I cannot believe that I’m officially done with this challenge!  I’m going to be sad to see this tattered little list leave my purse, where it has been sitting for 366 days, but I’m proud that I was able to complete all 100 foods in a single year.  I ate some disgusting foods, some illegal foods, some hideously expensive foods, some foods that made me want to jump for joy…I ate foods in England, Scotland, Canada, the Czech Republic, and all around the USA.  I’m at least a couple pounds heavier and a couple thousand dollars poorer, but I did it.  I’m done. (more…)

Oh, hello there!  I guess you’ve come to read about the final courses of my dinner at Alinea!  Fabulous.  If you missed the first two parts, click here for part one and click here for part two.  Now, enough with the small talk- let’s get on with the show! (more…)

If you missed out on part one of my dinner at Alinea, click here to catch up.  Otherwise, let’s get back into this!  I left off with course #8, which had Amy and me drinking beet juice out of a giant block of ice.  Bizarre.  Tasty, but bizarre. (more…)

Alright, it’s finally time to tell you all about the grand finale of this challenge!  This past Friday, my friend Amy and I celebrated my birthday dinner at Alinea, Chicago’s only three-star Michelin restaurant.  We had to make reservations three months in advance, and I can see why.  The restaurant is world-renowned and was even named the World’s Top Restaurant by Elite Traveler Magazine.  Holy jeez. (more…)

If you know anything about Indian food, you know that the vindaloo is the hottest curry in the world, right?  Wrong.  The vindaloo comes in close second to the phaal, which is the best way to burn your mouth off in five seconds or less.  “So, Kathryn,” you ask, “why on earth did you leave all the spicy stuff ’til the end of the challenge?  The Scotch bonnet, the rose harissa, the phaal?”  In short, because I’m a moron.  And apparently I enjoy torturing myself just hours before my birthday. (more…)

I’m fairly certain that this blog has made me the most skilled internet researcher on the planet.  No joke.  Trying to find some of these foods was hard work, and rose harissa was probably the most elusive of them all.  Rose harissa is a North African sauce that is made of chili peppers, rose petals, and many different spices (14 in this case).  It can be incorporated into recipes or simply used as a condiment.  While finding plain harissa was simple, trying to locate rose harissa was nearly impossible.  I found a company called Belazu that sold a jarred version, but as far as I could tell, it was only sold in the UK.  Finally, I found out that there was a store in Toronto that sold imported Belazu rose harissa sauce.  Good thing I was already headed there to eat some horse! (more…)

You may be wondering why such a mundane food made it all the way to the end of this challenge.  Why would I avoid crossing off a food that I can buy for five bucks at any local diner?  Well, eggs Benedict is more or less a fancied-up version of an Egg McMuffin and the one thing that I hate more than anything else in the world is an Egg McMuffin.
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His name was Randy and he was a 1 1/2-lb. crustacean.  I first met him at Dorfler’s Meat Market when he was handed to me in styrofoam box lid filled with newspaper and seaweed.  On the way home, we discussed our childhoods, our hopes, our dreams.  We even talked about a possible trip to Sea World.  “Sometime next summer,” I assured him.  We became close friends during that 15-minute drive from the butcher shop to my apartment.  Then, after bringing him inside, I stabbed him in the head with a kitchen knife. (more…)

You might be wondering what you’re looking at right now.  It sure as hell doesn’t look like food, and that’s probably because it isn’t food…which makes me wonder why it was ever put on this list.  Kaolin is a type of clay, and (supposedly) many women in the south eat it.  Some of them use it as an appetite suppressant, but many others have a form of pica, the desire to eat non-food items, such as clay, dirt, and chalk.  I, however, don’t tend to crave inedible substances, so I wasn’t really looking forward to dining on nasty grey powder. (more…)

I decided that for number 26, I would do the most awkward thing I have ever done: make a vlog.  I figured that when it comes to eating super hot peppers, my face is going to tell you more than my writing will.  So check out my video after the jump and watch me writhe in pain!  Woo! (more…)