OMNIVORE100PROJECT

So I told you that Dan was sick with a stomach bug yesterday, but what I didn’t tell you is that he still pulled through with the roses!  Good guy.  And instead of thinking “oh, how beautiful!” or “what a wonderful boyfriend I have,” I was thinking “can I eat these?”  And it turns out that yes, you can eat them!  So eat them I did.
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It’s Valentine’s Day.  And I’m blogging.  And drinking.  An watching last night’s episode of “The Bachelor.”  Because Dan came home from work with a stomach bug today.  I was hoping to do something a bit more romantic than sitting on my computer on Valentine’s Day, but what can I do?  Dan went to bed at 5:00 so I guess I’m going to entertain myself tonight.  And I guess that involves talking about the cup of coffee I drank the other day. Woo. (more…)

I have the best friends in the world.  On Friday night, Yankee Girl, her sister, and her husband came over for a few drinks.  While most people would bring over a sixer of beer or a bag of chips, they brought over a $200 bottle of Glenmorangie Signet.  Now that’s friendship. (more…)

There is nothing more classic than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I can’t even count how many times I brought one for lunch in grade school (is it just me, or did the jelly always soak through the bread and make it soggy?) and I have made more than a few in my adult life, as well.  But here’s the thing: they’re kind of boring.  Everybody has tried one and everybody knows what they taste like.  So I decided to do the only thing I could think of to “spice up” the sandwich.  I made a PB&J sampler platter, complete with 3 different kinds of peanut butter and two different kinds of jelly. (more…)

In the 1998 Academy Award-winning film “Six Days Seven Nights” (okay, it didn’t win any awards- it’s a really bad movie, actually), Harrison Ford and Anne Heche (yes, worst movie couple ever) sat around a campfire discussing breadfruit.  “It’s not bread,” Harrison notes ever so cleverly.  “It’s not fruit,” Anne responds.  Wow, what a script.  Anyways, that’s kind of how I felt the other night when I ordered sweetbreads.  They’re not sweet.  And they’re certainly not bread.  So what the hell are they? (more…)

It is very rare that Dan and I go out for a fancy dinner.  Jimmy John’s, Panera, and pizza make up most of our “special” meals, so when we entered the upscale Palm Court restaurant, we felt a wee bit out of place.  I was wearing jeans and salt-stained boots, and Dan…well, when you have hair that’s longer than your girlfriend’s, you don’t look like the most respectable young man.  It was pretty effing fancy there- the food came out on silver platters, a keyboard player was busting out synthesized harpsichord versions of Beach Boys songs, and even the bus boy had a French accent.  For real.  I think the waitress was shocked when we ordered escargot immediately after being seated. (more…)

At the moment, my life is almost entirely made up of contradictions and ridiculousness.  One minute I’m eating expensive gourmet chocolate in my living room, and the next minute I’m heading out to Tuesday night bowling league and drinking dollar Bud Lights.  A few months ago, I’m at a Roadkill Cook-Off in West Virginia, and now I’m making reservations at the highest rated restaurant in Chicago.  Sometimes (especially yesterday, when I had to write “meal worms” in my food journal) I wonder why I’m even doing this.  But then I get a shipment of fine Mexican chocolate in the mail and I remember how much I really love this challenge. (more…)

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the book How to Eat Fried Worms.  It told the story of a boy who, to win a bet, has to eat fifteen worms, all prepared in different ways.  Instead of being disgusted by the descriptions of worms topped with ketchup and worms in spaghetti sauce, I was intrigued.  I thought they sounded good.  And while I have never eaten a real worm, today I found myself munching on BBQ-flavored meal worms. I guess you could say it was a childhood dream come true. (more…)

I don’t particularly like beets.  Or cabbage.  Or carrots.  Or soup.  So clearly borscht is something that I was not looking forward to making.  Also, I have not one drop of Eastern European blood in me, so this whole thing was very foreign to me.  I didn’t know what borscht was supposed to taste like, but all I could imagine was flavorless cabbage in a bowl.  Ugh. (more…)

Three and a half years ago, I spent two weeks in Switzerland with my ex-boyfriend and his family.  We drank wine, hiked through the mountains, ate gourmet meats and cheeses, and sat in the sun.  When we got fogged in for four days, we played Risk and watched tennis on TV.  And one night, we went to a restaurant where we each got a huge pot of authentic Swiss fondue.  It was heaven.  Now, three and a half years later, I find myself at Trader Joe’s buying a pre-packaged carton of fondue that you put in the microwave.  Not quite the same thing. (more…)