Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Corn Bread stuffing w/ sausage is always a hit.

My favorite experience with fruit was as a kid eating the curiously sweet crab apples from a tree on the golf courses in the town I grew up in. Walking by in the late summer and early fall and picking a couple to munch as you walked the course still seems like magic.

Fresh chopped tomato sauce with garden tomatoes, fresh herbs, sweet onion and lots of garlic. Saute the aromatics with salt and pepper, deglaze with a bit of red wine vinegar and red wine, then add the fruit, herbs and al dente pasta until just warm. Add a little parm and enjoy al fresco if you can.

Sucking fresh orange juice through a peppermint stick in Florida when I was about 6. I still don't think I have had an orange as juicy as those are in my memory.

Jamaican patties fresh from a little bakery in Ocho Rios when I was 11. The first really spicy food I had ever had. Paired with a sort of everything-in-the-blender fresh fruit juice drink it was our go-to breakfast every morning.

Hoppin' John

Nachos. Gotta be nachos.

Ribeye...always.

It's got to be perfect mashed potatoes. Gotta be.

Buy one get one for a dollar burgers on Wednesday night at the Old Town Tavern in Morristown, MN. Try the patty melt and a basket of tater tots.

I hate to even mention this but when you live both in the hinterlands and the poor house,(six kids), the Wal-Mart brand of Grapefruit soda with a squeeze of fresh lime works pretty good. And lets you save your money for the Tequila. I especially like the Jose Cuervo Traditional in the numbered bottles. My Wal-Mar liqour store has them for $17 and at that price they are a very nice resposado.

Buttermilk fried chicken w/ hoppin' john on the side and bottle of Crytsal hot sauce on the table.