If I Were a Foodie . . .

So I kind of wish I were a foodie, especially after having watched so much Alton Brown recently. Unfortunately, I think there are a few qualifications to being a foodie that I don't qualify for: being able to cook, eating at nice restaurants, having some knowledge of what some basic ingredients are (I still don't quite know where to find shallots or cream of tartar in the grocery. Are they vegetables? shortening? a seafood product? See. Not a foodie).

That said, I really enjoy food. Here are a few foods I have a weak spot for. You know what I mean. Stephan will order anything on a menu with sweet potatoes or with apple integrated into a savory dish. I can predict his choice from a mile away. Similarly, a friend of a friend will immediately pick out the item with bacon. Here are mine:

***soft pretzels and pretzel bread. I haven't yet tried my hand at baking this myself, but I have found some recipes. This is necessary because I usually buy pretzel bread at the farmer's market, which isn't so active at this time of year. That said, I can buy pretzel bread at Trader Joe's or choose it as my bread option at Jerry's. But really I need it more readily than that.

***honeycrisp apples. oh dear lord. these are the best apples in the world. I can't believe how expensive they are and even worse, how hard they are to find.

***soup. I think that R is an even more devoted fan than I, but I can rarely resist soups on the menu. My favorite is probably split pea soup, which my dad does a very stupendous version of.

***citrus. I guess this is similar to Stephan's apple thing. Citrus flavored savories are awesome. As are citrus flavored sweets including lemon drops, key lime pie, lemon meringue, etc. And my all time favorite cookies were these really thin light lemon flavored cookies at my local grocery store in London. They were the generic grocery brand, and you had to buy them in a three pack with two other kinds of cookies. They were so good, and I can't seem to find something similar anywhere. One of my past bosses, and I shared this love of citrus. She told me once that she had a dinner party where one of the guests finally pointed out to her that every dish she had served was lemon flavored. Lemon fish, lemon rice, lemon soup, etc. Ha!

***asparagus. Oh man, for a veggie I didn't like as a kid, I will readily order something I'm not otherwise excited about if it's accompanied by asparagus. Also we make it on the grill a lot.

Yay food!