Why did I buy that?

[prasantrin]

I got up early to go to a department store in another city and line up for some special caramels available for a limited time. I bought 4 little containers, 12 caramels each, and paid a whopping Y850 for each container (that's about US$9.35).

They suck. Why oh why did I ever buy them? Not just one, but 4 containers! (two plain, one strawberry, and one matcha)

Have you ever spent a wad of dough on a food item you had to have, but then absolutely hated?

[Chris Amirault]

Oregon truffles. Nuff said.

[GlorifiedRice]

Yes, Mentaiko!

I bought two boxes thinking Id LOVE it cause I love Cod Roe Spaghetti

but when I went to taste it it was foul. Im not sure if it was the fact that that particular freeser at the Asian Mkt is always on the fritz and possibly it was bad Mentaiko or what, but it was nasty.

Also is the Natto I buy. I try so hard to force myself to love or even like Natto.

[Ktepi]

I love peanut butter. Cooking with it, baking with it, putting it on toast or fresh homemade biscuits -- it resumed being a staple for me shortly after college, when I discovered brands less sweet than what I grew up with. In grad school I packed a lot of duck-and-peanut-butter-and-pepper-jelly sandwiches vaguely inspired by Susan Spicer. So by extension, I loved P.B. Loco when I discovered it and its neat little flavors -- the cinnamon-raisin especially, but I wasn't disappointed by the sun-dried tomato, the curry, etc.

So when I heard about a gourmet peanut butter in flavors like dried cherry, chocolate and pretzel, mango, etc., I ordered some as a reward for a new contract and pay raise.

It's terrible.

The chalky, pasty texture is like bad health food store peanut butter, or my own misguided efforts at making peanut butter in a coffee grinder. At room temperature it has the consistency of poi with chunks of peanut, and doesn't spread so much as ooze -- refrigerated, it's too hard to spread. The peanut taste is almost entirely missing from the chocolate and pretzel spread, which is a blessing since in the others the peanuts are bitter, stale, like the ones you lost in the pantry for a couple years.

This pay raise meant a lot of increased spending like this, so I told myself that if I had to regret anything, at least I was only regretting $30 on peanut butter and not my new health plan. But man, it's still sitting in my fridge months later, untouched.

[Batard]

About 15 years ago I bought my first set of knives: a 6-piece block set of Henckels Twinstar plus Knives. What a disaster, they were very expensive and dull in two months. I learned my lesson. Ladies and gentlemen, there IS NO SUCH THING as a knife that NEVER needs to be sharpened.

[faine]

A Santander passion fruit chocolate bar. What I had hoped would be a delicate, subtle passion fruit flavor ended up being a bizarre combination of vaguely passion-fruit flavored rice krispie bites inside of dark chocolate. Not a winner.

And Uni. I always try uni, it is always expensive, and I always end up hating it. I need to give up.

[SuzySushi]

Raw cocoa nibs.

I'm a confirmed chocoholic. A sucker for anything chocolate. Until a year-and-a-half ago, while on a trip to San Francisco I bought raw cocoa nibs on the advice of my stepson.

Not just one brand, but three different expensive brands.

Can we say sawdust, with not even a hint of chocolate flavor?

What was I thinking???

[Kerry Beal]

Raw cocoa nibs.

I'm a confirmed chocoholic. A sucker for anything chocolate. Until a year-and-a-half ago, while on a trip to San Francisco I bought raw cocoa nibs on the advice of my stepson.

Not just one brand, but three different expensive brands.

Can we say sawdust, with not even a hint of chocolate flavor?

What was I thinking???

←

Roast them - either in the oven or a skillet, until they smell like chocolate - then cool and caramelize with sugar. The recipe is adapted from Recchuti. 175 grams roasted nibs, 100 grams sugar, couple of tsp of water. Cook in a large skillet until caramelized - sugar will melt, then go sandy, then melt again. It goes brown as the nibs give up some of their colour - then the sugar starts to brown in a second stage. Add about 10 grams of butter to split them up, spread on parchment, breaking up as much as possible.

Great on ice cream.

[gfron1]

Oh my goodness! Nibs and beans are great, but like Kerry said they need to be roasted. I put them in banana bread, on top of ice cream, in many of the cookies I sell, on top of my tiramisu. And yes, I pop them in my mouth - the perfect health food! But you don't just scarf or they taste like...sawdust. You need to eat them slowly so the flavor develops. And I've found price isn't the guide necessarily. The best beans packaged for sale that I've found come from Domori (chocosphere carries them). Those are amazing!

[andiesenji]

I have a long, long, long list. I am at times impulsive and buy things that I "think" I will like, only to be disappointed and occasionally disgusted.

However, I keep on with it.

I like caviar - the good stuff - and I don't mind paying a premium price for it. Last year I was suckered into buying some "farm-raised" stuff that was awful and while it cost significantly less than the kind I usually buy, it wasn't exactly cheap.

One bite was too much. It was fishy and oily. Terrible stuff and not worth the cost if I had paid only for the shipping (overnight) and I won't be tempted again.

I also bought some of the "domestic" truffles - not worth the cost of shipping. I will be ordering my usual spring treat from the same source I have used for years. (Not going to reveal it, I am selfish and the supply is very limited.) Perhaps someday the people who are working hard to develop the fungi in this country will get it right but to date I have not been convinced.

I have no regrets about any of the knives I have purchased over the years. I have always been picky and learned from my early mentor that buying the best is cheaper in the long run.

Ditto with my pots and pans. Only the best is good enough for me.

I have been disappointed in some appliances that failed to perform to my standards. I keep going back to my ancient ones that have been rewired and occasionally helped along by a wizard appliance repair place, because those old standards work better than the new-fangled ones.

[SuzySushi]

Raw cocoa nibs.

I'm a confirmed chocoholic. A sucker for anything chocolate. Until a year-and-a-half ago, while on a trip to San Francisco I bought raw cocoa nibs on the advice of my stepson.

Not just one brand, but three different expensive brands.

Can we say sawdust, with not even a hint of chocolate flavor?

What was I thinking???

←

Roast them - either in the oven or a skillet, until they smell like chocolate - then cool and caramelize with sugar. The recipe is adapted from Recchuti. 175 grams roasted nibs, 100 grams sugar, couple of tsp of water. Cook in a large skillet until caramelized - sugar will melt, then go sandy, then melt again. It goes brown as the nibs give up some of their colour - then the sugar starts to brown in a second stage. Add about 10 grams of butter to split them up, spread on parchment, breaking up as much as possible.

Great on ice cream.

←

Too late for that -- they've been thrown out.

He didn't roast them. He nibbled them as-is and blended them in shakes. Must've been part of the raw food craze!!

[maggiethecat]

Oregon truffles. Nuff said.

←

Nuff said, indeed. I have a long list, but these are close to the top.

[jvalentino]

I keep buying just about every kind of potato chip I see that has cracked pepper on them. They have all been disappointments.

Jeff

[hummingbirdkiss]

I have a big jar of dried fish the size of sardines. I love the guppy sized dried anchovies and thought these were similar ..wrong..

they smell like bait , are hard as rocks and I can not for the life of me find a way to use them that is any way appealing, but I do not have the hear to toss them either because they are all looking at me like I am a failure!

Edited January 26, 2009 by hummingbirdkiss (log)

[Ktepi]

For years -- through several moves -- I kept a jar that was impervious to any attempt to open it. I don't even remember now what it was, strangely -- I did finally get rid of it. I know it was from an international market and that I hadn't had it before, which was why I'd bought it. The lid (it was a glass jar with a thin metal lid) had no lip, but didn't appear to be threaded either. There was nothing for a can opener to catch onto and since the lid had clearly been separate from the jar itself at some point in their respective lives, a can opener seemed the wrong route anyway. But it wouldn't twist, it wouldn't pop off, and it gave no indication that it was supposed to do either. The only thing that kept me from breaking it open was the worry that I might end up with tiny glass shards in my food, unnoticed until the moment when they shredded my insides or something.

Oh hell, I just remembered my biggest food regret. Nevermind the peanut butter. Spiced masala soda. I'm sure there are people who grow up with it and love it. I love Moxie and am well aware that most don't. So it's cool. I'm not condemning the thing. But my God. I saw "spiced soda" and thought I might be dealing with something like Dr Pepper, maybe some kind of ginger ale, that sort of thing. But when I opened it, the first thing I smelled was cumin -- like opening a packet of taco seasoning when you've forgotten to shake it down to the bottom of the packet and a little winds up on the floor.

I tasted it anyway. I'd bought it, I'd opened it, and I knew there was no point in telling this story later if I weren't willing to taste it, and it was as salty as that taco seasoning too. I'm sure it wasn't really, I'm sure the salt level was moderate, but having grown up with Moxie instead of spiced masala soda, my expectation of saltiness in sodapop was ... well, about as low as you can get. Zero. Less than zero. Saltiness would show up nowhere in that segment of Family Feud, even after encountering the cumin.

I had bought three bottles originally, because that's what I do with previously unheard-of sodas -- that way if I love it, I've still got another one for later, and another one for somebody else to try. It's a number that works out well. This was nearly three years ago. The other two bottles are on my bookshelf as we speak, and they're only there in case anyone ever dares doubt me.

[SuzySushi]

Oh hell, I just remembered my biggest food regret.  Nevermind the peanut butter.  Spiced masala soda.  I'm sure there are people who grow up with it and love it.  I love Moxie and am well aware that most don't.  So it's cool.  I'm not condemning the thing.  But my God.  I saw "spiced soda" and thought I might be dealing with something like Dr Pepper, maybe some kind of ginger ale, that sort of thing.  But when I opened it, the first thing I smelled was cumin -- like opening a packet of taco seasoning when you've forgotten to shake it down to the bottom of the packet and a little winds up on the floor.

I tasted it anyway.  I'd bought it, I'd opened it, and I knew there was no point in telling this story later if I weren't willing to taste it, and it was as salty as that taco seasoning too.  I'm sure it wasn't really, I'm sure the salt level was moderate, but having grown up with Moxie instead of spiced masala soda, my expectation of saltiness in sodapop was ... well, about as low as you can get.  Zero.  Less than zero.  Saltiness would show up nowhere in that segment of Family Feud, even after encountering the cumin.

I had bought three bottles originally, because that's what I do with previously unheard-of sodas -- that way if I love it, I've still got another one for later, and another one for somebody else to try.  It's a number that works out well.  This was nearly three years ago.  The other two bottles are on my bookshelf as we speak, and they're only there in case anyone ever dares doubt me.

←

I think you win! I've never even heard of spiced masala soda.

Of course you know this means I'll have to go to my Indian market just to try it for myself.... er.... to see if they have it!

[Ktepi]

I think you win! I've never even heard of spiced masala soda.

Of course you know this means I'll have to go to my Indian market just to try it for myself.... er.... to see if they have it!    

←

One of the reasons I picked it up was because I'd been in many Indian markets before and had never seen this -- and scouring shelves for sodas is something I do. (And I do it automatically in Indian markets because I love Thums-Up.) So for all I know, it's the Moxie of India, hated by most but beloved by the few who've acquired a taste for it. Or it tastes better with a lime or something.

[MomOfLittleFoodies]

Here's a weird one. I was shopping at Marukai when I was in Southern California visiting my parents, and I found foil pouches of dried mitsuba leaves, along with pouches of dried yuzu. I ended up buying some of both.

I figured I can use the dried yuzu for whatever I would use fresh citrus rind for, but I have what I'm going to use dried mitsuba leaves for.

[emmalish]

I have a big jar of dried fish the size of sardines. I love the guppy sized dried  anchovies and thought these were similar ..wrong..

they smell like bait , are hard as rocks and I can not for the life of me find a way to use them that is any way appealing, but I do not have the hear to toss them either because they are all looking at me like I am a failure!

←

Do you have a cat?

[prasantrin]

I have a big jar of dried fish the size of sardines. I love the guppy sized dried  anchovies and thought these were similar ..wrong..

they smell like bait , are hard as rocks and I can not for the life of me find a way to use them that is any way appealing, but I do not have the hear to toss them either because they are all looking at me like I am a failure!

←

Do you have a cat?

←

My cat won't touch those, for some reason.

I think those dried fish things can be used to make a sort of fish stock. Or they're supposed to be simmered with soy/mirin/etc.

[pax]

Pretty much every commercial barbeque sauce. I seem to be yearning for something I just can't find, and every single one is a disappointment. I wish they sold them in taster size bottles.

[Just Jim]

Wolfgang Puck's Instant Mocha.

Puck usually puts out a quality product, so I thought I'd give this a try.

It's a self-contained product that, when you press the little bubble underneath, cracks a seal and causes a chemical reaction, heating the contents.

The chemicals are in a thin core around the inner core of beverage.

This was horrid.

Think of cheap chocolate, instant coffee and powdered milk.

Then wish his product were even that good.

Really suprised he lent his name to this.

Others must feel the same as I do, as I haven't seen it since.

[ruthcooks]

Salted capers. Or dried capers. Whatever they are called.

They looked like some alien species of dead bugs and I couldn't bring myself to use them.

[genarog]

I love capers, specially those packed in salt. I use them in salads, and with tuna, and after rinsing in water a few hours I could eat them just like that.

Things I regret... I just bought somoked salmon. Not the one that comes in thin slices - which I love - but the one that comes in thick chunks. I found it to be dry, almost unedible. And it wasn't inexpensive either.

Salted capers.  Or dried capers.  Whatever they are called.

They looked like some alien species of dead bugs and I couldn't bring myself to use them.

←

[Kerry Beal]

Things I regret... I just bought somoked salmon. Not the one that comes in thin slices - which I love - but the one that comes in thick chunks. I found it to be dry, almost unedible.  And it wasn't inexpensive either.

Take that Indian Candy smoked salmon and pop it in the food processor with some butter and a few other things. Makes a great pate.

Here are the proportions

1/2 lb smoked salmon

2 ounces butter

1 tbsp olive oil

1-2 tbsp lemon juice

4 tbsp whipping cream

1 pinch cayenne pepper

Edited February 17, 2009 by Kerry Beal (log)