The best things I have ever tasted:

1. The lemon gelato made on the rich side of town by one of Mussolini's descendants with a terrible comb-over. It's tart and it looks like a sphere of frost. It actually makes your tongue tingle. I'm not just saying that. It's a dumb thing to say if it isn't true.

2. The wood-smoked sockeye made on the Native reserve just east of the rich side of town. It tastes like a last meal. The thing is you can't go out and buy it. You have to know somebody. Or you have to wait until someone comes around and offers to sell it to you. I've only been lucky once.

3. The Cinnamon Schnapps dark chocolate truffles made by fat people just down the street. They're sprinkled with some kind of gold dust that you can eat. The chocolate is almost as black as my hair. I only say that because I remember when I was nine, I had some kind of poo problem, and the doctor asked "When you poo, is it dark like your hair?"

4. The asiago and garlic sourdough made by this Vietnamese baker with a moustache who runs a French bakery at the bottom of the hill. There are whole cloves of garlic hidden inside the loaf, and the cheese has been aged for at least a thousand years. It stinks. But it's so good.

Hi

To me, only food that you can buy/eat on the street tastes good!

hence:

Noodles from a small plastic tent in Chinatown, New York

A Fish Sandwich ( = fresh fish ) from a fish-stand in Amsterdam.

Fries, 'round the corner from where i used to live in Brussels.

Bagel with beef from the bagel place at the end of Brick Lane, London.

Almond cake from the baker in La Gloriette, near the Mont Ventoux (south of France)

and

Absolut Vodka (pref. with Kahlua)
Fresh Maragogype coffee
a bottle of Stella Artois or Geuze Lambic
(none of which can be obtained on the street, sadly)



cheers,

Cstof

For Roosevelt is was honey, but for me it's butter.
I know it's insanely rich and fattening and unhealthy and and and i love it.
Fish with melted butter (a la flamande)
Cake is one forth butter.
Pancakes flipped in butter.
Lukewarm bread with a tad of butter, salt and pepper.
Garlic buttter.

If stranded in the south of france i would settle for olive oil though, the next best thing.

Apart form these two ingredients, the rest is gravy as far as i'm concerned.

I am going quietly insane thinking about that sockeye salmon..The Scottish (equally Irish, or Scandinavian) equivalent, eaten locally from small smokehouses can be a delicacy beyond words.

Is there really anything better than good food? I'm not sure. And yes, those beautiful moments usually (but not always) on your travels when what you're eating seems like the most perfect and fitting thing. I've had my mind blown time and again with the simplest of foods, eating crab off the Cornish coast or bread and cheese in rural France.

Of course I'm monkeying around here but I was interested when I read on the board that the music in Hawaii wasn't so great which was surprising as the food was excellent - is there a correlation? I've always assumed it was an inverse relationship, granted I've given the matter perhaps a second of thought using only my homeland as an example. The high points of English popular music which have endured (60s pop, folk, hard blues etc. or 70s rock, punk/post punk) seem to occur in an era that was a gastronomic disgrace. Although some of you might need convincing, since then there has been a huge hike in standards and generally people are a lot more interested in what they're eating. In the last decade most large cities have seen an influx of many good restaurants, people are sourcing their meat and vegetables from organic smallholdings and TV is awash with lifestyle shows which verge on food pornography.

And the state of music? with a handful of notable exceptions it's a pretty thin dish-up of dismal, gelded bands that are rock's equivalent to the ghastly pies and meat n' two veg pub grub of yore.

vive le rock, vive bad food!

smoked sturgeon amazing

To Lukewarm:

I used to eat sticks of butter like candy bars when I was a little kid.

And I'd have to say that the best thing I ever tasted was the lobster I had in Key West.

Bacon.

I only like bacon if I have it with something else, like eggs. But oh, how I love bacon egg and cheese sandwiches.

The falafel combination platter at The Kebab Cafe in Astoria (Queens)... Ali is a culinary genius (CIA trained, I'm told)...

...food?

what is this "food" of which you speak?

i seem to have memories of similar word being associated with my pantry, in the kitchen...but yet, i look, and i see nothing that makes me think, "a-ha! yes, this is FOOD!!!"

maybe i take my career in music too seriously. this is probably my biggest fault of all, especially when it comes to that afore-mentioned ghost.

but then again, perhaps me and some other guys can have a malnutrition contest--winner gets an all-expenses-paid trip straight to whatever realm we're doomed to (three guesses which one).

all joking aside, though--what's the best way [diet-wise] to eat all the things i need to, while paying as little as possible? one bowl of total? beans and rice (that's one anti-league i want to stay out of; i'm already vice-chairman of the anti- cold cheese sammitch league)? i'd like to eat better, but finances never really permit. if i eat well, then i can't put strings on my guitar. but if i put strings on my guitar, i'm happy.

any kind suggestions?

regards,
jet.

p.s. oh, yeah...meat = not for me