![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gyzymHERE IS A THING I HAVE NOT YET TOLD YOU GUYS: I have been to Hawaii before! And now I'm going to talk about it, kind of, ish. Sadly, this post is not about:
a) How beautiful it was
b) How wasted that trip was on my 15 year old self (I had a bit of a stick up my ass at fifteen, if by 'a bit of a stick up my ass' you mean 'an inability to take out my headphones and reign in my overwhelming teenaged bitchiness for five minutes')
c) SERIOUSLY SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL OH MY GOD
d) How ridiculously lucky I was to have the experience or
e) All of the totally amazing things I got to do there.
I could talk about all of those things--at length, oh man, fucking Maui, so incredible--but this is a post about chasing dragons.
Food dragons.
So, right, I'm pretty sure the term 'food dragons' is one of those that my family just made up (remind me to tell you guys the bijillipede story one of these days), so I will explain. There are certain things that you eat, okay, that are so good they stick with you, and you remember them fondly--everyone has these things. Normally, you just cook/order these dishes again, and have them another time. But sometimes, for whatever reason--location, restaurant goes out of business, ingredient stops being available, what have you--the item in question is no longer available.
Then it becomes a food dragon, and you are, officially, chasing it.
I have a couple of major food dragons. There was this place we went to for lunch sometimes when I was a little kid that sold the best French fries in the world, for example, and all other French fries still pale in comparison; there's a bar in my college town that sells this cucumber vodka that I long for on a regular basis.
But my greatest food dragon--the one I am forever chasing--is ahi poke.
So poke, right, is a traditional Hawaiian dish, that can be made with many different kinds of fish (everything from ahi to octopus, dfdsfhdskf SO MUCH FISH OH MY GOD *SALIVATES*). Ahi poke is the most common form of it nowadays, and it is...you guys, okay, it is the freshest most delicious raw yellowfin tuna in this world, chunked and covered in this like. This fucking sauce, oh, Christ, the sauce, that somehow manages to be salty and a little bit spicy and, look, AHI POKE IS THE FOOD OF THE GODS.
The first day we were in Hawaii, I ordered it, because the words "raw yellowfin tuna" have been my siren song since I was old enough to know what they meant. And then I literally ate nothing but ahi poke for, seriously, the rest of the trip. You can buy it in the grocery store, okay, I ordered it at every single meal, I ate so much of it that my father was like, "One of these days I am going to turn around and you are going to ACTUALLY BE A TUNA."
I rolled my eyes, because me being 15 wasn't pleasant for anyone, and ate another piece of fish.
But here's what happened, you guys: ahi poke ruined me for all other tuna. I can't eat seared ahi, because even when I order it rare (the words "No, seriously, as raw as you will give it to me, preferably still swimming" have been uttered by me at many a restaurant) it is not rare enough. I can't eat tuna sashimi, because it is never as fresh, and it is never coated in that sauce. I can't make it myself, because every time I have tried it is inferior. I can't eat ahi poke made here in Cleveland--I've found it on menus a couple of times--because it just does not taste right.
Ahi poke is a food dragon to such a degree that I have to actively avoid thinking about it, because it makes me want to do crazy things like spend all my money on a plane ticket to Maui and eat nothing but it for the rest of my days. And by and large, I have shaken my thoughts of it.
BUT HAWAII FIVE-0 IS MAKING IT DIFFICULT. And so mostly this post exists to say: I love this show, I do, I really do, but every time they mention food I think WAAAAAAH AHI POKE FDJHSFHDSKF, and it is making it hard to concentrate.
In conclusion: there will be a new H50 fic up later today, and probably more this week, but I'm weeping on the inside, you guys. Weeping for my lost food dragon, forever ahead of me in the mire of inferior foodstuffs I choke down on a regular basis.
I know. My life is deeply tragic. I'm sad for me too.
a) How beautiful it was
b) How wasted that trip was on my 15 year old self (I had a bit of a stick up my ass at fifteen, if by 'a bit of a stick up my ass' you mean 'an inability to take out my headphones and reign in my overwhelming teenaged bitchiness for five minutes')
c) SERIOUSLY SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL OH MY GOD
d) How ridiculously lucky I was to have the experience or
e) All of the totally amazing things I got to do there.
I could talk about all of those things--at length, oh man, fucking Maui, so incredible--but this is a post about chasing dragons.
Food dragons.
So, right, I'm pretty sure the term 'food dragons' is one of those that my family just made up (remind me to tell you guys the bijillipede story one of these days), so I will explain. There are certain things that you eat, okay, that are so good they stick with you, and you remember them fondly--everyone has these things. Normally, you just cook/order these dishes again, and have them another time. But sometimes, for whatever reason--location, restaurant goes out of business, ingredient stops being available, what have you--the item in question is no longer available.
Then it becomes a food dragon, and you are, officially, chasing it.
I have a couple of major food dragons. There was this place we went to for lunch sometimes when I was a little kid that sold the best French fries in the world, for example, and all other French fries still pale in comparison; there's a bar in my college town that sells this cucumber vodka that I long for on a regular basis.
But my greatest food dragon--the one I am forever chasing--is ahi poke.
So poke, right, is a traditional Hawaiian dish, that can be made with many different kinds of fish (everything from ahi to octopus, dfdsfhdskf SO MUCH FISH OH MY GOD *SALIVATES*). Ahi poke is the most common form of it nowadays, and it is...you guys, okay, it is the freshest most delicious raw yellowfin tuna in this world, chunked and covered in this like. This fucking sauce, oh, Christ, the sauce, that somehow manages to be salty and a little bit spicy and, look, AHI POKE IS THE FOOD OF THE GODS.
The first day we were in Hawaii, I ordered it, because the words "raw yellowfin tuna" have been my siren song since I was old enough to know what they meant. And then I literally ate nothing but ahi poke for, seriously, the rest of the trip. You can buy it in the grocery store, okay, I ordered it at every single meal, I ate so much of it that my father was like, "One of these days I am going to turn around and you are going to ACTUALLY BE A TUNA."
I rolled my eyes, because me being 15 wasn't pleasant for anyone, and ate another piece of fish.
But here's what happened, you guys: ahi poke ruined me for all other tuna. I can't eat seared ahi, because even when I order it rare (the words "No, seriously, as raw as you will give it to me, preferably still swimming" have been uttered by me at many a restaurant) it is not rare enough. I can't eat tuna sashimi, because it is never as fresh, and it is never coated in that sauce. I can't make it myself, because every time I have tried it is inferior. I can't eat ahi poke made here in Cleveland--I've found it on menus a couple of times--because it just does not taste right.
Ahi poke is a food dragon to such a degree that I have to actively avoid thinking about it, because it makes me want to do crazy things like spend all my money on a plane ticket to Maui and eat nothing but it for the rest of my days. And by and large, I have shaken my thoughts of it.
BUT HAWAII FIVE-0 IS MAKING IT DIFFICULT. And so mostly this post exists to say: I love this show, I do, I really do, but every time they mention food I think WAAAAAAH AHI POKE FDJHSFHDSKF, and it is making it hard to concentrate.
In conclusion: there will be a new H50 fic up later today, and probably more this week, but I'm weeping on the inside, you guys. Weeping for my lost food dragon, forever ahead of me in the mire of inferior foodstuffs I choke down on a regular basis.
I know. My life is deeply tragic. I'm sad for me too.
food dragon
Date: 2011-03-07 04:05 am (UTC)My dragon is David's BBQ in Gainesville, FL. They are at 5121 NW 39th Ave, I was at 415 NE Blvd. In a city set out on a grid that put me 80 blocks from them. I rode my bike there to get the manna. (15.2 miles roundtrip, per Bing - yes, they were that good.) Sometimes I'd eat in, and sometimes I'd load my sub-Tupperware into my panniers and haul it home. When I devised a diet whereby I could only eat out once a week but could go wherever I wanted, I went to David's weekly.
They still exist but I have foolheartedly moved away to St. Louis. What was I thinking? Oh, wait: better employment opportunities, closer to the family, clement weather (hah! me funny), there must be plenty of fine barbeque in St. Louis. Good lord, there's even a style of ribs (the only barbeque I bother with) named for the place - how can it go wrong? (I know, I know - famous last words.)
Firstly, in St. Louis they don't give you garlic bread with your rib plate. The standard is a couple of slices of thick white bread, to sop up the extra sauce. Passible, but in no way superior or even equivalent to the combination of spicy sauce and garlicky bread. Secondly, all the restaurants up here cut of that knob of meat at the end of the spare rib (the only ribs worth knowing), so you're left with 90% bone by weight. At over $10.00 per rib plate, I'd really like my knob, please. (hehe. Dirty!) Also, with the meat knob gone, I miss out on the gristle rods. They may be the best part of the whole thing. Throw in David's superior onion rings and barbequed beans and I'm left pining - bereft in a sea of inferior smoked meat. I should mention that their onion rings are singular, too. Not the pretty, perfect rings with thick golden coats that are served everywhere, nono. These are hand-battered on site, with crumbly, cracking, falling off, perfect skins of buttermilk batter. They neither be adequately described nor reproduced. Nor frozen, sadly - if they could I'd've been ordering David's over the internet all along. It's just not right without the beans and rings.
I used to visit Florida to see a friend, and I'd go to David's at least twice, plus grab a couple of meals to bring back. I'd have to eat the beans and rings over the next three or four days, but the meat could go in the freezer for urgent needs throughout the year. Then she moved to Asheville, the wench, so no more David's for me. :sigh:
On a slightly up note: Bandana's serves garlic toasted baguette slices with their meals. A shame I don't like their meat, huh? Anyway, I can grill ribs myself, with knobs on. I can buy and bake garlic Texas Toast. I can even approximate barbeque beans. I can't batter, though. Never caught the knack. So onion rings elude me, as do gizzards. Any tips, anyone?
Side note: When I flew to N. Ft. Myers in 2003 for my 20th high school reunion, my sister had me go to a certain wing joint in Ft. Myers and buy four big pans of hot wings for her husband. They paid for them all, as well as the rolling cooler and freezer packs to sustain them in the cargo hold on the way home. It turns out that the TSA is pretty understanding about food dragons. Luckily, I'd figured out that I should let them inspect inside the cooler before duct taping the hell out of it, just in case the wings leaked through their triple Ziploc layers. (They didn't, so the other stuff I'd stashed in there [read books, worn clothes - all in their own survival sacks] arrived unsauced.) That was the happiest my b-i-l has ever been to see me. :grin:
Wow! Long comment is loooooooooooooooooooong. Apparently I have strong food dragon feelings. :grin: