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The food thread

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

We've got loads of foodies, cooks and vegetarians on this forum and it seems natural to ask this question next. Along with your style of dress goes your style of food. I’m so passionate about food, I can barely contain myself. So ladies, what are your favourite types of food, cuisines and so called guilty pleasures?

General

18 replies

Latest reply was from Angie

Ana

(website)

Veteran

I love sauces! Hollandaise is my favorite, with the cream based brandy sauce used for Steak au Poivre a close second.

I love Indian food, and my favorite guilty pleasure is pizza! Mmm......oh and cheesecake.

Anonymous

Being from Southern CA my dress and my taste in food run along the same lines for sure. I grew up bare foot, in shorts and a tank top, or just a swim suit and my food specialty is Mexican food the way I learned to make it growing up so close to the Mexican border. I think my skill at making Mexican food is one reason my husband married me. (And it's so easy!)

Becky

Veteran

My favorite cuisines are Mexican and Italian. I love enchiladas with a moderately spicy sauce or cheese-filled pasta with a flavorful marinara sauce. Guilty pleasure: Cheesecake!

shiny

Veteran

My DH and I are total food snobs, and for recreation we go out to eat. Just as we have a line item in our budget for my fashion hobby, we have a line item for eating out. We eat out..... All the time. It's a miracle I don't weigh 300 lbs, for all the eating out we do!

But we're very choosy. We won't frequent fast food places or chain restaurants. While we will often eat at pubby type places, we prefer finer dining and can be like the judges on Top Chef, critiquing the meal in great detail!

We definetly like ethnic restaurants - Indian, Ethiopian, Korean BBQ, Japanese, Thai, Mexican, spanish tapas... all top the list.

This week already (starting Monday) we went out to Thai, Indian and Italian.... and the week's not over yet.

That sounds really bad.... but it's one of the joys of our life, to eat out.

As for cooking, I do like to cook but I hate feeling obligated to cook. Sundays are the day I like to roll up my sleeves and get creative in the kitchen. Other days, I have a staple of meals I can make in my sleep. When the kids are home with us, I do cook most weeknights. I believe strongly in the value of having a sit-down family dinner every night... even if sometimes that dinner happens to be in a restaurant!

How *do* I maintain my weight, with all this eating out? Simple: I practice portion control, and order carefully, choosing lots of veggies and skipping heavy sauces. I usually end up just eating half of my meal and taking the rest home for lunch the next day.

Patience

Veteran

I love a good paella, Cuban black beans and rice, breakfast tacos, and buttermilk pancakes. My favorite cuisines are Thai and Italian. Good dark chocolate (I have an aunt in Switzerland who sends the good stuff; I too prefer European sweets). My favorite dessert of all time is chocolate pots de creme. (No creme brulee here).

Ola

My favourite food category would probably be seafood (shrimp, scallops, crab) and chocolate (milk or dark, but not too dark). I also love fruits and veggies - preferably raw, not cooked. I think my love of fresh produce stems from my family having always having a large garden when I was growing up.

Cuisines of choice would probably be Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Thai, and Italian.

My most favourite guilty pleasures are caesar salad with a really garlicky dressing (no low fat stuff for me!) and hazelnut chocolate bars.

Why do I feel hungry all of a sudden?

Nicole

Veteran

OMG you guys are making me HUNGRY!!! I love Vietnamese food--its so light and flavorful, like "Americanized" Chinese on a diet. I have not had much luck cooking Vietnamese half as well as our hole in the wall Vietnamese restaurant. They have a dish called "Crispy Eggplant"...It is to die for. It's probably deep fried, which is why I can't make it at home. (I don't fry anything at home).

When I cook at home, I usually make it up as I go along. The flavors come out somewhere between Asian-American-Mexican-Italian. I can cook in true Italian fashion, having been raised by an Italian mother. I make home made pasta, a killer red sauce, and eggplant parm that is baked not fried and rivals any you will ever have in a restuarant. My nightly meals will range from turkey burgers, to chicken and rice wraps, to tacos, to spagetti and meatballs, and something called an Italian Burger--which is sort of like a meatloaf, but served burger style.

But what I'm best at is making up something from nothing. Give me a few basic ingredients and my cabinet full of different kinds of oils, vinegars, cooking wines and seasonings...and I will give you a meal to remember. Sometimes I'm worried that what I'm concocting is going to be gross, and I usually warn my family that a pizza delivery may be in our future.

I love seafood, but don't like the way it makes my kitchen smell after cooking it (with the exception of shrimp). So, like Shiny, I usually order seafood if we are eating out. My kids favorite meal is "breakfast for dinner"...but since I don't eat eggs, I usually end up with a bowl of cereal.

Shiny, if you are ever looking for a great restaurant "outside the city", try this place: http://themonumentgrill.com/ It's not ethnic, but it's top notch American fare. It's about an hour outside downtown Boston. I beleive you once said you were in Newton--so about 45 minutes from there. West on Route 2 all the way.

My weaknesses--hmmm I love extra dark chocolate, I love pies, I love donuts (the nastier the better--cream donuts...mmmmmmmm). I could live without cheesecake, cake in general, and sugary candy. But my all time favorite food--the one I would pick if I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life--bread. Anything from Pumpernickle to Whole Grain to good old fashioned Italian Bread.

Nicole

Veteran

PS Patience...do you have a Paella recipe?? I've tried making it, but end up with more burn on the bottom than you're supposed to.

Inge

(website)

What a question Angie, my 'I lOVE to eat...' list is very loooong, because, well, I just LOVE to eat!!

My absolute downfall is chocolate (but you guys probably already knew that from the 'exercise' thread). I really can't say how many bars I've eaten in my 37 years... I used to be a milk chocolate girl all the way, but my taste is getting more refined with age, and now I absolutely love dark chocolate too.
(and then there are chocolate mousse, chocolate cookies, chocolate fondue, chocolate ice cream, pancakes or ice cream with real chocolate sauce - Angie you got me drooling in the Food thread, that Haagen Dasz flavour is my favourite too, big surprise!-)

I really am a fan of foods (well, snacks rather) that are considered unhealthy and once I start on them it's hard to stop (like potato chips, Lays salt&pepper are my favourite).
Luckily I'm less unhealthily inclined with 'real food': I'm not at all fond of sauces and fatty foods (unless it's pizza or french fries), I love fruit and vegetables, I don't eat meat and I abhor butter (I almost get physically sick when I taste it, always have).

I love ethnic cuisines: Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Thai, Spanish, Japanese...
Oh and I could eat some sort of pasta dish every day of the week.

Lannie

It's so funny how many of us on these forums are vegetarians; it's rather a disproportionate amount, really. Perhaps it's just that a disproportionate number of vegetarians are very fashionable?
I'm the sort of person who really does love food, so I allow myself many indulgences. I'm finding my palette is maturing (getting more snobby?) over time, so I'm getting to the point where I can barely stomach fast food and chain restaurants. More and more I am wanting to make my own foods and branch out and experiment, and I only want to spend money at restaurants that really give you a good meal (hopefully with good service, too). I've always been more of a baker (anything from cupcakes to Christmas goodies), but I love to work with vegetables. I love to eat produce seasonally, so I was all about butternut squash in the fall/winter, and lately I have a passion for the Ontario-grown asparagus. If I can, I buy directly from the farms that grow the produce (I love doing this in August when corn is in season). Right now my grandma and I are waiting impatiently for the strawberries to come out so we can make jam.
Because I love food, I'm trying to stop feeling guilt about things like fat and calorie content (but trying to harbour more guilt about eating trash food, because it's just never worth it). In the summer one of my big indulgences is ice cream (and sorbet), but I've had a lifelong love affair with chocolate going on as well. I have a sweet tooth, and I know that, but I want to be more mindful of eating sweets that are really worth it (eg. a homemade cupcake vs. store-bought sugary trash, great organic chocolate vs. candy bars). I think it's especially hard for women to let go of guilt associated with food, but I wish we could all manage it. There should never be any shame attached to eating something delicious (especially when it's been made with love by your own two hands).

Tanya

Veteran

I love food, especially sweets. Chocolate in all forms is by far my favorite, tough I like cakes, cookies, creams, mouses, ice-creams, pies, you name it. I make some pretty cool desserts if I may say so myself.

I also love fruit - bananas are my favorite, and cheeses- especially goat one and brie. Some other random favorites: scallops, prosciutto, mushrooms, avocado, peanut sauce, baby-corn and sweet gherkins.

I like ethnic cuisines, and Thai one is by far my favorite. I absolutely adore it
( the mild and sweet subtype anyway). Mediterranean is a close second favorite, Vietnamese and Malaysian as well. Also Chinese, Italian, and Mexican.

My two favorite restaurants in Cambridge are: Helmand - an Afghan restaurant that has the most incredible baked baby pumpkin appetizer and grilled lamb, and Oleana - a fancy-shmancy Mediterranean place that is amazing!.

I am a big fan of breakfast food in general - crepes, waffles, etc. and could eat it all day long. Ana, I also LOVE Hollandaise sauce. My BF has been cooking us Eggs Benedict every morning for the past couple of weeks.

I love appetizers, sometimes in the restaurant I would make a meal of couple of them.

In general, I love sweet/mild/creamy stuff. I do not like very spicy or very fatty food.

OK, now I'm starving and am off to grab a snack!

Anonymous

This thread is making me SO hungry.

Like a lot of you, I LOVE chocolate. It's my downfall. And, I'm a vegetarian, as well. : ) And I eat tons and tons of fresh fruits and veggies.

Tanya, I also love avocado. I make avocado sandwiches (with spinach, oil and vinegar) on sourdough bagette. So yummy. And BABYCORN. I actually don't like corn, but babycorn is amazing. I usually only come accross it in asian food.

I love a good soup and salad meal. There is this amazing place nearby that has an amazing all organic minestrone soup topped with homemade croutons and pesto. I usually get that with an organic baby spinach salad and I'm good to go.

I love Mediterranean, Italian, Mexican, Thai, Japanese...those are the few that come to mind but I'm sure there are many more. I like anything with lots of veggies and flavor, but I really can't eat anything too spicy, creamy, and of course, no meat. I find that Asian food is very conducive towards this taste, but my favoirte Pan-Asian bistro nearby just caught fire and closed down. : ( They had a rocking garlic stringbean dish, as well as an amazing lemongrass tofu.

As for dessert, it's chocolate all the way. I love milk, semisweet, and dark chocolate (I usually get the good stuff - organic, natural, and dark). I also love chocolate souffle (the kind that usually takes the restaurant 30 minutes to make) and it's always extra delicious a la mode. As for icecream, I like the good stuff. No Baskin Robins or Dairy Queen for me. I usually go for chocolate, or mint chocolate chip. And I have to agree, Europeans usually do the better dessert! When I went to France two years ago, all I ate was fromage sandwhiches (so simple but sooo good) and chocolate crepes!

I doubt I even began to explain my food passion in this post, but hopefully you get a little taste of my food style.

Ana

(website)

Veteran

Ooh, Tanya....Eggs Benedict used to be my favorite breakfast before I became a vegetarian. I really like Eggs Florentine now. Someone could serve cardboard and as long as it's smothered in Hollandaise, I'd eat it!

I know this is probably sacrilege, but I've never been a big fan of chocolate, even when I was kid. I'm not sure why--even really good European chocolate I can usually take or leave it.

Oh, and Brendan makes the most killer home made french fries--if I had to pick one food to eat for the rest of my life, they would be on my short list of decisions.

Dani

Veteran

I'm glad I've already had dinner My food style is pretty simple. I mainly cook all our meals (trying to do mostly organic) and I guess my style could be described as mostly American. I have some food issues (allergies and intolerances) in my family so we follow some pretty strict guidelines and I try to be as creative as I can within those limitations. We eat a lot of fruit and veggies and mostly chicken and turkey. I'm lucky that my husband isn't a meat and potatoes guy and he'll eat eggplant parmesan and navy bean gratin. I'm not a very adventurous eater but I enjoy Mediterranean and Japanese. I love to eat out at Italian, Mexican, Chinese and nice American style restaurants. I also love breakfast! I can eat breakfast any time of day!

My guilty pleasure is dessert, preferably chocolate, but I won't complain about cheesecake or fruit cobblers. I end up making most of our desserts and special occasion treats due to a peanut allergy. Luckily, I've always loved to bake too!

Now I'm craving some chocolate! Off to raid the pantry

Nicole

Veteran

It's funny to hear you guys say you like to go out to Italian restaurants. We have a lot of Italian restaurants in my town and we never go to any of them. Hubby says, why eat out Italian when we can have it at home? Like Shiny, we don't eat at chain restaurants, unless it's a kid's choice, and then it's Unos. But more often than not, my kids will request a family owned pizza joint in the neighboring town. We all love pizza, and I love that you can customize it to each person. Since my daughter does not eat meat, she has spinach, onion and black olive. My son LOVES bacon, so he usually gets bacon, black olive. Hubby and I love anything, so it's always an adventure. I always keep a few Boboli crusts on hand for quick dinners. When making pizza at home, we usually skip the sauce and do an olive oil brushing. It's a great way to use up leftovers. My favorite so far was a combination of asparagus, goat cheese, spinach and black olive. YUM!

Julia

Reading and replying this thread at 10:45pm is dangerous, but I'll try anyway:

We cook Chinese food at home, so like Nicole, I hardly go to any Chinese restaurant when eating out. My weakness is bread, the hot, fresh ones just out of the oven that are crispy outside and soft and puffy inside, spread some butter on it that melts right away, YUMO!

Other than Chinese food, I love Thai food, my favorite is stir-fried bean sprout, tofu, green onion and bell pepper with their spicy sweet sauce, serving with steamed white rice, light, flavorful and hearty.

I don't eat much dessert but 60% Dark Chocolate is my favorite. My Christmas gifts usually has some of the finest Chocolates hubby ordered for me online.

Patience

Veteran

Nicole, I'm afraid I'm not an expert in making paella. My rice is usually too crunchy; if I cooked it longer, it would probably burn on bottom too although some of that is okay. I'm also a little leary of cooking shellfish so I don't venture often. I usually use Penelope Casas' recipes. She has a whole cookbook called Paella. Because really the important ingredient for paella is rice. One of these days I'm going to find a paella cooking class.
I should also mention that I grew up in Louisiana so I was surrounded by Cajun food. It's not my favorite however because it is just too rich for my pallet. I think most recipes require a stick of butter. However, I do make jambalaya and a great gumbo on a regular basis. And we try to have a crawfish boil every year.
I also love gelato and sorbet.
And how could I forget bread? I could probably survive off of fresh bread (of any and all cuisines) if that was good for you.

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Thank you for indulging me ladies (in more ways than one). This was extremely interesting. I’m fascinated by food and people’s food preferences. I’m particularly intrigued when I come across a person who’s palette is so different to mine. Or when somebody’s grocery trolley is loaded with items that I would never purchase. And in turn they think my grocery trolley is from Mars.

I don’t know how to interpret the word “food snob”. Are you a snob about where you eat, or what you eat, or both? The best meals of my life have been in broken down huts or kiosks at the side of the road in a very dirty, hot and humid Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. The worst meals of my life have been in the fanciest of French restaurants in Europe. I love chocolate milk shakes and the best ones I’ve sampled thus far are at Red Robin (a burger chain restaurant in America). So I guess I’m not a food snob when it comes to where I eat.

My preferences for supper time cuisine are predominantly Asian: Japanese, authentic Cantonese, Indonesian and Malaysian, Indian and Thai. I adore spicy food with loads of kick. I also love very clean food like a platter of tuna, salmon and mackerel sashimi.

If I’m not having Asian food for supper my preferences are: a simple vegetarian Italian pasta or Mediterranean food (Greek and Israeli especially).

My preferences for day time food are European: pastries and scones for breakfast, French and Dutch cheeses with salad and bread for lunch alongside a huge variety of olives and loads of tea and biscuits.

When it comes to dessert, I pretty much like it to be chocolate or a chocolate dessert of any description. I’m a milk chocolate girl but am acquiring the taste of darker chocolate as I get older.

Such fun ladies!