am I a good omnivore?

According to the folks at very good taste, if you consider yourself a good omnivore, then you should make it your business to eat every item on this list.

Let's see how I've lived up to the title so far.

Here’s what I want you to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3)Distinguish any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos Rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba Ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J Sandwich
14. Aloo Gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom Tomatos
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie Gras
24. Rice and Beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna Cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken Tikka Masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickley Pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob Chips
61. S'mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang Souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft Shell Crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican blue Mountain Coffee
100. Snake

I can't say that I wouldn't eat any of these things. Since I've moved to California, my taste buds have developed quite drastically. I actually crave good food now. It's possible that I will crave head cheese one day...who knows....I don't feel strongly enough about it to say I'll never do it.

it's sort of an odd 100 items, don't you think?

i wonder what criteria went into making this list... should we eat these foods because they taste yummy? they awaken all of the omnivore's taste buds? or is it their nutritional value? last I heard big macs and road kill aren't the most nutritionally informed choices...

do you think this is an accurate list? what's your criteria for good food choices? how would your list look?

8/28/08

breakfast: coffee and a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese

8/27/08

lunchtime run: 6.5 miles

after the sun went down, we laced up our wheels for some sick move busting on the roller rink.

8.26.08

breakfast
big late lunch: cheeseburger with salad.
dinner/snack: smoothie with bananas, acai, yogurt, blueberries and a packet of mystery chinese herbs.

8/25/08

breakfast:

lunch: strawberries, grapes, peach, banana, and an apricot and nut granola bar

dinner: zucchini and spinach frittata with chicken soup


Lunchtime run: 6.5 miles

i <3 the olympics

There is something so exciting about the olympics. Maybe it's that they only happen once every four years. It reminds me of my life in transit four years ago, stretching my legs in a filthy super eight motel in Albuquerque New Mexico. I was moving to California.
Or the time before that in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, stuck to the olive green leather sofa in my bathing suit.
Maybe it's the live editing and fancy camera work that I love. The on the spot artistry that transforms a spectacular event into one that our inferior eyes can manage.
131 years ago, Edward Muybridge devised an elaborate camera set up to capture the footwork of racing horses. To track a single stride Muybridge needed to set up a dozen stereoscopic cameras with trigger wires strewn about the track.
Now, the process of doing something like this goes unseen. Did you catch glimpse of the cameras zipping around the track at record breaking speeds? or the flawless panning on the pole vaulters? how about the still frames of the gymnasts in mid air, mid flip, twist or tumble? and the cameras mounted to the bottom of the pool?...a superb hiding spot for one that's starved for the underwater dance of a gold medal diver.

Maybe it's the spectacle that I love. The superhuman-ness of it all. The different shapes, sizes, and diets of olympic bodies.

How about you? why do you love the olympics? oohh tell me tell me! i want to know! what was your favorite olympic moment? was it Nastia Lucan's uneven bar routine? Michael Phelps' consecutive wins? that sassy tattoo hidden under his speedo? Matthew Mitchum putting the div(a) back in dive...with three twists and no splash? or was it (my personal fave) Usain Bolt's sick dance moves?

saturday: 10 miles
sunday: 8 miles
monday: off
tuesday: 4 miles with hills
wednesday: 9 miles
thursday: 4 miles with hills and sprints
friday: off
saturday: 8 miles
sunday: off

some pictures:

last nights dinner was a puttanesca sauce with steak and pasta.
we had chocolate ice cream for dessert while we watched the olympics.
i finally went grocery shopping!
pictured here: mesa sunrise and organic square-ems cereal, spinach, eggs, cilantro, nancy's nonfat organic yogurt, zucchini, cucumber, strawberries, grapes, peaches, frozen acai, and frozen blueberries

this is a picture from friday night of ginger howling over the rooftop on a fallen redwood log

at 8,800 feet

So long as you don't make cuts in line, I know of a place you can go where people get along.

it stands at 8,800 feet, overlooking a happy valley with happy accidents. with happy clouds, happy crooked trees,

and happy little squirrels.


a valley where the little 'possums and raccoons all have a place to sit and drink up the sweetness from the falls.

The valley is busy. the rivers are sprinkled with rafts, the meadows with fawn, and tandem bicycles with children. matchbox cars zip alongside the rivers. 300 miles away the water is salty and filled with romantic dinners.

there is no need to fear evil here, on top of our granite monolith !
night and day, winged-less gargoyles poise stoically from fastened strings like rusted clothes pinned puppets from fingers.
Chinese, Indian, French, German, Dutch, American, Israeli, Palestinian.....a place where women are just as strong as men, where children like the stories that old people tell, where the skinny, the fat, and the muscular do handstands for the camera, where brave people help those who are scared and scared people realize that being brave is part of being human, and we really have to be brave enough to feel it.


at this moment, this moment that we wish would last forever, in mid handstand, in mid war story, we are all so happy! so very thrilled to have defied death, to feel our knees shake, our lungs strain for air, to stand on top of this world together.
to violate our mother's wishes together.
to be greedy masochists, together!
all of us here on top of this rock are happy to feel pain and think pleasure, and together it is our secret.

naaaaaature!

into the wild for another death march.

back with photos on monday.

8/4/08

breakfast

lunch: yogurt, bananas, granola bar

dinner: kale soup with corn salad and toast.

monday: 7 miles
tuesday: 6 miles

weekend warrior

our yard is great. sure it's dusty, and the stairs are crumbling, and you may have to dodge some crazy eyed coonhounds or a beagle....but when you get down to it, a simple picnic table, charcoal grill, and some rad friends are all you need to stay entertained on a summer night in the redwoods.

friday night:
caldo verde

Kelly serving up a delicious gingersnap nectarine torte

saturday morning went a little slower than usual, but i still squeezed in a good 13 miles at henry cowell. this is my post run snack.


we lost power in the afternoon so we took a drive into santa cruz for an iced coffee.

headed down the coast to catch the sunset. (aptos)
stopped for tacos
and then finished off the day with an ice cream
the next morning started as usual...
with a high speed chase down west cliff with Kelly and her all terrain roller skates! (7 miles)
we met up with some friends visiting from the east bay that evening...and like most friends, we shared stories..secrets.. baseball cards...needles...and a bounty of buffalo burgers...sadly, i failed to document this spectacular ending to my weekend grill-scapades.

weekend milage: 20

back on (the) track

my planned 3 day recovery after the los gatos half marathon turned into a 3 week recovery.

so it goes.




rice bowl with cucumbers, carrots, avocado, seaweed and marinated tofu. thanks kelly!


biscuit with almond butter and jelly (thanks again kelly!)


stirfry

blueberry crisp (thank you....kELLY!)

salad with spinach fritata

afternoon swim at the garden of eden with henry and ginger.