Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

@chisai - I love that stuff. My favorite is 1/2 passion fruit and 1/2 orange. Mostly though, at home I drink a lot of lemon water, or home made lemonade, made with simple syrup, or hot ginger lemon tea. I go through a lot of lemons.

It's not a dish, exactly. It's a thing. The very first time I ate real strawberries. I'd only ever had the supermarket kind, but while on vacation many years ago, I picked up a pint at a farmer's market. I couldn't believe the difference. These days, I refuse to eat any other kind. I'm cool with that meaning I can only have them a few weeks a year. Those weeks make up for any number of those tasteless, pointless strawberry shaped things we commonly call strawberries.

You know, it's as though I wrote the ENTIRE list of rants myself. I must be a nightmare in the kitchen.

Don't all of these just seem like common sense though? How is it that so many people get it wrong?

As with Chisai I think my biggest bone to pick is the potty break. My boyfriend, whom I truly adore in almost all other things, inevitably must run to the bathroom the very moment that the food hits the table. And the more time is of the essence the food is, like pasta or eggs, the longer he spends in there.

Hey cybercita - They go together. The candy alone with out the rice paper doesn't have that crack to it when you bite down, and the paper itself is kinda blah without the candy. I got a 1lb bag of it from Hawaii last year, but can't for the life of me remember from where. I must go research.

Foods that I love that are a pain in the butt to get. Boxes and boxes of Botan Rice Candy. Anything ume flavored, especially dried plums.

I am currently in the throes of a brand new infatuation with my Mr. Bento and would adore getting groovy bento box accessories (tiny squeeze bottles, those awesome baby plastic cups, etc.)

I think my proudest cooking moment was when my then boyfriend, who was a well established chef, declared the roast chicken I made for dinner one night was the best roast chicken he had ever tasted. Years later, long broken up, I ran into him and asked whether he'd just said that to be nice. Nope. He actually really thought it was and still did. Pretty awesome.

That really depends on mood and location. There are some restaurants where I am going for a specific thing that I love and wish to eat a great deal of. Jean Georges Vongerichten's various restaurants are a great example - the plate lunches and dinners at Jean-Georges are just wonderful, small amounts of awesome food with lots of variety. At other times I would be perfectly happy eating the mashed potatoes only at Vong's* and I have no intention of sharing them.

*Please don't hate on the place, it still has some really good dishes. I've never had the bad luck that so many people seem to have.

hot apple cider
ginger cookies
roasted chestnuts
clementines
sweet potatoes and cinnamon

Oh my gosh, I grew up eating them. We used to call them Cracked Seed. Now and then I'll get a batch from Chinatown. I'm a sucker for the ones that are still a tiny bit chewy. These are clearly an acquired taste. I am sure of this because I've never had anyone ever say anything other than "yech" as they wiped their tongues off. Which is a pity, because they're so darned tasty.

Muir Glen Fire Roasted Crushed Tomatoes
Paul Newman's Sesame Ginger Salad Dressing
Hellman's Mayonnaise
Thomas' English Muffins
Goya for any canned bean

Born in Germany, raised in Hawaii, and currently living in New York. I love New York, but pine away for good Hawaiian food. And maybe for not so good (but totally delicious) Hawiian food. I am a ridiculous food snob, but at the same time, will happily wax poetic about things you can do with Spam that actually taste good (it can, really), but which is, I think, a sentiment largely confined to people who grew up on the islands.

I made kalua pig this weekend. It was awesome. Took me right back home.

I've probably thought about my answer more than I should. I always overthink. Because, really, to live on only 5 foods forevah? That would be difficult. Plus, there's the whole heath issue to consider. So having worked this out as well as possible, while still adhering to real specificity, here goes:

Potatoes
unflavored whole milk yogurt
Mango
Skirt or Flank Steak, always medium-rare
Feta cheese

I don't know if I could go forever on this, but I could last quite a while with eating foods I truly love. And I remember from when I was a kid, a Hollywood Squares answer, which was that you could, in fact, live a reasonably healthy life on only potatoes and milk.