Food Tasting

I was challenged to complete this meme by my sister, Erin. All these years, I thought I knew a little something about food and it turns out I'm a COMPLETE novice!

The Food Tasting Meme

Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions. Bold all the items you've eaten. Cross out any items that you would never consider eating (or eating again). (For this blog entry, I've created an educational link on all the foods I had to learn more about)

Venison
Nettle tea
Huevos rancheros
Steak tartare
Crocodile
Black pudding
Cheese fondue
Carp
Borscht
Baba ghanoush (the only way I've managed to enjoy eggplant so far)
Calamari (i.e. rubber bands with tentacles? no thanks)
Pho
Aloo gobi (I like Indian food as a general rule)
Hot dog from a street cart
Epoisses
Black truffle
Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (I'm a teetotaler) Steamed pork buns (breakfast in SF China town, AWESOME!)
Pistachio ice cream
Heirloom tomatoes
Fresh wild berries
Foie gras
Rice and beans (Hey! Great idea for dinner tonight!)
Brawn, or head cheese
Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
Dulce de leche
Oysters (Can't stand the taste of the ocean)
Baklava
Bagna cauda
Wasabi peas
Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
Salted lassi
Sauerkraut
Root beer float
Cognac with a fat cigar
Clotted cream tea
Vodka jelly
Gumbo (ocean taste)
Oxtail
Curried goat
Whole insects
Phaal
Goat's milk (does it count in cheese?)
Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more (Again, teetotaler)
Fugu (Not on your LIFE!)
Chicken tikka masala (I hear Dr. J's recipe is awesome)
Eel
Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (the blueberry cake doughnut is better, though)
Sea urchin
Prickly pear (fresh and ripe, YUM! Catalina Island, 1997)
Umeboshi
Abalone
Paneer (looks yummy!)
McDonald's Big Mac Meal
Spaetzle
Dirty gin martini
Beer above 8% ABV
Poutine
Carob chips
S'mores
Sweetbreads
Kaolin (this is a rock...why would I eat it?)
Currywurst
Durian
Frog's Legs
Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
Haggis
Fried plantain
Chitterlings or andouillette
Gazpacho
Caviar and blini
Louche absinthe
Gjetost or brunost
Roadkill
Baijiu
Hostess Fruit Pie
Snail (yup, I've eaten snails. Garlic, butter, a little chew and DONE!)
Lapsang souchong (I'm not a tea drinker, either)
Bellini (teetotaler thing)
Tom yum (the version I had was made with chicken, not seafood)
Eggs Benedict (I CRAVE this food sometimes)
Pocky
Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (an undergraduate research grant provided a generous per diem on one of my little undergrad conference trips and we went all out on the last night)
Kobe beef
Hare
Goulash
Flowers (daylilies, marigolds, nasturtium, rose hips, honeysuckle, and of course broccoli)
Horse (yes, I would be willing to try some horse)
Criollo chocolate
Spam
Soft shell crab
Rose harissa
Catfish
Mole poblano
Bagel and lox
Lobster Thermidor
Polenta
Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (I don't do the coffee thing, either)
Snake

Memory Tag

This looked like fun. Participate if you like. Ignore it if you prefer.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Yahoo! Images Tag

Saw this tag on a friend's blog and decided to have at it. I used Yahoo! Images instead of Google Images, though.

Here's what you do: Search for a picture on Google (or Yahoo!) Images in each category. Post an image from the first page of results. I went a step further and picked the literal first picture from each search, which led to a few funky results:

Age on my next birthday

29

A place I'd like to visit

Mount Rushmore

Boring, I know, but completely honest. Road trip!

A favorite place

Redwood forest in northern California. Beautiful scenery, peaceful, fun memories.

One of my favorite things

Time together. This is a sculpture of a family, which is exactly what I was thinking about.

One of my favorite foods

Banana pudding. Learned this love from my mom. Bobby and I actually made it this weekend and I found myself dancing, even giddy, with anticipation for the moment the cookies were soft enough to eat.

My favorite flower

Crocus

It's one of the first to appear each year.

My favorite color

Red, red, red. Bright and bold or dark and muted, it doesn't matter.

The city I live in

Urbana, IL

Technically, this is a sunrise just OUTSIDE of the city I live in. Those are corn cribs.

Name of a past pet

This, apparently, is a picture of Misty Loggins. I once had a hamster named Misty, though it turned out to be a very grumpy MALE hampster that slept all day, ate all night, shredded my clothes (and anything else he could pull into his cage), and led a generally crusty bachelorhood life. In retrospect, I wonder why we humans keep pets at all.

A nickname I've had

The "Susie-Q" is the jeep.

My college major

Biology

My first job

Operator for a professional messaging service.

A hope for 2008

This is a statue called "wisdom." Mostly, I just want to know what the "spectacular kiss" is going to be in the LOST season finale. I was too timid to put "spectacular kiss" into Yahoo! Image search, even with SafeSearch activated.

 

So there it is. I tag Bobby, Laura, HeidiPB, Kristin, Dr J, Jonny, and anyone else brave enough to take the challenge :)

Six Things Everyone Should Accomplish Before They Turn 18

Blog-tagged by Heidi, so here it is. I didn't actually start to grow up until college, so I find it hard to believe an 18-year-old is capable of accomplishing anything so profound that I would say EVERY person should experience it. I have all sorts of advice I would give to an 18-year-old, but that's not really answering the blogtag, is it? Okay, maybe it will be easier if I put it in the context of things I would love to see Alice accomplish by the time she is 18...

1. Fall in love, then have her heart broken. It sucks, but this experience is awfully helpful later on.

2. Learn to manage money wisely and live within her means.

3. Develop a passion for something. Anything. Get in to it, meet others who enjoy it, share it.

4. Discipline herself to get enough sleep. I still haven't managed to accomplish this, so GOOD LUCK!

5. The ability to understand other peoples' points of view first. It's amazing how many doors open up when people feel understood, even if you don't exactly agree with them.

6. Come to understand that people change and sometimes make mistakes. Learn to forgive.

So now I tag Jenny H, Kristin E and Laura H. Have at it!

Blog Tagged?

So, apparently I've been blog-tagged by billkristinandwil. Is that like a chain letter? I get the vague impression I'm supposed to blog something about Bobby now. Well, here goes.

He's okay, I guess.