20 Questions Tuesday: 131 - Food (Irish Food)

Eventhough today is St Patrick’s Day and should be revered above most other holidays, I decided to eschew tradition concerning the theme of my 20 Questions Tuesday and have the questions not be about the holiday at hand. Yet, in the spirit of the holiday I shall answer the questions as they pertain to the holiday (as best as possible).

Thanks this week go to IC Yellow, Sparky, Capt McArmypants, John P, All Rileyed Up, and Nadolny. On to the questions:


1. Most interesting food you've ever eaten, where you've eaten it, and what they hell were you thinking at the time?
Most Irish food that I know of is not so much “interesting” as it is hearty. “Meat and root vegetables” pretty much sums up the basic fare of Irish foods. Not terribly “interesting.” The most “interesting” Irish food I have ever had is boxty, but that is just a potato pancake, so “interesting” is all relative.

2. What's the most disgusting food on the face of the planet?
I am not sure what the most “disgusting IRISH food” is, but I bet it has something to do with mutton and root vegetables.

3. What would be the point of beets?
The very bottom of them.

4. Why on earth would anyone ever want to actually eat liver?!?!?
I have no idea... maybe that is where the power is stored

5. What famous female celeb chef could eat crackers in your bed? (wink, wink) What crackers would you like her to eat?
I have had some trouble finding and Irish female chef that is also a celebrity to have an answer this question. As to the eating crackers in my bed, I think if that is your fantasy, you might just be “doing it wrong.” Celeb chef, hot or not, has to work in the kitchen. Period.

As to what crackers an Irish celeb chef would eat in bed? They would be:
IRISH CRACKERS
2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 stick butter
1/2 c. whole milk
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease cookie sheet. Flour and salt, sift together. Heat butter and milk together until butter is melted. Pour this mixture into the flour and salt and mix quickly to make a smooth dough.
While dough is still warm from hot milk and butter, roll it out on a floured board to no more than 1/4 inch thick. Cut into 3 inch squares. Put on greased baking sheets. Prick with a fork so that you have 2 rows of little holes. Bake for 10 minutes. Makes about 1 dozen.


6. Do you watch Top Chef on Bravo?
Nope

7. Is there a Food Network show that you and Wifey enjoy?
Since Wifey is staying away from Dairy, Egg and Soy because of Q’s emergent allergies, it is best not to have food programs on TV, at the moment.

8. What is your favorite insta-snack and why? Follow-up: As a result of this being your favorite, do you make sure it is always in stock at Casa-SRH or do you make sure you do not keep it in the house?
I like baked goods, specifically butter crumb topped coffee cakes. Zap that in the microwave and off to blissful food heaven for a few seconds. I do not keep that in the house or I would be big as a house.

9. How has your life-meal-plan changed with the addition of two food allergy cursed chillins and do you hope to go back to eating certain things when they get older or are you satisfied with sticking with what is available to all for convenience?
Well, we have found a petty good amount of recipes of food that we like that are non-allergic for our kids. Little Man has grown out of all his allergies except tree nuts and peanuts, so that has opened a bunch of food avenues for us. Q is showing some reaction to dairy, egg, and soy. That being said, her reactions have tended to be less virulent than Little Man’s, so we hope that soy and dairy will disappear relatively quickly.

10. What makes the Vanilla Bean Cheesecake soooo magical? Is it the density or that goes with everything or the raw nigh obscene flood of sugar and fat combined?
I can only think that Vanilla Bean Cheesecake is so good because of some kind of culinary magic.

11. Were you forced to eat food that you did not like as a kid? and Why? Personally, I never quite understood that "hazing" ritual. I mean sure "waste not want not" and all that, but if I don't like brussel sprouts and you have been informed that I don't like brussel sprouts from past dining experience: 1. Why did you go and make brussel sprouts for me again? 2. How you going to act like this is my fault!? Personally, I never really experienced this as a kid, but this always seemed so absurd. Don't get me wrong kids got to eat, but isn't this is pretty much the same thing as when some big bully makes a little kid eat a bug?
Oftentimes the foods that kids don’t want to eat are the foods that are nutritive in their make-up. As a parent, one should strive to find nutritive foods that the kids enjoy. However, this is not always possible and sometimes it is necessary to make kids eat foods they do not want to in order to get them to vary their palette as well as get a well-rounded nutritive diet. Sometimes it is necessary for the kid to “suck it up, buttercup.”

12. Why aren't we all just eating in pill form as was so popular in late 50's sci-fi predictions?
You can’t put Shepard’s pie in a pill.

13. Agree or disagree: If you are eating nutritionally poor food you had better eat alot of it to get the nutrients you need. Calories be damned.
Agree.

14. Beer is a very good source of B complex vitamins does this make it an appropriate substitute for my enriched bread and grains?
Now this is an Irish question. I think if you head to the stout beers, you get more of a meal.

15. If you were starving, and had to choose between eating dog food or cat food, which would you go with (choose any brand if you care to be specific)?
I would go with Dog food, because some of the canned stuff has pieces parts that almost seem identifiable… then again, I could just treat cat food as pâté… Nope dog food, at least when you add water you get gravy.

16. Do you splurge for the hormone free/cage free/grass fed chicken and meat options, or buy whatever's cheapest?
If the free range/organic/grass fed/spa raised meats are not SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive than the hormonized/caged/corn-bloated meats, then yes, we prefer the “more healthy” varieties.

17. What's with the green eggs and ham story? Why with a fox or in a box? What kinds of options are those? Ever heard of Tabasco?
Green eggs and ham was a challenge thrown down to Ted Geisel concerning a certain number of words and a certain number of pages. Other than “try new foods,” I am not sure if it has any other higher meaning. His choices of withs and wheres were more about community building instead of flavoring…

18. So on Survivor, there is this one part where they send some people who are indigenous to wherever the folks are from who show them a dozen things to eat right where they are camped and have been starving for 3 weeks. Why in the world would you go on survivor and not practice fire-making beforehand and food gathering skills?
It has got to chap those poor natives hides that these foreign bastards are coming to their village to win more money than they would earn collectively in their lifetime. It is an amazing primitive wasteland for “Survivor” and Americans, but it is their home. That shit galls me.

19. In an apocalyptic Columbus 100 years from now, what landmarks will still exist that the food gatherers will use to guide them about on the hunt.
There would be the Mighty Olentangy River to deal with as well as the Scioto River. Those would be present for a while longer, especially as the small dams and other impoundment areas deteriorated. I think the remnants of the Shoe will still be there, as well as some pieces parts of the downtown area. They will all be in a terrific state of ruin, and not fit for human habitation, but they will be there. Most of the road beds and railroad lines will still be on embankment and serviceable as hiking trails, but the housing and retail araes will be “back to nature,” so to speak.

20. Same apocalyptic scene, what can the gatherers forage and hunt?
Well, the Dublin area would easily revert to corn… al those dormant seeds. And C-bus has always been a cow town, maybe they could hunt the feral cow.


To recap:
Happy St Patrick’s Day everyone
Job hunt is still hunty
One of the issues I am having with this job hunt is that I know the job I can most likely get is not necessarily what I want to do
Hard to get enthused about that
The idea of a job that I want is formulating
It is a swirling miasma of thought that is orbiting a singularity of doubt
I have to either coalesce the idea into something substantive before it gets to the doubt filled event horizon
Or ride the idea through the doubt to the other side of the black hole of doubt and fear
Not sure which it is going to be just yet
Listening to Cannonball by the Breeders