (at least at the local one) and made for a good 63 cent breakfast back when I worked midnight to 8am. Huddle House's western omelet plate, sub hash browns for grits and lots of jelly on the white toast. There's a local place that makes a calzone about the size of my arm for 6.99 (+1.99 if you want meat). I used to have no taste at all for fast food or junk food--I blame college for this list!

My poor mother is the worst cook in the family. She can make incredible bread, pies and cookies, but anything meat-based is better left on the plate. She has an intense fear of food poisoning so all meats in her kitchen are cooked until tough and dry, and cooked another hour just to be sure. I've roasted whole chickens faster than she cooks a single chicken breast. Until I moved out, I never knew that roast beef could be tender and rare, that chicken didn't have to be dry and mealy, and that pork could be cooked in less than three hours. Burgers were served at least 5 times a week, black and crackly on Wonder bread. I was a vegetarian for the last year that I was at home, and I didn't feel the least bit deprived. She also never really learned much about seasoning food and doesn't even keep black pepper in the house. Just salt and ketchup, and maybe some ranch dressing if you're lucky. My Dad says she's learned a few new recipes since I moved out a few years back, including some sort of stove-top stuffing casserole and tacos (from a box).

My first lunch picture ever! Slightly blurry pad thai, eaten in a styrofoam box (but with a real fork) at my desk.

I'm eating my current favorite lunch: roasted red pepper, tomato, cucumber, spinach, avocado and Havarti on a toasted bun, with some wasabi-flavored dressing. So simple, but so good. Cadbury Creme Egg to follow!