Food association game

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Let’s play food association… I think of a food, post the first thing that springs to my mind while eating it, and then post another food. The next person to come in and read the thread posts next, and so on.

I’ll start at… red raspberries.

I’m 7 or 8 and my cousin and I are picking raspberries off the bushes my grandma has on her farm. They’re clustered around an old shed near the house that burned down years ago, and they grow over the spot where their family always buried their dogs. My cousin and I have old ice cream tubs to put the berries in, but soon enough my grandma comes out and laughs and says we’re eating more berries than we put in the tub. After we get done my grandma sticks them in her freezer and we each get to take home frozen berries.

Next food: blueberry muffins.

2

The time I killed a man.

Next food: Cream cheese.

3

Something’s berry wrong with tsarina. :smiley:

4

Spending Sunday mornings at brunch with my grandparents. We’d go out for bagels and cream cheese and other cool foods.

In fact, when my grandfather died, the grandkids who were there were asked to put a memento into his coffin. I’d’ve put in a menu from Canter’s restaurant on Fairfax (in LA) and a copy of the Sunday L.A. Times.

Next food:

Carrots

Robin

5

“shhhh. I’m hunting wabbits”

Next food: Beef Stew MRE’s

6

Oh god. I spent most of my sophmore year eating MRE’s acquired by my army friend Phyllis, as a way of saving money. They are cold and horrible and I get nauseaous thinking about eating one.
The dried pears in the MRE packs were pretty good, though.
Next: OK Soda

7

My last AT with the Marines. I’ve just gotten off an LCAC (hovercraft) after having been at sea for the last week on the U.S.S. Mount Vernon out of Coronado. I’m attached to the Armory 5-ton because, even though I got “demoted,” I’m still Weapons Company Comm. Chief. So I’m with the 5-ton, I’ve got one of my comm-buddies with me and we’re hanging out with the armor-ers, also good friends, and trying to stay away from the officers, who we are stuck with because we are in the rear. The Lt. Col. decides to have us stay-put about ¼ mile from the shore…on top of a bluff. Real tactical. :rolleyes:

During the night, another group, on their way to assault a near-by area, patrols through us and attempts to, and succeeds in, “capturing” us and binds most of our group (not the officers or Staff NCO’s, though.) We are hog-tied with zip-ties and they are trying to get the fire-watch and the armorer, both of whom are armed with live rounds and are authorized to use them if anyone goes for the truck. These guys are fucking with the wrong marines, fun exercise or not. Finally, our Gunny comes around and tells them to “Stand DOWN! Leave my armorer alone. Go away.” They realize, at this point, that we are not fair game for their exercise, hastily return everyone’s weapon (they had grabbed my rifle after five of them had dragged me from my sleeping bag) and scoot along toward their objective.

Still zip-tied, pissed off and full of adrenaline, I break/strip the zip-ties and get up. The assistant armorer was one of the first jumped by these guys and is shaken, even though they didn’t actually harm anyone. He is due for fire-watch in the coming hours (it’s like 3AM) and we all realize there is no way he can do it. He ends up staying awake the rest of the night.

The next day, most of us can mostly laugh it off so we go on with our part of the exercise. Travelling down a hill, the Armory 5-ton breaks an axle. While we are waiting for the tow-vehicle, the assistant armorer, having been awake for almost 40 hours by this point and having not had anything to drink in maybe 8, begins to freak out.

It starts with him saying he thinks he has something in his eye, then that he thinks he lost a contact in his eye and quickly escalates. My Captain looks at me and asks if I know what the story is, I take him aside and explain the deal from last night and that I don’t think the LCpl has had anything to drink in a while. Mind you, it’s hot. We’re in Southern California and it’s July. The docs are summoned and get an IV hooked up to the guy.

In the mean time, our wrecker shows up and is ready to haul off the 5-ton. My platoon Sgt., a good man, sends me and the other comm guy along with the armorer to “guard the vehicle.” It’s going to a secure lot, but hey, we’re not gonna fight it.

We go along, get base-side and spend the rest of the exercise in barracks, eating from chow-halls, hitting the PX, getting drunk and playing cards.

The assistant-armorer went to the base hospital and, after we returned home, went to some counseling. He almost received a medical discharge and it was pretty sketchy whether or not he’d be able to remain an armorer.

Next food: Pesto raviolli

8

Turpentine was first, so I’ll go with soda.

Mmm…caffine enriched, high fructose corn syrup/and or sugar enhanced water.

Next: Ostrich.

9

bouv: It wasn’t “Ok, soda” that Turp was going for, it was OK soda.

10

I’ve only had it once, but it was incredible.
I was working in the North American Technical Center for one of the worlds largest glass companies and flew into DFW and then made the drive up to Sherman, TX. It is, literally, right on the Oki border. Well, I got my work done in record time so I decided to spend some time in the Dallas area.

My mother used to be a Mary Kay director and had been to Dallas many times, so I called her and asked for some good places to eat. For the change in my pocket, I can not remember the name of the steak house I went to , but they had a reputation for cutting off ties whenever someone was foolish enough to enter wearing one…wait, no, that’s not right. That was the one I was looking for and I think I ended up at the one across the street, instead.

Anyway, I was on the company dime so as I was looking at the menu, I couldn’t help but notice they had, again literally, 6 selections of filet mignon. My mouth was practically salivating at the words. Then, scanning just to be thorough (I am an engineer, after all), I spotted an oddity: Ostrich Tenderloin. Got me thinking, it did.

When the waitress came over, I went ahead and ordered the smoked turtle soup and asked about the ostrich. The waitress said it was good. Actually, it was more like this: “Oh wow, it is good!” Again, company dime, if it sucks I can head over to Arby’s, right? So I order it.

The soup was excellent. The smoked turtle mmmmmm…

So the ostrich shows up. Three ¾" thick, 5" diameter tenderloins, drizzled in a cracked-peppercorn cream and bordered by flaky onion crisps and snapping fresh vegi’s (peas, carrots, squash.)

My first bite: Wow! This is tender…oh, man, this is good.
Next bite: Whew, this peppercorn is excellent! Mmmm…
All the following bites: Mmmmm….yummmm…mmmmm.

Ostrich is tasty and tender, I’ll tell you what.

Next food: ** Veal tortillini in pesto alfredo.** (for those not fortunate enough to have had this, just go with tortillini.)

11

Well, that would be me wouldn’t it?

Yoghurt.

12

Sitting in a little Italian restaurant in regional New South Wales, eating some really nice pasta and a pretty damn fine red wine.

The evening was ruined, however, by the background music; Willie Nelson singing “Some Enchanted Evening.”

Next food - two-minute noodles.

13

The food that I ate my first year on my own; my Japanese apartment didn’t have an oven, just a two burner stove. I had a frying pan, a tea kettle and a sauce pan. I made ramen A LOT.

Next food:
Brie cheese.

14

brie cheese

On my honeymoon, baked and covered with almonds, at a sidewalk cafe in Aix-en-Provence. Some fine red wine was had by all. Delightful.
Next: a ham sandwich

15

Always reminds me of Saturday lunches at home. Dad heads out to bring back lunch meat and an assortment of little delicacies like olives, artichoke hearts, marinated mushrooms, etc. Just a sandwich doesn’t cut it anymore.

Next: garlic pickles.

16

Fighting with my little sister over who gets to eat the last big, juicy pickle, yelling “You already had two!”, grabbing the jar, and running away with it, and having it eaten and my face covered with pickle juice before my mom could find me and tell me to share. We didn’t realize then that there was always more in the cold room downstairs…

Next food: Mashed Potatoes

17

Aaaarg!

Had a horrible nasty relationship. The guy could not do anything right. One of the worst rows we had came about because for once, just the once, he would cook dinner. I was a student and lived on instant mashed potatoes. You had to add one pint to the Smash.
I had a pint glass in the kitchen to measure it out with.

and

He got it wrong. It looked and tasted like wallpaper glue. I do not usually fly at people who are trying to do their best. But really, instant mashed potatoes, how difficult is that???
Next food:

Seafood chowder.

18

Seafood Chowder:

Finding out, my first month in Boston, that chowder comes in a variety other than “clam” and doesn’t have to taste like a can.

At, of all places, the Union Oyster House, my best friend James took me for oysters on the half shell, since I’d never had them. We started with a dozen and then finished off with bowls of seafood chowder. Creamy, not-too-thick, chunks of clams and fish and potato other lovely things. A gastronomic epiphany!

This might have been the first time I ever had a Tremont Ale, as well.

next food:

Macaroni and Cheese

19

I’m living on Kraft Easy Mac right now - macaroni and cheese that requires nothing but a microwave and hot water. You don’t even need the butter, milk, noodle-boiling of regular Kraft. And it tastes just like the regular stuff. It’s the ultimate dorm food.

My roommate is aghast that I consider a bowl of macaroni and cheese to be a meal. She’s of the “it’s a side dish! It needs a hot dog!” ilk. I scoff. That’s like having SPAM with it! It’d coagulate in your stomach and sit there like a cannonball from Sherman’s march, and if you tried to go swimming you’d sink! Combining meat byproducts and instant macaroni is even deadlier than chicken-fried steak and biscuits.

20

Whoops. Next food: strawberries.