Most Wonderful Tastes (Of Normal Foodstuffs)

[Passadumkeg]

As the year ends and the new begins, lets celebrate the simple joys of food. A piece of raw broccoli or cauliflower while food prepping, a hot slice of bread w/ butter or EVOO, a fresh garden tomato. What are your favorite simple joys? "Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free..."

[Passadumkeg]

A good glass of wine after a hectic day at work.

[ErnieD]

Perfectly ripe avocado with a sprinkle of smoked salt.

Roasted Brussels sprouts. I don't know what it is about those little suckers, but I've made a meal out of the better part of a pound of them on more than one occasion.

[mamachef]

Garden tomatoes. And sweet European butter, and lots of it.

[buttertart]

A great big firm dead-ripe Bing cherry.

[Passadumkeg]

A freshly roasted green chile wrapped in a fresh flour tortilla.
A just caught trout, cooked w/ scrambled eggs, over a fire, for breakfast.

[LA Buckeye Fan]

a sweet red seedless grape
avocado on toast with a little mayo and garlic salt
rainer cherry
smoked almonds
lemon sorbet

[Passadumkeg]

Roma tomatoes briefly cooked for a fresh sauce.

[laliz]

crispy turkey skin, out of the oven but before it is carved

the first bite of garlic mashed potatoes

ripe avocado sprinkled w/seasoned salt

[chef chicklet]

The chicken gizzards fried prior to fixing the chicken, even if I don't fry the whole chicken, these are mine...all crusty crunchy, salty and peppery.yum.
I cannot resist a bite of the steaming hot just mashed potatoes, after I drop a huge dollop of butter and it melts into a little goldend pool. I scoop themt into my mouth and I blow over the spoonful of potatoes trying to eat them at the same time as my eyes water and to act innocent. IIt never fails my doh walks in just as I do this.
I am so guilty, I do the same with french onion soup. As its baking in the oven bubbling away the cheese all gooey, the cheesey gratinee has melted just perfectly I cannot resist a scoopful to my mouth (It's always from my bowl). I always burn the heck out my mouth I've never learned to wait.
I love to snag a steamy meat ball after its dropped into the hot marinara sauce. Just one for me to test of course.

Mushrooms, cooked in butter, scallions, garlic, parsley, and a little worchestershire sauce. I have to taste them.

Someone mentioned rice. I do that too. Steamy hot spoonful oh good grief. Thanks for the nori idea!

[Beckyleach]

A very lightly battered, fresh from the crab pot, soft-shelled crab, with a side of spicy coleslaw, a heap of thick-cut french fries (with their skins) and a big, tall glass of iced tea, dripping condensation. That HAS to mean we're arrived at the Outer Banks once again, which has been our little slice of heaven all our lives, including our 1980 wedding on the beach.

[Passadumkeg]

Soft shell crab! We used to catch them when we were kids and mom would fry 'em up.
Freshly picked chanterele mushrooms, eaten raw or fried in butter.

[buttertart]

Or morels fried in butter.

[Passadumkeg]

Or false morels boiled first, and then fried in butter.
Slices of bread loaf sized puff ball mushrooms, fied in butter too.
Yum, can't wait 'till spring.

[buttertart]

Man I haven't had either freshpicked morels or puffballs since my father died. A bit thin on the ground in Brooklyn (plentiful at our summer cottage of happy memory near Lake Huron). I miss the woods!

[linguafood]

Raw chanterelles? Really? You must like your dirt a LOT.

[Passadumkeg]

Wonderfully peppery, brushed off w/ my Nokia mushromm knife/brush (Used to live in Finland.). I have a patch in a big moss bed behind in the forest behind our house here in Maine. Further evidence of continental drift, as well as moose hunting in Finland and Maine.
Raw Maine scallops, just shucked, sitting on the stern of the boat.

[buttertart]

Now you're killing me, with those scallops.

[Terrieltr]

A sourdough roll, all on its own.

[bermudagourmetgoddess]

Fresh Grilled Wahoo with Salt/pepper & Olive oil
Fresh Bermuda Tomato right out tof the garden
Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Fresh Bread with olive oil
Bermuda Avocado on toast with salt and pepper
Fresh Iced Tea
Stilton Cheese with honey

[southern_expat]

The 'oyster' from a roast chicken or turkey (no one in my family knows these exist)
The crispy outside fat from an old-fashioned roast ham (not glazed!)
The crispy tails from fried fish at my grandfather's fishing shack (rest in peace, PaPat!)
End pieces of barbecue brisket, pork roast, etc., especially when there is crispy fat attached (sensing a theme here?)
A vidalia onion pulled fresh out of the ground by my dad, while still in the field checking the crop, sprinkled with a little salt he pulled from his pocket (I grew up on an onion farm)
Ditto a juicy tomato and tiny, raw sweet corn from PaPat's garden

I could go on but some sort of salty liquid is leaking from my eyes and I can't see (thanks for the lovely memories!!)

[soypower]

One of my favorite things to do after the rice cooker changes from "cook" to "keep warm" is the take a spoonful of hot, steamed rice and wrap it in some toasted/salted nori and then try to eat it without burning my mouth...

[srr]

Steamed artichoke with Best Foods Mayo. Just had one for app before dinner. First of the season from Half Moon Bay.

[burlgurl]

A perfectly ripe fresh tomato

Fresh baked bread out of the oven..:)

[Sparkina]

Mangoes
Persimmons
Grape tomatoes
artichokes
Avocado with salt and lemon/lime juice to spark it
Clementines (sweet mini-mandarins)
Fuji apples
Tea with stevia and mint flavoring
Rooibos tea with stevia

[Sparkina]

Oh, have to add mild goat cheese and sun-dried tomatoes to that list

[buttertart]

A perfect chilled lychee, preferably the kind with a small pit.
A SW Ontario Red Haven peach or oxheart tomato (the latter lightly salted).
A slice of dead-ripe local canteloupe.
Fresh cherries, either the biggest firmest Bings or midseason sour ones.
A Bartlett pear, so ripe you have to eat it over the sink.

[Emme]

...and now I'm dying for that pear dripping down my face and hands...

[Sam Fujisaka]

Warm Lao sticky rice
Hot naan fresh from the tandoor
Rambutan when briefly in season
Fresh squeezed orange juice
Momos - or any Asian dumpling
Mondongo in a Mexican market
Cold watermelon (a new kind here; very red, very sweet, small edible seeds)
A bundle of fresh corn tortillas in the morning
A hot saltena on a cold Sunday morning in Tarija
Tamales & atole on a cold morning
Fresh artisanal (usually flat) bread the world over
That first taste of smoked fish wherever you find it
A glass of wine with any of you
Morning oatmeal with Dana Zsofia

[Passadumkeg]

Sam, a saltena!
Salud en el ano neuvo!

[Sam Fujisaka]

Edited to include correction!

Gracias! Todo lo mejor a Uds en el ano nuevo!

[pikawicca]

I encountered Rambutans on a visit to Queensland. They were being used as decorations on a buffet table. Out of curiosity, I picked one up and after figuring out how to open it up, ate the flesh. I then went back and surreptitiously removed the remaining fruits and retreated to my table where I demolished the lot. Sadly, have not seen a rambutan since.

[Passadumkeg]

A hot black cup of Sumatran coffee on New Year's Day. (Where'd that headache come from?)
Happy New Year!

[goodhealthgourmet]

gotta be *good* Sumatra though. i'm sorely disappointed in my first (and now only) purchase of Trader Joe's beans. sometimes it's best to stick with tried & true old favorites to greet the new year!

[Passadumkeg]

Our kids got me the Sumatran and Indian Malabar. Trader Joe's, the nearest one is about a 7 hour drive (Costco too. I've never been in one.) in Mass., but I do get free lobsters, Maine shrimp and scallops!
Oooo, a fresh shucked scallop, right out of the shell. So mild and delicious.

[Emme]

Sugarplum Tomatoes
Steamed Lobster
Fresh (unpeeled) Fuyu Persimmons
Steamed Cauliflower, Eggplant, Snow Peas, Carrots (big whole ones), Yellow Squash... all lightly sprinkled with salt
Cubed Honeydew
and back when I could eat them...
Jarlsberg nuked til just gooey on the outside
Ricotta cheese
Cottage Cheese
Quality Balsamic Vinegar

[Passadumkeg]

To the season: a hot apple cider w/ rum after shoveling the snow. Or an icy cold beer after working in the garden or cutting firewood on a hot summer's day.

[pikawicca]

My dad's homemade donuts. I use his recipe, but they just don't taste the same.

[Passadumkeg]

A c-rat can of pineapple chunks in Vietnam, sitting on top of a hill top bunker 42 years ago today, watching the sun set and wondering what the New Year would bring. Whew!

[Gio]

I'm glad you're here to tell us about it, Passa.
What a nice thread this is to read, to remember, and to dwell on. My most wonderful taste is fresh-out-ot-the-oven crusty Italian bread. Spread with salted butter. That melts as soon as it hits the bread. There are others...steamed lobster, clams I dug myself, blue fish my son caught that we grilled an hour later. But there's something about freshly baked bread that brings back many memories for me.
Happy New Year!

[Peg]

Fresh ground coffee
Crusty sodabread with salt butter
Soft boiled egg and soldiers
Mashed potatoes
Fresh sweetcorn
Brown crabmeat
Spaghetti with oilive oil and garlic
Habaneros
Very strong cheddar cheese
Runny Brie
Slightly burnt white toast with lots of butter and a smear of lime marmalade

[fourunder]

Butter
Italian or French Bread
Nectarine or Peach
Fresh picked Corn
Fresh Raw Oysters
Fresh Deep Fried Raw Oysters or Scallops
Fried Belly Clams
Steamers/Piss Clams
Maine Lobster
Hamburger or Hot Dog off the backyard grill
Fresh brewed coffee with cream
Bacon/Sausage with Perfect Soft Sccrambled Eggs
Slow Roasted Boston Butt
Slow Roasted Prime Rib

but the absolute best (and cheap) pleasure is a New Jersey Beefsteak Tomato freshly plucked from my backyard garden.

[danieljdwyer]

pork
just picked apples
deli pickles
late summer squash and corn
steamers or mussels
bread still warm from the oven
freshly churned butter
Formosa oolong or spring Darjeeling

[NellyNel]

Dunking a piece of good Italian bread into the pot of Sunday gravy. (red sauce) mmm

[Avalondaughter]

BACON

[iluvcookies]

*THWACK*... smacking self on head.
How did I forget THAT???

[kattyeyes]

God, yeah!

[goodhealthgourmet]

+3

[sbp]

Bacon doesn't count - it's on another level, all by itself. The sine qua non.

[mcsheridan]

B-B-B-Bacon! :)

But then Bacon isn't 'normal'; it's supernormal. Yum.

[iluvcookies]

A nibble of really good pecorino cheese and a sip of Cabernet while fixing dinner.
A fresh cookie hot from the oven.
A quick, fresh cranberry relish.
A hot cup of fresh coffee with a drop of real cream.

Happy New Year to all!

[sbp]

A fresh, very ripe Mango.

[linguafood]

ooohh yeah. gotta be the champagne mango, tho. a symphony of texture and flavor.

[mcel215]

ditto..

[Passadumkeg]

Yes! We used to sit around our front yard fountain in Bolivia, in the heat of the evening, and eat red mangoes from the tree.

[kattyeyes]

A cold glass of milk and a warm, homemade brownie made with native raspberries I picked from my favorite orchard, high on a hill, overlooking the Land of Steady Habits. Howzat for a picture postcard?

[southernitalian]

A small bite of Stilton. Fresh cilantro. Rare filet mignon.

[mcsheridan]

The summer's first fresh nectarine; fragrant, sweet, juicy.
Corn on the cob.
A crisp Winesap apple.
...and yes, fresh baked bread with sweet butter.

[EWSflash]

A perfectly ripe sweet-tart red cherry. And then 30 or 40 more.

Mrbigshotno.1, yeah...

[mrbigshotno.1]

A fresh hand made flour tortilla hot off a 100 year old griddle over a mesquite fire.

[goodhealthgourmet]

you win :)

[Passadumkeg]

Yes!

[huckfinn]

sweet corn on the cob

[Passadumkeg]

Freshly picked sweet corn-raw.

Stopping, while digging clams, the shuck one, rinse it in the sea, and scarf it down. Motivation to keep digging.

[kattyeyes]

Big +1 and bonus points for snagging it from your favorite local farmstand as I do all summer!

Yellow pear tomatoes straight from the deck.

[kubasd]

my yellow pear tomatoes were so disappointing this year.... fresh off the vine, still warm from the sun, yet mealy.... but the green zebra ones, those rocked my world. some s&p, a drizzle of balsamic.... that was my lunch for months. if you add some nice raw clams, THEN i'm a happy girl :-)

[pikawicca]

Tomatoes did not fare well in many parts of the U.S. this year. Here's hoping for a better crop in 2010.

[kubasd]

that is for sure, i it made me sad

[Cherylptw]

Warm sun kissed cherry tomatoes, picked off the vine

[linguafood]

Cheese. Chocolate. So many things.

[ziggylu]

a ripe peach

[goodhealthgourmet]

ripe avocado. it's back in my daily rotation now that i'm living in Southern California again, and i couldn't be happier about it!