Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

It was like someone just flipped a switch in my tongue one day. As a child, I made my parents order all food mild, refused to use mint toothpaste because it was too "burny", and wouldn't eat an altoid or spicy salsa if you paid me.

About 3 years ago, I was eating some salsa at a Mexican restaurant and I realized I wanted it to be hotter. It was crazy. I started ordering my food medium, then hot, and now I literally crave hot food. I feel like a crazy pregnant woman, insisting to all my servers that when I say hot I mean HOT! Don't just dial down the heat because I'm a gringa, I want it native!! Now I make pretty much everything spicy, but it sometimes gets me in trouble with dinner guests who are not chileheads.

I love SE and P-Dub!

I would consider myself a "whisperer". My BF gave up on ordering for himself years ago when during every meal he would say that what I got was better. He doesn't even open his menu anymore when we go out, he trusts me.

I try and stick with my gut instincts, and I always ask the server what they like best (if it looks like they know what they're doing). I also avoid boring dishes, anything the restaurant does not specialize in, and "americanized" dishes at ethnic restaurants.

Tennessee: Hot chicken, BBQ, biscuits and gravy, country ham, pretty much everything Southern...

Cheese and crackers for sho.

@oh_no_eric: "Purple Drink" was the very first thing I thought of when I saw this thread!!

I was a big orange Crush girl as a kid and grape soda was really just my sugary backup if they were all out of the good stuff.

Grape Drink Stand-Up

My favorite meatless meal would have to be a pasta dish like alfredo, penne a la vodka or mac n' cheese...my favorite veggie-filled meatless meal would be a thai red curry or peanut noodle stir fry.

My Asian Studies class in high school went to a vegetarian Indian buffet for a field trip. I thought it was all disgusting (I was not yet a veggie lover). I don't think I really tried it again until college, and I've been in love ever since. My "Dinner Club" is going to a vegetarian Indian restaurant for August, so it should be a chance for me to make things right!

I made walnut brownies with walnuts that had secretly gone bad...it was a giant inedible pan of musty, nasty brownies. Sick and so, so sad.

The grilled cheeseburger at Rotier's in Nashville. It's the most deliciously juicy burger stuck between two pieces of very buttered toast then melted like a grilled cheese sandwich. It tastes like delicious cow fat. I like mine with pickles and mustard...I'm a ketchup-loving freak and even I wouldn't ruin this perfect burger with it!

My boyfriend used to make fun of me/complain about how much FN I could watch in one sitting. Then, the other day after work I grabbed the remote before he could get to it and he sighed, "not channel 65 again". To his suprise I wasn't even considering my trusty old channel 65 because I'd finally given up all hope that there would not be a cake challenge on or Mark Summers showing me how some crappy candy bar is made. Yah, the guy from Family Double Dare who used to slime people on Nicklodeon when I was a kid now takes up a solid chunk of primetime FN programming. Alton is the only way you would ever catch me watching FN, though I do feel like Bobby Flay is an excellent chef caught at some horrible good/evil FN crossroads in his life. He is their biggest name and is obviously cashing in on it, but I know he can cook for reals and probably dies a little inside whenever the producers call him about some craptastic new food show they're scheming up. *sigh*

With Firefly vodka and crushed ice.

Chik-Fil-A chicken sandwich...mmmm pickles!