December time, wintertime, Christmas time, fog-and-snow-and-bitter-cold time and my heart turns to thoughts of…Hot Chocolate, Cocoa or whatever you want to call a deep brown mug of warmth with whipped cream on top.
The Great Food Search has been an interesting experience, with FoodQuests exploring Chinese restaurants, taco wagons, chain diners, burger joints, donuts, grilled cheese sandwiches, pumpkin dishes and summer cool treats. This time, the suggested subject was…Turkey. What was I going to do? Go to different submarine sandwich places? I tried to think of ways to approach the article, and what came to me were memories of Thanksgivings Past. They crowded out any new ideas, so I am going to share with you two of these memories: The Thanksgiving Without a Pie, and The Slow-Cooker Turkey.
Those orangey globes of goodness are rolling your way, and they come in many forms (KRL had pumpkin latte recipes, already). Not that I have anything against jack-o-lanterns! I love an opportunity to stab something with a carving knife and not run the risk of jail time, but I want a pumpkin I can eat and so began the Great Pumpkin Food Search. This Food Quest sent me to fast-food emporiums, family restaurants, warehouse stores, and–oddly enough–college.
Among the comfort foods, there is one that is truly a comfort—the Grilled Cheese Sandwich.
At its simplest, you put a slice of cheese between two pieces of bread, and…Flame On! If you want elaborate…Have I got a Food Search for you! I went to Sanger, Fresno, and Clovis to find GCSes for every craving.
Face it, we live where you can not only fry an egg on the sidewalk in the summer, your Teflon spatula will probably melt while you’re at it! What you need to survive the heat is something cool, frosty, and yummy…..AHA! I have a few suggestions for this Food Quest.
Note to Self: Never try to sample four donut shops in one day…again.
It seemed like an easy assignment: get six different donuts from each of four donut shops, sample each one, and compare them for flavor and quality. Sounds easy, right?
Where do you eat when you don’t want to cook? Where do you go when you want good, old-fashioned food that isn’t in a paper bag? There are the family-style diners, where you can get bacon and eggs or a steak dinner, open up to 24 hours a day. This Food Quest explores a sampling of these restaurants. The goal was to choose simple, basic food that would show the strengths and weaknesses of each chain.
Pizza—That symbol of the circle of life, the roundness of the world, and the bearer of all the food groups of nutrition (but usually too much of the wrong ones). This FoodQuest tried five different pizza parlors/pizzerias, ordering a large sausage/mushroom/pepperoni pizza and various other goodies.
O, the life of a roving food critic!
I’ve been to upscale restaurants, simple restaurants, Middle Eastern food, Mexican seafood, Salvadoran, burger joints, taco wagons, and now…..Chinese Food in Sanger!
Shawarma is a Middle Eastern cone of layered meat and fat, shaved off the rotating spit on street corners in the Arab world, and wrapped in a pita flatbread as one of the first fast foods. In Greece, it is known as a gyro sandwich. Anywhere, it’s good!
