My Wife and I are active on vacations, but one of our favorite things to do is relax and read by a quiet pool or beach with a drink. The nice thing for us is also that you couldn’t work around the house even if you wanted to.
I like them. I figure that eating them is similar to eating lots of tiny, shell-on shrimp. One has to do a lot of work to enjoy them.
I find it’s fairly similar to edamame (another legume boiled in the pod in salty water).
Perfect analogy. Sometimes the “work” is worth it.
I didn’t like them even when I was younger. I always gave mine away for the plain chocolate eggs.
Dove and Magnum Ice Cream Bars. I love chocolate and I love chocolate ice cream bars, but these were just overly sweet.
Russian caviar and duck are my two biggest culinary disappointments. Both are often touted as upscale cuisine, but I like neither.
My local watering hole serves these instead of normal peanuts for a bar snack and they make them extremely spicy. I didn’t like them until I tried them that way. Now I can’t get enough of them. But I definitely get that most people won’t appreciate the texture.
They make me think that they’re some kind of euphemism for some kind of high-fiber cookie meant to be eaten as a laxative.
That said, I DO like digestive biscuits. Especially the ones with chocolate.
I think something that’s been a big disappointment for me for my adult lifetime is red wine. I mean, there are dozens, if not hundreds of books written about wine, and most of that writing is about red wine. All these descriptions and flavors and textures that are written about make it sound like it must be divine. I recall being excited when I got into trying different sorts of beverages- red wine sounded like it must be the best stuff out there because of all the press it got.
And it’s not. It’s not terrible or anything, but it’s definitely not worth all that flowery writing and breathless description of the various flavors present. I’ve had some pretty expensive wine in my day, and some cheap stuff- I can tell the difference between a great, a good, a mediocre, and a bad red wine. I’m just not that impressed with any of them, and in large part would prefer white wine, beer or a mixed drink of some kind instead. Or even iced tea in a lot of situations.
I find that red wines preferences vary a lot from person to person. My ex loved Merlot, I could take it or leave it, give me a Cab or a Pinot Noir. But I do find the expensive stuff to usually be superior. Not always. It doesn’t matter anyway as I’ve given up the alcohol due to medication. Sigh.
I think there must be a huge personal component to it. I mean, I’ve had really expensive and top quality wines (one of the perks of having been a consultant at one point), and I’ve had stuff that makes Two Buck Chuck look like Bordeaux’s finest. And the better ones are definitely more pleasant to drink. The common thread though is that I think I just am not that fond of red wine. I don’t hate it or anything, but it’s not something I seek out either. And probably 9 times out of 10, I’d rather have something else to drink, alcoholic or not.
New one. This week, my co-op was out of my favorite bread so I picked up a loaf of brioche bread as it has been touted all summer as the bread to use for french toast, burgers, steak sammies, etc. Nope. Nope. Nope. That stuff is far, far too sweet for me. I like bread with some heft and have no desire to eat a burger on a doughnut. Sure enough, sugar is the second ingredient. It might work with Nutella but it’s not anything but a sweet.
Now, I need to go get some real bread.
With you on the burgers and steak butties, but French toast is a sweet, and brioche bread is awesome for it.
“A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”
I had always like the image and I’m a huge fan of the Sondheim musical. When my wife and I went to Chicago for our brother-in-law graduating boot camp at Great Lakes, I dragged her to the Art Institute to see it.
Meh. It’s big, but not as big as I was expecting. It’s flat and a bit dull (I wonder if some pigments have faded). I still like the painting, but seeing it in person was anticlimactic. I spent more time staring at the Renoir next to it and especially the small Van Gogh self-portrait also in the same room.
Disenchantment - Same people that do Futurama, a show I love. Was heading out on a week trip so when Disenchantment first came up on Netflix I downloaded the entire season. My slow ass internet connection required almost two days to do it but I figured it’d be worth it and I was excited to dive in on the plane.
Terrible. It was absolutely terrible. I turned it off in the middle of the second episode and spent the rest of the flight playing whatever garbage iPad games I had.
I can smell other people’s asparagus pee if I go into the bathroom after them. So yeah you lack the receptors.
Disappointing. Traditionally, brioche had very little sugar. My 1975 Joy of Cooking calls for only 1 Tbsp sugar, the same as for a standard loaf of bread. I still wouldn’t use it for most savory sandwiches, but it makes great toast.
David Lee Roth returning to Van Halen
We caught the first few episodes of this season of Battlebots and it doesn’t seem as good as before. Did we have it built up in our heads from pre-pandemic seasons to be better than it was, or did the talent taper off…? I notice the same with “What We Do in the Shadows.” It’s still a good program but doesn’t seem as good as it was. I guess that could be a normal process—season 1 of “Dead Like Me” was much better than season 2, and there was no world health crisis.