Best & Worst Meals of 2011
Yes, ANOTHER list! I know, this time of year we practically are drowning in them. I read most and though I find many interesting, funny or informative, I also find some to be utterly ridiculous. Like a list I just read for top new restaurants in Phoenix for 2011. One had JUST opened ( I am talking December, people). Another I had eaten at and let me tell you, “best” is not a word I would use to describe ANY part of my experience there. So, being an obsessive list maker myself, I figured I would go ahead and add my two cents. What follows is my list for my best and worst meals of 2011.
I will start with the best. Sadly, there weren’t many. Living in a small town has something to do with that, but even when we took trips into the city, we had many disappointing meals. My first best meal of 2011 was at Oregano’s in Scottsdale, AZ. The food was great as usual, but it was more than that. As many of you know, food is just part of what makes a meal good or bad. Service, atmosphere and whom you are sharing that meal with also play a part. So this meal at Oregano’s hit on all of those… We sat outside and the weather was perfect. Had a great server. And I was eating with my husband. All came together to make it a best. We ate thin crust pizza with fresh tomato & garlic, Caesar salad and an over the top artichoke dip. I drank a very nice Zinfandel and for those two hours, all was right with the world. My next best meal also occurred in Scottsdale. It was breakfast at Chompies. A N.Y. style deli with huge portions and a fabulous wait staff. We went for lunch. My husband ate a Fowl Ball Reuben. It is a classic Reuben with thousand island and sauerkraut, but instead of corned beef, it comes with roasted turkey. We shared some of the best french fries I had eaten all year. Not greasy, fluffy on the inside and perfectly crisp on the outside. I ate wonderful house-made cole slaw and a HUGE Chef’s salad with even more of their decadent thousand island Dressing. On the way out we bought fresh bialy (they were still warm!) and giddily ate them in the car. The third and last ( I make short lists!) was just recently in Flagstaff, AZ. Sad, ALL of our best were out-of-town meals… But I digress. We had appetizers at Little America & looked at their spectacular Holiday light display. We sat in the bar at a window table with a perfect view of the decorations. We both had Caesar salads. Crisp lettuce with a lemony garlic infused creamy dressing. We also split sweet potato fries and a caprese salad that came with asparagus and a balsamic reduction. The service was great. The Malbec was smooth. And the Holiday lights were a perfect backdrop to this relaxing meal.
Now to the worst… Sadly, I had a lot more trouble just picking three for this list. So here are the three worst. The first was at a new family owned Italian restaurant in Scottsdale. First, let me say the decor reminded me of a movie set. It all seemed VERY temporary. Our server was doing his best, but he was lacking. Didn’t know the specials, couldn’t open a bottle of wine and basically needed to “learn” how to serve. The bread was ice-cold with burnt onions on top. The mussels were not hot enough & came with crostini that was so hard, it could have been used as a weapon. My salad was billed on the menu as coming with a red wine dressing & shaved vegetables. Instead, I got warm lettuce, doused in straight balsamic with julienne carrots. Husband’s chicken was dry & tasteless and my pizza was covered in ash. Time to clean the oven! Really, one of my worst meals ever. The second worst meal I had was at a new local steakhouse. Nice decor and friendly service. Too bad the food was so awful. The cheddar biscuits they serve were hard, cold and tasteless. My husband ordered a steak and I ordered a grilled Portobello sandwich on toasted sourdough. My husband’s steak was mealy and had super salty sauce on it. The sauce tasted like REDUCED soy sauce. My sandwich and fries were cold. And the bread was not only not toasted, but was completely soggy and falling apart. We left and got pizza. The last worst meal (oh, we had more, I just want to keep my list evenly distributed) was at an Italian restaurant in Jerome. We went for our anniversary. We were one of only three seated tables in the restaurant. The server was nice enough, but to be quite honest, he needed a bath. His hair was greasy and he was wearing filthy jeans about three sizes too big. They only had a few wines by the glass and the chianti I ordered was warm and sour. It took us 20 minutes to get bread. Served with rock hard butter that tasted like an old freezer. Another 20 minutes to get our salads. They were supposed to be Caesar, but they had SPROUTS and shaved carrots. We should have paid and made a break for it then. But it was our anniversary, so we stayed and waited another 45 minutes for our entrees. My husband ordered Chicken Parmesan. What he received was one of the oddest dishes I have ever seen. A bowl that looked like it was filled with Bolognese sauce. We later determined that it wasn’t meat in the sauce, but breading from the chicken. No cheese, except for some ricotta and it was a treasure hunt through the sauce to find the burnt chicken. My pizza had no sauce and was on a commercial crust. Really? 45 minutes? The piece de resistance was when the Chef (I use this term loosely) walked around the dining room in dirty clothes, coughing and asking how everything was tasting…
Looking back on a year’s worth of meals is interesting. You relive every bite, both good and bad. And every restaurant moment. I realized I spend a lot of time eating out! And that I will happily go back to every one of my best restaurants in 2012. In fact, I will make a point of it. The bad? No. I am not a masochist. As I write this, we are planning where to go out and eat this Friday. My last restaurant meal of 2011. Would like to say we are going to try something new, but I can’t. More than likely an old favorite. Because who wants to end the year with a bad meal? Not me!
Mayonnaise on My Mind
So last night, hubby and I got into an hour long discussion about mayonnaise. Seems hard to believe, I know, but when you are a household of two food obsessed people, it is fairly easy. We once waxed poetic about roasted garlic for two days. It all started as I was fixing a snack in the kitchen and hubby was leaning over the counter to watch, as he always does. Just as an aside, hubby is a bit of a vicarious eater. My snack was slices of Swiss cheese on good Jewish rye with heirloom tomato slices and, you guessed it, mayonnaise. As I was making my snack, hubby came around the counter and started dipping celery stalks into the mayonnaise jar. That was when I said, “I REALLY love mayonnaise!” He answered, “Hmm. Garble. Garble.”, while nodding his head (his mouth was full of mayonnaise covered celery at the time). I then upped the mayonnaise ante by getting some leftover roasted red bliss potatoes I had made the night before. I roasted them with olive oil, thyme, garlic, salt & pepper. They were very good. I then took the roasted potato quarters and slathered them with mayonnaise. Let me stop here and just tell you if you ever get a chance to try this, do. It is completely decadent and is akin to an over the top potato salad. We oohed and aahed as we ate the potatoes. And again I said, “Mayonnaise is so good!” We then went on to discuss store-bought brands, home-made aiolis and even Miracle Whip. We also talked about how some people (gasp!) don’t like mayonnaise?! This got me thinking about my long love affair with mayonnaise…
It all started when I was a child. I grew up in a mayonnaise home. I say that because many of my friends had Miracle Whip, which at the time made me jealous because they could eat it and I couldn’t. Why? My Mother looked down on Miracle whip. She saw it as mayonnaise’s red-haired step child. And if I asked for it while we were shopping, she would say, with a very haughty tone, “We don’t eat THAT.” End of discussion. So mayonnaise it was. And it was on EVERYTHING. I now think it was my Mother’s little helper. She put it in vegetables, casseroles, we topped our salads with it (I didn’t even know there was such a thing as salad dressing until I was seven & my Mom brought home Good Seasons Italian with the shaker cruet), put it on ALL sandwiches and even put it on our pizza. Yes, pizza. I didn’t know other people didn’t do this until I went to a pizza party and asked for the mayonnaise. The cries of “gross” and “weird” from my friends kept me from ever making that mistake again! But I still do like mayonnaise on my pizza when in the privacy of my own home. So, as a child I was raised on mayonnaise.
As a teen I started dieting and deemed mayonnaise off-limits. Which of course, only made me want it more. I tried to substitute those awful fat-free and light mayos, but lets face it, they don’t cut it. The fat-free is simply awful. It is more science experiment than food. And the low-fat, while slightly better has to me an odd aftertaste. The irony? I discovered Miracle Whip has less fat than mayonnaise and started eating that! Though the slightly sweet flavor, like it had sweet pickle relish juice added to it, always disturbed me. But at the time, it was better than the alternatives.
After years of avoiding ‘real” mayonnaise at all costs, I finally came back. I was in my twenties and working at a fine dining restaurant. One day the Chef came out with the nights special. It had this wonderful magical sauce with it. Creamy, garlic flavored and absolutely fabulous. So I ran to him and asked, “What is that sauce?” “Garlic aioli,” he replied. Remember, I was just starting my culinary education at this point and waited to get home to look up aioli. Much to my surprise, it was mayonnaise! That did it. I went the next day and bought a jar of real mayonnaise and have had one in my fridge ever since. The crazy part, to me at least, was I didn’t balloon up to 300 pounds as I had imagined. My weight didn’t change one bit. But my meals sure did improve! No longer was potato salad, deviled eggs and cole slaw off-limits! I could once again get mayonnaise on my sandwiches. And if a dish mentioned aioli on a menu, I ordered it.
Now, here I am, older and still my love affair with mayonnaise continues. I can’t imagine a life without mayonnaise, garlic aioli, creamy mayonnaise based salad dressings, etc. Sounds dramatic, I know. But, as they say (whoever “they” are) it is the little things in life. I also know that if my husband weren’t as passionate about mayonnaise as I am, we would have an issue. I mean really, how do you trust a man who doesn’t love mayonnaise?
I will leave you with a couple of things… About ten years ago, my sister’s boyfriend at the time, hated mayonnaise. I, of course, started arguing with him about all the wondrous things mayonnaise could do.. He then told me about a late night infomercial he saw for a hand-held mixer. They made mayonnaise and it was four cups of oil and an egg. That’s it. After recounting this he asked, “So now what do you think about mayonnaise?” I smiled and told him, “It is the oil that makes it good!” I did think to myself at the time, that they could have really improved the flavor with just a little lemon. Or even made a garlic aioli by adding some garlic. But I didn’t tell him. What was the point? He obviously didn’t understand mayonnaise!
Here is my P.S. A great recipe using mayonnaise that is perfect for entertaining. They are called onion puffs and trust me, they are to die for…
Finely grate one medium sweet or white onion
Add to the onion, 2 cups of mayonnaise and 1 cup of Parmesan cheese
Place mixture in fridge covered
Using a small (about 1 inch diameter) biscuit cutter, cut rounds from a loaf of cheap white bread. Just no crusts.
Toast the rounds on a baking sheet until lightly browned on both sides.
Using a small spoon or a pastry bag, top toasted rounds with a mound of the mixture. This can be done a head of time and kept in the fridge.
IMMMEDIATELY before serving, place topped rounds under broiler. Mixture will puff up and get slightly tan. Remove and serve right away.
These are so good with champagne and trust me, your guests will never guess the magic ingredient mayonnaise!
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