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Well, my mom's Cantonese homecooking was always served family style -- my favorite being a steamed whole fish with ginger, scallions, a bit of soy, and steamed white rice. We'd sit all night and pick apart the bones, well after my dad and brother had left the table (they weren't huge fish fans). Mom always gave me the best parts of the fish.

As for an overall meal: nothing, in my mind, beats the smorgasbord of Chinese New Year's Eve dinner.

I've loved PW and TGWAE for a long time -- but I'll throw out a relatively new one: Sprouted Kitchen at http://sproutedkitchen.com/ has great food and beautiful photos.

Mom always makes an excellent stir-fried pumpkin dish, with dried shrimp, garlic, and ginger. In fact, I might finally steal that recipe...sometime...maybe this year I'll prevail.

I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but I could never forget the first time I had cheese with membrillo (quince paste) in Madrid. It was served at the end of a fantastic meal -- a friend and I had torn through a huge platter of shellfish, many of which we couldn't identify -- and came with a big tureen of rum that our server ignited at the table.

Right now, I'd have to go with Lure Fishbar -- incredible oysters, delicious chicken 'lollipops,' great burger, fantastic uni...cocktails aren't bad either.

Oh, and some cheeses from Murray's, herring in cream sauce from R&D, Gray's, ...

There were 4 seats left when I clicked, for the 6:30 seating -- so, 2 left!

Poached eggs on sautéed spinach, lox, english muffin. With lots of coffee and a tall glass of grapefruit juice.

Bagels.

(Nice Presidents reference!)

Avocado with a little soy, a squeeze of lime, and a fork.

I have told this story many times:

A few years ago, for Valentine's Day, I wanted to bake a pound cake for my SO (his favorite). Luckily, I decided to do a few test runs, in the hope that I'd tweak a few recipes into My Perfect Pound Cake. The makings of the first cake smelled great, was a beautiful creamy yellow color, and snuggled into the loaf pan just so. Since the recipe specified a 45-minute baking time, I shut the oven door and went into my room to do some work. 30 minutes later, I decided to get a glass of water -- and check on the cake, just in case.

Thin wisps of black smoke were curling out of the oven.

Now, keep in mind that in those days, I was still living in the student apartments in college, which were well equipped with many, many smoke detectors, fire alarms, and sprinklers. Last time a sprinkler had gone off in the building, that entire apartment had been covered in two inches of water -- and the apartment below suffered some damage as well. It was spring semester, senior year. I was not going to let this happen. So, I ran around the floor like a lunatic, collecting fans and shuttling them back to the room, opening all the windows I could find, doing anything possible to filter out the smoke. A few hours later, crisis averted, I passed out (it was 3 a.m. by then -- I keep fairly weird hours) and had completely forgotten that the 'cake' was still in the oven.

The next afternoon, I walked into the kitchen and cracked open the door to take a peek. Molten cake...everywhere. All over the oven walls, along the racks, everywhere. The cake had imploded. Burnt butter and sugar smells invaded the kitchen. I quickly shut the door again.

It took me three days to finally get it together and clean out that oven, and it took forever. Needless to say, I decided on a different Valentine's Day present.

That all said, I wish you the very best of luck. You are much braver than I am, and I'm sure I'm among many who look forward to your posts!

The first one I ever made -- nothing special, just 80/20 med-rare, but I was amazed it came out perfectly to temp AND well-seasoned. Ate it with sliced avocado, a squeeze of lime, dijon, lettuce, tomato.

Alfajores. If that doesn't count (and I've eaten these in numbers embarrassing enough to count as a meal), chimichurri steak or a solid rendition of rice and beans.