A Foodie's Delight

This being "national gluttony week," I thought I would follow Mary's lead and make a list of foods I love. I might need 2 or 3 pages (I didn't get to look this way being picky about food!)

• This being Thanksgiving week, I will lead off with my mother's turkey stuffing. Still the best (except when I make it, I use more butter and substitute dried cranberries for olives).

• And pumpkin pie, of course. Unadorned with things like Cool Whip or whipping cream. Just plain pumpkin pie, made with pumpkin from the can using the recipe on the can.

• Fresh cracked Dungeness crab. None of that stuff that has been packed in brine or topped with salad dressing, or (worst of all) mixed with Old Bay seasoning. Fresh from the boiling pot. Pure and unadulterated.

• Cheesecake. Mostly unadulterated, but if you want to toss some berry-type topping on it, I won't stop you.

• Roast leg of lamb. My choice over beef any day. My favorite birthday dinner when I was growing up was leg of lamb, mashed potatoes, and peas (preferably frozen, not fresh or ...bleccchhhh... canned), followed by white cake with a bittersweet chocolate frosting. I haven't been able to duplicate that frosting in my adulthood.

• Clam dip. Of course. With nice dipping potato chips. I will hover, if given the opportunity.

• Potato salad. My father made the best potato salad, and now my mother does. The secret ingredient is sweet pickle relish. Yum-o.

• Chocolate. Of course. Now I do have my preferences. I prefer milk chocolate over dark chocolate (unless the dark chocolate covers some sort of raspberry filling). Sees makes my favorite boxed candies. Lindt truffles are wonderful. And, in spite of liking chocolate, I'm not really a big fan of chocolate cakes.

• Corn on the cob. I spent years not able to eat it because of dental problems and fear I was losing my teeth. Now that I have all my teeth and they are healthy, bring it on!

• Artichokes. Really just an excuse to scoop up Best Foods mayonnaise, but still good...especially the heart.

• Best Foods mayonnaise. (one of my few "must buy" brand names)

• fat-free (yes, I did say fat-free) raspberry salad dressing, believe it or not, preferably made by Consorzio.

• Pad Thai. Most Thai food is really too hot for my taste, but pad Thai is wonderful.

• Strawberry anything -- jam, juice, yogurt, ice cream ... even the strawberry flavored fluoride treatment my dentist uses (no I don't eat that, but I do enjoy the taste!)

• Onion rings! I'll eat any, but prefer them made with real onions and sliced very thin...and preferably beer-battered.

• Tomato sandwiches made with home grown tomatoes on white bread with Best Foods mayonnaise. I've been living on them lately, though having to use store-bought tomatoes.

• Jack in the Box plain cheeseburgers. Nothing could be more boring, but I love 'em. They come straight from the microwave, so you have to eat them immediately or the bun turns hard. They always ask if I want condiments. Well, if I wanted sauce, I wouldn't have asked for it plain, now, would I?

• French fries the way McDonalds used to make them before they got all politically correct 'n' stuff.

• Pancakes or waffles loaded with butter and maple syrup (none of this frou-frou syrup for me). I rarely have them, but when I do, I love 'em. And, as I've talked about before, they are the perfect laxative for me!

• Rasptinis. My own Raspberry-chocolate martinis that I made for cousins day a few months ago.

• Macadamia nuts. Chocolate covered even better, but just plain suits me fine as well.

• Gingerbread Latte. Damn you, Mary, for telling me about them! Fortunately they are so expensive if I have one during the holiday season, that will do me for a year.

• Real whipping cream. The kind they still serve on just about every dessert in Ireland.

• Mexican won ton, which Char and I used to make a lot when our kids were little, and which I haven't made for years. It's a mixture of hamburger, chorizo, green chilis, green onions and cheese all folded in won ton skins and deep fried; served with guacamole.

• Butter. Not margarine, not "I can't believe it's not butter" (I can believe it's not butter). The real stuff that started it's journey to my English muffin inside a cow.

• Tortellini or any filled pasta. My preference is to have it with melted butter instead of spaghetti sauce. Despite growing up in the heart of North Beach in San Francisco (or perhaps because I grew up in North Beach), Italian food is not my favorite ethnic food.

• That said, I do like veal scaloppini, though I have to avoid thinking about the conditions under which the meat was obtained. But then that really goes for any food that was once walking around, was once newborn, once had big soulful eyes that looked at you trustingly.

• A good chili relleno. The quality and the way of making them varies greatly. I can't remember where I've had great ones, but I know it when I taste it!

• Real French onion soup, with the baguette slice on top and loaded with Swiss cheese.

• Creme Brulee. Best I've had was at Higgins' Restaurant in Portland.

• Barbequed chicken. But I'm very particular. It has to be done "just right." Tom makes some of the best I've had. I prefer the thigh to other parts of the chicken.

• Garlic naan bread

• Bananas. But only when they are at that "certain" stage, where they are not green, but not really ripe yet either.

• Peanutbutter. I started eating it more when I was dieting because I could have more of it as, say, a spread on toast. I quickly started just eating it by the spoonful out of the jar, a habit I've never broken...only increased.

• Meat pies. We ate them in Australia and that was some good stuff, I'll tell ya!

The absence of anything really healthy on this list should explain why I look the way I do. Even the healthy stuff is just an excuse to eat the un-healthy stuff (butter on corn, mayonnaise on artichokes, etc.) If it's breaded, creamed, or deep fried, I'll probably love it.