i volunteered as tribute
An American's Quest to Find Fourth Meal in Canada
High Times
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Green Onion Cake
“The chef at Bündok has another important piece of intel for me, though. True, green onion cake is a festival food… but there happens to be a festival going on this weekend. As a lover of folk music (and a lover of the very forgiving Canadian exchange rate), I grab a wristband to Edmonton Folk Fest immediately.
It’s my last night in Edmonton. This is my Hail Mary. It’s green onion cake or bust.”
I Ate the World’s Best Kentucky Fried Chicken at the KFC Test Kitchen
Cheapism
You’ll see that bucket in your nightmares now.
“Every single person I talked to that works for KFC told me that, yes, there really is a secret recipe for KFC’s fried chicken. Every one of those people also allege that the recipe is on a handwritten note, inside a safe, inside a vault, somewhere in the building.
I assume it’s also guarded by the three-headed dog from Harry Potter and a room full of flying, poisonous darts, but nobody would confirm that.”
Jonathan Gold Helped Me Fall in Love With My Own City
We Like L.A.
I couldn’t say anything about The Belly of LA that hadn't been said by countless other food writers whose lives he changed. But I could say what he meant to me.
“Inspired by his writing, I embarked on food finding missions of my own. The more places I tried, the more I yearned to find new flavors and experiences. It was like being introduced to my own city, for the second time, for the first time.
I followed him to more Valley strip mall haunts. I learned new spots like Kobee Factory, and confirmed suspicions of greatness from places I already loved, like Go’s Mart and Tarzana Armenian Deli. I upped my game, driving to Boyle Heights for Mariscos Jalisco, and Artesia for Rajdhani. I found myself pulling over while driving — what’s that place, a Peruvian sandwich spot? — or looking at Yelp photos of menus. I tried Ethiopian food, and Punjabi food, and Cambodian food, and so many other things I’d never eaten, experiencing Ratatouille moment after Ratatouille moment, when everything else fades out, and all you can feel are the wonderful new flavors you’re experiencing for the first time. Food became my life.”
26 of the Grossest Recipe Cards I Found In the Old Green Betty Crocker Box
Cheapism
I bought an old, ‘70s recipe box on Etsy and uncovered the horrors inside.
“Prunes are gross. Jack Horner, the nursery rhyme hero famous for sticking his thumb into pies that don’t belong to him, is also gross. I’m not touching anything that’s had nasty old Jack Horner’s mitts all over it.”
“The photo on this card was so chilling, I had to flip it over to see just what was pictured here. You guessed it! Beef and egg. With a pickle the length of the whole bun. A sandwich beloved by nobody.”
“There are all kinds of vile flavor combinations in here, like ketchup and mushroom soup. If M. Night Shyamalan has taught us anything, it’s that not all twists are a good thing.”
Can You Surf and Snowboard in the Same Day? I Found Out.
Thrillist
I’ve since paid everybody in attendance off to “forget” about how bad I was at both.
“I will admit, it’s safe to say that the reason I’m better at snowboarding is because you get to take a ski lift to the top, unlike surfing where you have to battle the strength of ten thousand armies as you paddle out to sea.
If I had to climb the mountain on my stomach before I snowboarded down it, you can bet I’d be a lot more exhausted.”