Friday Five: food!!!

Over at RGBP, we've been asked to ponder food. Since this is one of my most favorite things in the entire universe to ponder, I'm all in.


1) Is there a food from a foreign land whose reputation led to trepidation when you had a chance to give it a try? Did you find the courage to sample it anyway? If so, were you pleasantly surprised or did you endorse the less than favorable reputation that preceded it?
Hmm...well, the prompt for this particular FF came from my friend Nikki, I understand, who wished to write about haggis. I will say that the reputation of haggis precedes it...and recedes from consciousness because why on earth would you eat that??? I did not eat haggis. I ate a vegetarian version that seems to bear little resemblance to the actual dish, and it wasn't very good either, though I do like all the ingredients so I'm not sure what happened there.

2) What food from your own country/culture gets a bad rap? 
Most of it, and with good reason. We in the USA are known for food that will kill us all. But there's something so delicious about fried foods on a stick...

3) Of what food are you fond that others find distasteful?
Kale! I love kale. I think it's probably my favorite non-potato vegetable. Seriously. Almost everyone I know eats kale out of obligation, or they try it once and then never again, or they only eat kale chips but not any other way. (aside: I think kale chips are gross. yes, I'm that weirdo.) I think I could probably eat kale every day, or at least several times a week...

4) Is there a country’s food, not native to you, that you go out of your way to eat?
Indian! Mexican! Middle Eastern! so....yes. :-)

5) What is your guilty pleasure food?
just one? hmmm...cinnamon toast crunch. lol.

Bonus: What was your most memorable meal (good or bad), either because of the menu, the occasion, the company, or some other circumstance that makes it stand out?
Oh my. I've had so many memorable meals! Do I write about the cheese-and-wine night where I tried desperately to convince myself and others that the cheese whose description included the word "barnyard" would get better with more bites? (that attempt failed spectacularly--it was so terrible.) Or the several zillion-course tasting menus my friends and I have enjoyed at various fancy-schmancy places? The first time I cooked rice (when I was a teenager) and doubled the rice but not the water? The night at the vegetarian restaurant in Edinburgh with a bunch of skeptical non-vegetarians who came away saying that was the place to which they'd most like to return? The vegan sushi at Sipz? A mimosa Saturday brunch that turned into strudel for dinner because that takes so freaking long to make? There are so many...