The Awesome Food Award

Heidi tagged me with this here back in October, and Miss March tagged me with it here this week, so I guess I ought to go ahead and do this tag at last, huh?  I'm going to answer both sets of their questions in one post here :-)  Thank you, ladies!  I'm sorry it's taken me a while to answer.

The Rules: 

1. Thank the person who nominated you, as well as link back to their blog.
2. Answer the 10 questions provided.
3. Come up with 10 more questions that relate to food.
4. Nominate at least 5 people.
5. Let those people know they've been nominated.


Heidi's Questions:

1. Your thoughts on cheese? 

I am a firm fan of cheese.  I really miss living in Wisconsin, where we were surrounded by delicious, inexpensive cheese.  Here, we have access to lots of cheese at our grocery store, but much of it is pretty spendy.  What really cracks me up is that in the "imported cheeses" section, they sell Carr Valley Cheese from Wisconsin -- we used to live about half an hour from one of their factories, and could buy cheese directly from there, but now we have to pay twice as much because it's "imported."

2. Favorite pizza? 

Pepperoni Lover's from Pizza Hut.  Alas, now that I no longer have a gall bladder, my system has trouble handling that much awesomeness, so I can only eat one slice.  But at least I can still eat it!

3. Have you always had a “traditional” dinner (i.e. turkey and all the fixings) on Thanksgiving?

Usually.  This year and last year, we've been at Colonial Williamsburg, but we had turkey and everything at a restaurant here.  The two years prior, we had Thanksgiving with a bunch of Cowboy's relatives.  When we lived in Connecticut, it was just our family, but we still did turkey and stuffing and cranberries and rolls and pie, and usually Green Bean Casserole.

In Wisconsin, we had all sorts of Cowboy's relatives to gather with, and I often got TWO turkey dinners because I worked 3rd shift at Walmart, so we'd get up early and go eat with Cowboy's relatives, then I'd go to work and they'd have a turkey dinner provided for us in our break room.  Thanksgiving Night was always Blitz Night at Walmart because we'd be rolling out all the stuff for Black Friday and getting the store as perfect-looking as possible so that people could trash it the next morning.  Everyone had to work Blitz Night, except one year I asked off for that week waaaaaaaaaay back in like April when the supervisors didn't notice that was Thanksgiving week and approved it, and then Cowboy and I went to Myrtle Beach, SC, with my parents and my grandma.  That was quite fun!  I think that year we might have had seafood instead of turkey, to be honest.

Before that, I went to friends' houses during college for Thanksgiving break because I went to college in Minnesota, and it wasn't practical to go all the way home to North Carolina for a 4-day weekend.  So I went to several different places over those years, but we always had that big turkey dinner thing going on.

Before college, we often spent Thanksgiving with some dear friends of ours who attend the church where my dad is pastor.  They would just add us into the mix of their family.  I have good memories of playing with some of the younger kids to keep them out of the way while the ladies upstairs finished up the feast, and then the men would all come in from deer hunting and if one of them had bagged a deer already there would be a lot of excitement.

Before North Carolina, we lived in Michigan, and we usually spent Thanksgiving by ourselves, other than going to church.  Mom would make a big spread, though.  I especially looked forward to the cranberry relish and crescent rolls, and especially the pumpkin pie :-9

4. Favorite Thanksgiving dish to prepare? 

Pumpkin pie!  It's so easy, so fun to see it all blend and cream together, and... pumpkin is my favorite kind of pie!

(From our trip to Williamsburg last year)

5. Your favorite breakfast? 

Hot, buttered cranberry English muffins.  I only get those around Christmas-time, though.  Otherwise, hot, buttered toast :-9

6. Favorite kind of bread (i.e. whole wheat, French, sourdough, cinnamon-raisin, etc.)

Our grocery store sells "Marco Polo" bread that is dusted with rice flour -- it's very crusty outside, and then oh-so-soft inside.

(Source)

Aside from that, I'm perilously fond of pumpernickel.

7. Favorite vegetable? 

Spinach.  I especially love to cook up some fresh spinach in just a smidgen of olive oil with a generous sprinkling of garlic salt.

8. Do you like sweet or sour? 

Both!  Sweet more than sour, though.

9. Most unusual/unexpected ethnic dish you’ve ever had? 

When I visited Ukraine many years ago, I had beef tongue in smetana, which is a kind of ultra-yummy sour cream.  It was wonderful!  The tongue was firm, yet easy to chew, and I fell in love with smetana for sure.  From then on out, I tried to get as many dishes with smetana as I could whenever we ate out during that trip.

Also on that trip, I ate Kasha, which is boiled buckwheat, and which I hated.  And I had a hot dog with shredded carrots on it, which was okay.  And many other interesting foods.  Vereniki, which is dumpling-like pockets filled with cheese or fruit or meat or veggies.  Borshch, of course -- and borshch with smetana is delicious!  I think the oddest thing I had was mushroom-flavored potato chips.

10. Hamburgers or hotdogs?

It is hard to beat a really good burger, though I do enjoy hot dogs too, especially grilled.  But a good, juicy burger with cheese, ketchup, mayo, pickles, lettuce, slaw, and tomatoes -- I'd have a hard time finding reasons to resist that.

(Source)

Miss March's questions:

1. Which do you prefer, salad or bread? 

Bread :-9

2. As a child, were you a picky eater or did you like to try new things? 

Kind of both?  I would try new things if they looked like I would like them, I think.

3. What was one meal you abhorred as a kid? 

Porcupine Meatballs.  Blech!  I still don't like them.  They're meatballs with rice in them, and the rice gets weirdly crunchy when they're baked.

4. Do you prefer cooking or baking? 

Baking.  I especially love to bake cookies!

(Source)

5. Are you the sort of person who always has your meals planned out, or do you tend to toss things together at the last minute? (Or if you don't have your own home yet, how do you imagine you would be?) 

Well, usually Cowboy makes the shopping list.  He picks out a week's-worth of recipes based on what's in season and if anyone's had a request, and so on.  He selects tried-and-true recipes for me to make during the week, and new ones for him to try on the weekend.  Then we buy all the ingredients and we're set for the week.  We've been doing things that way since we were first married because our first year, I was working and he was still in college, so he'd be done with classes a couple hours before I was done with work, and he'd get the shopping list ready so I could just pick him up and we'd head to the store.

6. What is one of the worst (or most hilarious) food-making blunders you've ever made? 

Well, I memorably put baking soda instead of baking powder in a batch of cornbread the first time I ever made it, back when I was a teen.  Even our dog wouldn't eat it.

7. Would you rather have steak or ice cream (or both together, like Pollyanna)?

Um, depends on the flavor of ice cream and how the steak was cooked.  If it was my dad grilling the steak, I'd go with steak.  If it was chocolate-chocolate chunk ice cream from Kilwin's, which I haven't had in many years, then I'd go with ice cream.

8. What is your favorite kind of cake? 

Chocolate.  The more chocolatey, the better!

9. Do you eat combinations of food that other people think strange? (For example: my little brother once dipped his cookie in ketchup. Yeah, that was a bit over the top...yours definitely doesn't have to be that crazy. ;)) 

I really like to dip sausages in chocolate syrup.  Don't do it anymore because I don't want my kids to demand chocolate syrup every time we have sausage, but I do love that flavor combo.

10. What is your favorite meal of the day?

Hmm.  Probably supper, because that's when Cowboy is home.

(Source)

My Ten Questions:

1.  Would you like condensed milk or honey on your bread?  (Or both, but never mind the bread, like Pooh?)
2.  What do you like putting on oatmeal?
3.  Are there any foods you used to dislike, but now like?
4.  Are there any foods you used to like, but now dislike?
5.  Do you have certain foods you only eat around Christmastime?
6.  Do you have any food allergies/intolerances?
7.  What is your favorite restaurant?
8.  Who is the best cook in your family?
9.  Do you put anything interesting in hot chocolate?  (I like chili powder in mine, for instance.)
10.  Do you have a favorite cookbook?

I nominate:

DKoren

Joanna

Natalie

Olivia

Patti

Play if you want to!