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Kvetch: Nothing to do with Weddings => Food obsessions in general
Since I was busy helping the hijack of another thread with talk of cheese, I thought I'd start a food obsession thread--mine happens to be cheese, which is sort of funny considering how lactose-intolerant I am.
Cheese and Lactaid, my two favorite things in the world.
So what are your favorite cheeses?
If I had to make a list, there'd be the Colston-Bassett Stilton, Carles Roquefort, Clochette, and one specific appenzeller (Max Mueller is the cheesemaker, I think?) Oh, and Roaring Forties Blue (from Australia), and Humboldt Fog (California).
So what other cheese out there should we try?
And what are your specific food obsessions?
-div (who's sort of hungry)
ETA: changed it to food obsessions in general.
I don't want to discriminate against non-cheese items, after all.
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I love, love, LOVE parmesan cheese and all of its variations (romano, asiago, grana padano, etc.).
I can pretty much put it on anything (except maybe dessert).
Also, I'm in love with fontinella, which is (I think) a cross between fontina and some sort of parmesan-y type cheese.
It's so tasty.
Yay Italian cheese!
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Hi div,
non snarky cheese-direct
nola darlin- licking port wine cheddar off her finger
edited to add my other food obsession- ginger!
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I had some weird new cheese over the weekend that I don't remember the name of but it had ash in it!
From a volcano (or something-- it's possible I made that part up).
I Liked It!
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Nola_darlin, ginger how?
I love ginger, but I hate the pickled ginger they serve with sushi.
Mr Div like ginger in savory food, but hates sweet ginger.
Oh, have you tried cooking with galangal?
Delicious! I am sorry I didn't see that other post, but then this one can be a generalized food obsession thread maybe?
jesterbingle, I've certainly had cheese with ash before, although I have no idea if it was volcanic or not.
Humboldt Fog, one of my favorites is a goat cheese with a layer of ash in the middle.
I remember when I was little I thought it was so weird to eat cheese with ash on it--but now I eat cheese with ash, I eat cheese with mold, and I think it's all great.
-div
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Div,
did you know that you can edit the titles of threads?
To edit the title of a thread you edit the original/first post's title.
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About food obsession: Scanning down the list of threads, I misread Doctors Without Borders as Donuts Without Borders, and I got ooo-wheeee excited.
My cheese contribution: Bruder Basil, a smokey, salty, creamy cheese I get at a German market.
I'm eating it right now and it's making me slightly giddy.
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Ginger seems to be popular among IBs.
I haven't found a form of ginger I don't like.
Fresh-check (grated into stirfries, grated and squeezed into smoothies, chopped and added to certain soups...
dried--different but a stand-in, essential to gingersnaps
candied or crystallized-- ginger people ginger chews (they also make a ginger hard candy) and I've seen ginger chews at an asian market--plus I like adding chopped crystallized ginger to baked goods
pickled ginger--yes the stuff with sushi, as a kid, there was this restaurant that we'd go to that had a dish called ginger chicken, it was served with pickled ginger on the side and I would order it for the pickled ginger.
I now keep a jar of pickled ginger in my fridge.
My grandmother would keep both the thin sushi light pink pickled ginger and the red slivered pickled ginger in her fridge for me (and her, she likes it too).
Haven't tried gingerbeers cookie's yet...
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I may be a little too food-obsessed.
James is going out of town for a night or two next week, and he's all, "I'm going to miss you and don't want to be away from you." Whereas I'm thinking, "If he's not here, I can have liver and raw hamburger for dinner!
YAY!"
I'm such a horrible fiancee...
--Red Molly
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It's not technically a stand-alone food.
But I have been obsessed with celery seeds lately.
We let some celery go to seed in the garden and since then I've been buying it in bulk and putting it in everything.
I even made some tea out of it.
Everyone else is now thoroughly sick of it, but I can't get enough.
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I am most obsessed with sushi, garlic, and stir-fried broccoli.
I could probably do an A to Z of foods with which I am obsessed.
X would be hard, though.
I can't think of any good food that begins with X.
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Xanthan gum
I don't like foods thickened with it, though.
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I love feta cheese.
THere's just something about tangy and damp cheese that crumbles and doesn't melt very much, tastes good with lettuce, lentils, or, I'll admit it, on a fork by itself stanidng in front of the fridge.
I'm not that big on sweets, but when I get a mood for it, I love really really dark bitter chocolate - french chocolate with like 85% cocoa in it....with a cup of coffee.
Love it.
I'm all about sensory and taste pairings.
If I'm having a wine, I try to find something that will go with it.
Coffee, something that goes with it.
Layers of flavors are my addiction - like the layered pasta with squash puree and seared sea scallops with a beurre blanc - all in one bowl - that I had at the small cafe on the 2nd floor in the Met.
I'm big on texture too.
Cheese curds (like the ones used in poutine) that squeak - that's good.
Sauces, gravies, smooth buttermilk and chive mashed potatoes with savory.
Yum. I really love food.
I consider myself a foodie, though my day to day schedule doesn't permit it.
When we go out to eat, or on vacation though, we really try to find amazing food, and there's not much we won't try - I've even tried escargot, but didn't like it very much.
I'm currently obsessed with Petite Syrah for drinking.
Of course, since it starts at $23 a bottle, I don't get it very often.
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Yaz from Stumptown wrote on Fri, 07 January 2005 11:10
xanthan gum
Yaz, are you saying you just eat plain xanthan gum out of the bottle?
We bought some, to thicken the soy ice cream we made, but the whole experiment was a failure and now we have no idea what to do with the big bottle of xanthan gum.
Please advise!
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No, it was just the only food (food additive, actually) I could think of that starts with x.
I've never known anyone to buy the stuff.
What are you really doing with a bottle?
You running an illicit commercial kitchen there, sharky?
P.S.
Maybe kudzu or agar agar would help your soy ice cream???
Or make avocado soy ice cream....
....
Anyone have a favorite mandolin?
I want one where I can raise and lower the blade, and that takes mounted cross-blades.
And can be sharpened.
But doesn't cost $$$$.
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Yaz from Stumptown wrote on Fri, 07 January 2005 11:57
No, it was just the only food (food additive, actually) I could think of that starts with x.
I've never known anyone to buy the stuff.
What are you really doing with a bottle?
You running an illicit commercial kitchen there, sharky?
P.S.
Maybe kudzu or agar agar would help your soy ice cream???
Or make avocado soy ice cream....
....
Anyone have a favorite mandolin?
I want one where I can raise and lower the blade, and that takes mounted cross-blades.
And can be sharpened.
But doesn't cost $$$$.
I had already forgotten about my quest for X -- that's how ditzy I am!
No, seriously, they sell xanthan gum at the health food store.
I guess I will just throw it away, because I have no idea who would need it.
I am so relieved that you don't eat it from the bottle, Yaz.
It gave us terrible tummy-aches just in the ice cream!
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I almost wrote xanthan gum, but I couldn't quite remember the name, so Yaz beat me to it.
A lot of Vietnamese recipies have "xao" in the title.
I think it means "lemongrass," but I can't confirm this on any of the online dictionaries I can find.
I'm sure I'm not using the correct accent marks.
--Red Molly
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Yaz, the Washington Post did a review on mandolins some time ago and they really liked the Oxo one--I don't know if it has everything you want, but the price looked pretty good.
Texture's such a funny thing--Mr.
Div and I both have texture icks.
He hates meringues and sorbet (gritty against his teeth) and I hate a lot of cornmeal stuff--something about the texture.
Lately I've been really into the sweet and sour thing--orange slices or dried cherries on my salad with balsamic vinegar.
Oh, and pine nuts.
I love pine nuts on salad.
My wine obsession is Oregon Pinot Noir.
I love the stuff.
Haven't tried Petit Syrah.
I like some of the Chilean stuff out there--and still mostly affordable.
-div
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Love chilean wines!!
A really good table wine that Mr Chat and I love, it's one of our standby bottles - Pepperwood Grove Merlot.
It's about $6 a bottle.
We also love Blackstone Merlot, for about $8 a bottle.
When we want to get a bit fancy but still cheap, we go for the Blackstone NAPA Merlot - that's about $14.
Very good.
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, pinot noir. Totally my current fave in the wine department.
Being in CA, we tend to focus on those wines, but if anyone has any good WA/OR recommendations, I'd love to hear them.
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Have you tried the Los Vascos cabernet?
They're a Lafite-Rothschild winery in Chile.
The Reserve is even better than the regular, but they're both fab--and the Los Vascos goes for around $10-12.
-div
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Los Vascos is one of our favorites!!
We tend to buy Chateau Lafite Bordeaux, and when we saw the Lafite label on the Los Vascos, we snapped it up.
I don't know that we've tried the reserve, just the regular, I think.
Did you guys realize that Meritage just means - blend of grapes...I didn't know that...
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The reserve is verra nice!
Yeah, I love that wine.
Hmmm... have you tried Conde del Valdemar?
It's a Spanish Rioja, really nice--I don't know what the recent years are like, since we were finishing up a case from '95 or '96, but in general we've been very pleased with it.
Also nicely affordable.
I'll have to think up my list of favorite OR Pinot Noirs.
One of the Patricia Green wines--I forget which bottling, and she has several--was one of the tastiest wines I've ever had.
Mr. Div and I got engaged during dinner, with a lovely OR Pinot, an Argyle.
Yum. Good memories...
-div
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I highly recommend Pierre Robert cheese (expensive though).
My food obsessions are all over the map: sushi (a good, fatty toro!
Mmmm!), eggs benedict, rare steaks, desserts (mmm, dark chocolate).
Damn, I'm hungry now!
And I'm on day 3 of the New Year's diet.
Arrgh!
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Donuts without borders???
Must be Homer or a preggie lady.
On New Year's eve, my husband and I shared a bottle of red champagne given to us as a wedding gift.
We were advised to pair it with chocolate & they were delicious together.
Of course, we were polishing off the last of the Maison du chocolat stash, so it would have been good with mucilage.
Love me some fancy chocolates.
I'm with chatnoire on the dark bitter stuff.
as for ginger, we've now baked about 6 dozen chewy ginger triangles (recipe's in the cookie thread) this past month...
Um, for holiday gifts of course.
Also Ginger Lemon Creams, ginger ice cream (Joe's for anyone in SF), stir fries, trader joe's ginger granola, sushi ginger, but not out of the jar.
Yet. and really any item on a menu listing ginger, long as there's no meat.
I've never seen ash cheese but I've been looking for the elusive carmelized goat cheese.
*shuffles off for provolone hoagie*
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Nola_darlin, do you mean Gjetost?
I have to say that it's one of the very few cheeses I really dislike!
But as the Scots say, if everyone had the same tastes, think what a shortage of haggis there'd be.
Mmmm, haggis.
I love haggis.
I have this great gingerbread recipe--it's on www.epicurious.com, the Gramercy Tarvern Gingerbread (with added ginger, of course), and it's fantastic.
Very moist and dark.
Speaking of ginger, you can get ginger extract at King Arthur Flour, and one of the candied ginger companies--Ginger People, is that one?
They sell puree of candied ginger--which is delicious stirred into cookies.
Or cake. Or whatever.
-div
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Caramelized goat cheese?
Don't people sometimes make dulce de leche with goat cheese?
I must know more!
My latest food obsession is broiled grapes with manchego.
It sounds strange, but is unbelievably delicious.
Take red grapes (out of season right now, I know, but so worth it), drizzle some sherry vinegar over them, and bake them at 425f until they caramelize -- about 30-45 minutes, depending on the sugar content of the grapes.
Some will burn a little, but that's okay.
Then let them cool and eat them with good manchego or some other Spanish cheese.
The recipe is from a local tapas restaurant that I adore.
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Mmm....food.
Right now, I'm obsessed with bread.
Specifically, bread I have baked.
I bought one of those cloche bakers over the holidays and have been turning out unbelievably beautiful, delicious loaves of artisanal breads.
I'm actually kind of embarrassed -- I did give away a few loaves of the pre-cloche breads and while they tasted good, they were nothing to write home about in the looks department.
My new breads are golden and crusty and amazing.
It's all about the cloche!
Right now, I have some starter for a pugliese resting in the refrigerator.
I plan to bake it tonight.
I also am obsessed with the 4 year-old XXX sharp cheddar from Dakin Farm in Vermont, some of which got baked into the caraway rye bread, and some of which I have been just eating in chunks.
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Nola darlin wrote on Fri, 07 January 2005 10:10
donuts without borders???
Here you go -- Donuts Without Borders.
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Oh my! Just don't let Yaz see.
here ya go laluz!
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I'm always, always obsessed with baked brie in pastry.
As in, wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-to-make-some obsessed.
As in, will go to boring lectures specifically in the hope of finding some at a reception.
And now that it's been mentioned over on the Cheap Hors D'Oeurves, I'm going crazy.
My afternoon yogurt looks sad.
~Snappy Mackerel
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I'm obsessed with all things salty.
Some salty things that i love: kalamata olives (any olives, really), capers, half-sour pickles, thick-cut potato chips, french fries..
And, of course, gourmet salts (maldon, fleur du sel, etc.
I also love seasoned salts, like this delicious fancy herb sea salt that i buy at whole foods).
But one of my all time favorites is indian pickle, especially mango pickle--salty *and* spicy--it's heaven.
When there is no indian food on hand, i like to eat it by itself right out of the jar, as a very bizarre "snack" ...i'm doing it right now.
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I am 100% obsessed with chocolate chip cookies.
Specifically, the chocolate chip cookies made by City Bakery in NYC.
They're huge, golden brown, with toffeelike batter that's very slightly underbaked for a touch of gooeyness, and big shards of dark chocolate...
I think I just had an orgasm thinking about them.
For a while I was obsessed with recreating the recipe at home, and I finally threw in the towel when I came close enough that I'd almost choose one of mine as a substitute.
I'm doing Weight Watchers right now so the whole thing is moot (the CB cookies are probably 400-500 calories each).
If I go within about five blocks of City Bakery these days, it starts to pull me in with the magnetic force of the Death Star.
Boo hoo.
ETA: cross-posted with thinkingahead, who reminds me of my other forced-to-ignore obsession: Fran's Dark Gray Salt Caramels.
Better than sex, sometimes.
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Yum! Now I'm going to have to track down some Gjetost -- thanks!
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Ok, dknylic, those salty caramels sound amazing.
I actually don't usually like many caramel candies--although i love *caramel*, esp.
Homemade caramel sauce (on homemade apple pie, yum) which makes me think that i haven't had appropriately high quality caramel candies.
Which makes me think i should order some salt caramels from fran.
I have also toyed with getting the sea-salt flavored truffles from these folks, but haven't gotten it together to place an order with them yet.
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Thinkingahead, are you a vegan?
Cuz if you are, stay away from Fran's.
Them's some of the butteriestgooeistgoodest caramels I've ever had.
If it's even possible, the dark chocolate and the crystals of salt on top elevate the butterygood caramels further.
(Note the use of "buttery" twice in my description...)
Those truffles look yummy, but the fact that they're vegan is enough to make me question their obsession potential.
No butter? I know, I've just offended every vegan IB and for that I apologize, but every time I decide to try something vegan because it's healthier, I regret it.
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Thinkingahead, I'm a salty-obsessor, too.
In fact, whenever I get a craving for something, it's nearly always salty (rarely sweet or chocolate).
Sometimes I'll just crave "something salty" in generally.
If you like olives and all things salty, have you ever tried anchovy stuffed olives?
They are on my list (yet to be published) of obsessions.
Soooo good, and salty.
I can't always easily find them.
Most of the time, Cost Plus will have them.
Love them.
(ETA: I mean, "in general")
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Speaking of anchovy stuffed olives, one of my favorite food memories from Italy (and there were so many, yum!) was eating these huge olives with really quality anchovies wrapped around them.
Oh bliss! Not the crappy tinned anchovies (although, I uh, like those too, and eat them out of the tin) but anchovies that were recognizably once a fish.
I also really like tinned kippers.
On toast. Used to really gross out my old roommate.
-div
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Woo-hoo to the other salt people!
I just shouted you guys out in the feel the love thread.
Dknylic, i am not a vegan [i was a vegan for a while in college, although i could never stick with it for very long.
Ahh, sweet dairy...
And mr. thinkingahead was a vegan for something like 7 years, although all of that was over before he met me].
i am, however, intrigued by vegan truffles.
You see, i'm quite promiscuous with my fancy chocolate.
Vegan, dairy, lindt, ghirardelli, fran, stan*, it's all good!
In fact--suggest more, fellow food obsessors.
You know you want to.
And i'll report back once i've actually tried the vegan truffles.
edited to add: lofty and div, i like anchovies when mushed up in pasta sauces, but i'm not sure i can eat them straight or even in/around an olive--they are kind of "fishy" when taken straight up.
But i do have a jar of fancy ones in my fridge (the kind that comes with the little wooden-handled fork on the side?) and i may try to be more adventurous, in the name of salty goodness.
*warning: to my knowledge, "stan" is not a real chocolate brand
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Try these: [url=http://www.recchiuticonfections.com]
If you live in or near San Francisco, they have a shop in the Ferry Building, in which their chocolates are displayed in a case (like jewelry!).
Their burnt caramel-filled chocolate is to die for, and they have a bunch of other very interesting (and beautifully constructed) truffles, with lots of cool infusions.
Sooo good. We buy some on occasion, and keep them in the wine cooler.
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