My Favorite Food

[ninjaface]

Do you eat it with anything? I like to add a generous helping of fresh ground pepper.

[Mr. Blonde]

I like it well enough plain, but I'll try with ground pepper. Not sure if i'll do it generously, though.

do you have any more delicious combinations

[ninjaface]

I tried it with pineapple for the first time a few weeks ago. Not bad. I'd suggest tomatoes and cucumbers with just the slightest bit of Miracle Whip.

[Beebs]

Is that your first picture of your tats? Or did I just miss the big unveil?

What is the one on your right?

[Mr. Blonde]

That was the big unveil. My right shoulder has a hydrogen atom, my left shoulder, helium.

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

Does they symbolize that you're an airhead?

[Beebs]

Ah, at first glance left shoulder looks like it has a globe in middle.

[f3lix]

I have a line with myself on how many matchups Kremlin will actually post before he quits.

[Repugnant Abomination]

I just bought myself some cottage cheese.

Pro tip: add a little honey.

[thekremlin]

Can we talk about how Mr. Blonde ripped off his tattoo from "The Watchmen"?

[Mr. Blonde]

Can we talk about how Kremlin ripped off his tattoo from "Chicago"?

It's the simplest way to depict it's atomic structure. Don't hate cause i'm beautiful.


Let's not make this a place to insult tattoos, gentlemen.

[thekremlin]

Is there precedent for my tattoo?

I have not seen "Chicago"

[thekremlin]

I do like it, by the way.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by thekremlin

Is there precedent for my tattoo?

I have not seen "Chicago"

Dude, the entire premise of tattoos is taking things out of the real world as our inspiration and putting them on ourselves. Not that you were "first" to do something. We both took something out of the real world, picked the representation we wanted on us, and did it.


Also, yes, there is precedent.

(and thank you, I like yours too.)

EDIT: FWIW, I came up with the idea of two atoms, specifically hydrogen and helium, on my own (although i'm sure Dr. Manhattan's head tattoo was lurking in my subconscious somewhere. Similarly, the above tattoos don't diminish your idea you had on your own to get the tattoo.

I'm just happy I didn't buy into the cliche ones. I was pretty close to getting a tribal on my arm in college. I would feel so dumb with that now. I don't think I'll ever regret the atoms, though.

[thekremlin]

The one on the guy's arm is sick.

[Ugly Bastard]

Originally Posted by Repugnant Abomination

Pro tip: add a little honey.

This can be applied to pretty much everything.

[thekremlin]

Not so. I would refer you to my coconut-shavings/hot sauce corollary, which states that every food is made better by exactly one of the two condiments, coconut-shavings or hot sauce. There are a few exceptions, but surprisingly few. (One is old cheese.) I propose that you can replace coconut-shavings with honey.

[thekremlin]

FC claims that hot sauce can be replaced by bacon. I'm not so sure, but I will make this claim: prosciutto can be used to replace bacon for satisfying results. I'm going to fry some prosciutto in butter this weekend. I will report my findings.

[thekremlin]

BOSTON DIVISION:

#2 Buffalo Wings at the Anchor Bar, Buffalo
Buffalo wings are incredible. This is an objective fact. The smell of hot buffalo sauce alone makes my mouth water like nothing else. I've roamed the earth (well, the US) and eaten buffalo wings all over, and had some good ones, too. I chose the Anchor Bar as a representative for several reasons. 1) They were probably the best. This should be reason enough. 2) I made a trip with my father specifically to eat these wings. So yes, it's going to stand out in my mind as the Platonic Buffalo Wings. 3) Since Buffalo Wings were invented here, it's a good way to remark on the improbability of this perfect food. Consider this: in our parents' lifetimes, chicken wings were considered throwaway scraps. Junk. Inedible. Their creation was more accident than inspiration, and when word started to spread, people thought it was a joke. And for the spicy wings to be served with hot sauce AND blue cheese dressing just added to the oddity. But I really think that a chicken wing with buffalo sauce, steaming hot, and dipped in blue cheese sauce, is perfection in food. Cannot-be-improved-upon. It's the culinary version of "Born to Run". It's a holy food, a sacrament.

#7: Fried Clams, Cape Cod
I really, really, like shellfish. (I'm not the world's best Jew.) Normally my pick would be C. Gigantas oysters, raw on the halfshell, with a light spray of lemon. It tastes like licking the bottom of a boat, except fresh. Fried clams are not like that. At all. Fry shops dot the quiet roads of the Cape, and you don't get the delicate presentation that comes with raw shellfish, you get a hoagie roll literally overflowing with clams fried in buttermilk or cornbread. You top it with lemon juice and tartar sauce. You eat until you're full. Clams and oysters and lobster and crab and shrimp are in abundance here, and served accordingly.

WINNER: The wings. I called them a sacrament, and meant it.

[thekremlin]

CHICAGO DIVISION:

PLAY-IN

Fenway Frank: The Fenway Frank is not a special hot dog. It's a pretty standard hot dog, in a pretty standard white roll, with packets of Heinz ketchup, yellow mustard, neon relish. It comes served in foil, and when you take it out, it feels slightly damp. But it's not about the hot dog. It's the happiest bite I can imagine, because Fenway is one of my favorite places in the world. Just walking to my seat fills me with sincere joy. You give me a Fenway Frank right now, sitting at my desk in London, I might not even eat it. But at Fenway Park, with the green of the grass and the monster, the white of the uniforms, and "the bluest sky I've ever seen", this just beats all.

Chicago Loaded Dog: Chicagoans are very proud of their hot dogs. And very specific about how they should be eaten. On a poppy-seed bun. With mustard, relish, tomatoes, onions, sport peppers, a pickle spear, and celery salt. NEVER with ketchup. It's more a salad than a hot dog. It's messy, it's fun. They belong at Wrigley Field, but also Navy Pier, or any of the excellent hot dog restaurants like Hot Doug's or Portillo's. But seriously, don't let a Chicagoan see you put ketchup on it.

WINNER: I lived in Chicago for seven years, but I've always been from Boston, and I'm picking the Frank for the win. Not because it's tastier, but because it brings me more joy. And something about the "right way" to eat a Chicago dog has always seemed a little humorless to me (despite my hard-line approach to Ranch dressing on Buffalo Wings.) The Fenway Frank makes the Big Dance.

[thekremlin]

CHICAGO DIVISION:

#1: Harold's Chicken
I'd been hearing about Harold's for years, and taste-testing dozen's of my father's failed attempts at replicating the sauce. Never achieved. Then in 2004 I had the privilege of living right behind Kimbark Plaza, on 53rd and Kimbark. Kimbark Plaza had everything you want if you're a desperately broke college student living in an apartment called "The Speakeasy." It had a decent grocery, a laundromat, a decent family-style restaurant to take your girlfriend on a "fancy" night out (read: $30 for two dinners). It had a liquor store that didn't ID that often. And it had Harold's, The Chicken King. You order through a speaker mounted in plexiglass, and your order is put on a rotating plate and spun around. His Majesty Harold is no fool. You put $3.77 under the plexiglass. You buy a grape or raspberry soda for 75 cents from the machine. You open the bag. My regular order: half-dark, hot sauce, extra hot sauce, pepper, extra bread, and a jalapeno. The chicken, 4 pieces, piled on top of greasy fries. The sauce is perfect. The recipe, still unknown. Half of the fries eaten by hand, dipped in the extra hot sauce, the other half rolled up with the bread for a fry sandwich. The bread, whitebread, has soaked up the grease and the hot sauce, and might be the best part of the whole meal. The jalapeno, eaten at the end, was just masochism. People who order catfish instead of chicken should be treated with disdain. NOTE: A sommelier would undoubtedly recommend a bottle of Boone's Farm Apple Wine to accompany this meal.

#8: In my first year working in Chicago, post-graduation, one of my coworkers asked me on a Friday afternoon if I'd like to go to New Orleans. I said I was ready to go right after work. I was kidding, but he called my bluff, and by 7 o'clock three of us were in a car loaded with energy drinks, leaving Chicago. By noon the next day, we'd reached Breau Bridge for the Annual Crawfish Festival. Huge nets of crawfish were lowered into boiling water filled with powdered cajun spices. The nets were pulled out, and our trays filled with steaming crawfish. It was beautiful. By Saturday night, we were in New Orleans. This was post-Katrina, but it was still one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited, once you get past the fluorescent novelty cups, hand grenade shots, and beads everywhere. We listened to live jazz, got wasted, and struck out. The next morning, we went to the Jazz and Blues Festival, listened to a lot of bands I have never heard, and also Jimmy Buffet. I don't know if he was Jazz or Blues. Food at music festivals is, in general, supposed to suck, but a po' boy filled to the brim with softshell crab coated in cajun spices, washed down by a bottle of Abita, that was a special food memory from the first bite.

WINNER: Tough break for New Orleans, but Harold's is just going to be very hard to beat.

[Ugly Bastard]

New Orleans is an awesome city with awesome food. Those of you inclined to traveling should prioritize spending a weekend there sometime.

[Ironic Mustache]

Originally Posted by angry pancake

Sincere invitation. You can even borrow a Mercedes to get around. Crash at chateau pancake --or get a hotel like an adult (not judging). Invite extends to most nubblites.

I assume I'm one of the nubblites excluded from at least the bold portion.

[angry pancake]

Correct. IM gets a hotel and enterprise will pick you up.

[DJ FC]

Ok, so I've always been hot for pork. Any pork really. I love bacon; the single most overrated food right now (and is still amazing). And I love pulled pork. I love pork ribs and I love a full roast pork. I love pork butt burgers. Prosciutto and mellon - oh hell yes. Pork shoulder - hmmmmmmmmmmm tasty. And I've always held the Iberian pork near the top of the list.

Jamón ibérico - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've spent the last few days in Madrid and, (this is actually difficult for me to say) I've finally realized that the Iberian ham is the best cut of meat IN THE WORLD. Better than pulled pork. Better than crispy bacon. Better than a fillet mignon. Better than a god damn Chateaubriand for 2. Jambon Iberico is simply perfection of meats.

I fully intend to buy an entire leg along with the wooden apparatus for mounting it and knives for slicing it for my own home (despite the fact that this means we will need to consume several pounds of the stuff in a matter of a few days).

GOD BLESS THE FUCKING SPANISH AND PORTUGESE FOR MAKING SUCH DELICIOUS FUCKING HAM.