5 Foods To Eat Before You Die

Four score and seven years ago I was sent a meme... I'm just getting to it now. I do apologize to all those who tagged me for the 5 Things to Eat Before You Die meme for the long wait. Bless you, Bonnie, Cyndi and Jasmine for your patience.

Narrowing down foodly perfection isn't easy. And sometimes the best food in one's eyes isn't necessarily exotic or rare. Often it's the food we desire in the moments of comfort. We wonder why everyone doesn't love it or has not yet experienced it. I thought of foods that changed my view of the world and the way I eat.

My list is as follows:

1) Wind-dried Pacific salmon flesh and sun-dried kelp with a dipping sauce of Nass Valley ooligan-fish grease. I know it's rather specific but of the three kinds of ooligan grease I know, Nass grease has better flavour. This suggestion really has ocean written all over it. Each one has a unique flavour but together they are better than the sum of their parts.

2) Foie Gras. This blew my mind more than once. The taste experience, the texture, everything about it is so overwhelming that it defies better words to describe it. And it tastes even better with cooked fruit. Buttery and sweet, it's a great treat but make sure your gallbladder is prepared.

3) Thin-skinned green eating apples taken right off the tree after it has been warmed by the afternoon September sun. I know, I know... very specific again. You have to trust me. By the afternoon in September, the apple is a perfect temperature to release every nuance of sweetness and yet still retain a bit of a sour edge.

4) Duck. This is not your average poultry meat but it isn't so difficult to find. The breast really is the best part, I think. Cooked well, it will make your toes curl in pleasure. I did, however, cook a duck recently. I would be hard-pressed to find a part that wasn't lovely to taste.

5) Dragon-eyes (Long-an): These odd little fruits are an experience unto themselves. Borne on their branches like bark-covered grapes, you can easily peel off the skin to reveal a translucent litchi-type flesh. The best ones have a perfume that takes a joyride through your sense. There is a large black marble sized seed inside the flesh but it gives a cool look to the fruit and makes the name understandable. They do rather remind me of the eyes on Oriental dragons--a black dot encircled in white. Bite into one and find out for yourself.

Gosh... There are so many more things. Five only? This really sucks.

Just a word about my disappearance. I am sorry it took so long to get back on track. With some things I really have been bogged down but some of it wasn't entirely just that. I beg forgiveness because of two things. I kinda lost the steam to blog in the last while and was quite delinquent. I didn't feel any creative juices flowing in the food department because I was spending so much of it in school. I also got satellite... and, um, errr... the Food Channel. I've been watching food being made instead of making it when I had spare moments. This will change promptly.