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Saturday, November 15, 2014

The Best Meals of My Life -- So Far

I was asked recently what the best meal I've ever eaten was. It is obviously hard to pinpoint that after 25 years of eating solids, so the best I could do was narrow down a list of top contenders. Here they are, in chronological order:

1) Bogota, Colombia. I was 16, in Bogota with a group from my church, helping a children's home and their ministry to the street children of Colombia. We were on top of a gorgeous mountain, working hard to take down a fence and build a large playground for the children to visit on field trips for an escape. We had been working hard all day, and when we broke for lunch they passed out wrapped sandwiches. Those sandwiches- OOOH those sandwiches. Homemade, with 3 slices of bread, a medium-fried egg, sliced cold chicken, shredded lettuce, cheese, I think avocado, some kind of spread- I inhaled it so fast I wish I'd paid better attention to its contents. But up on that mountaintop, overlooking the city, after doing hard, physical work, in this beautiful place-- that was a perfect sandwich. 


[Bogota, Columbia, 2005]

2) Paris, France. I went for a mini-vacation with my mom, and one evening she took me to one of the fanciest restaurants I have ever set foot in, where the only thing I recognized on the menu happened to be my all-time favorite dish, Boef Bourguignon. The Coke I ordered was more expensive than my mom's wine, and the dish came out piping hot in a rust colored ramekin remarkably fast. The sauce was dark, rich, reddish brown, and the thing that distinguished it from other versions I'd had in the States was that the sauce in that single ramekin had to contain at least half a bottle of reduced burgundy. It also had large sprigs of fresh thyme that packed an aromatic and savory punch. The overall experience in Paris of course adds fondness to my memories of this dish, but it was also genuinely one of the best things my mouth has ever experienced.


[Photo taken by me!]

3) Seattle, Washington. I was visiting Seattle for a friend's wedding. My parents and I visited Pike Place Market and "caught" a side of smoked salmon from the famous fish market. We then went to the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks and set out a blanket and a picnic of bagels & lox, with the salmon from the market, cream cheese and bagels. There we ate while watching the live salmon jumping upstream at the site of the dam, in perfect weather at sunset.


[Photograph obtained from Google]

4) My wedding reception. While you might be thinking, "OK, DUH- of course on the best day of your life you would consider it the best meal of your life." But in all practicality I did plan that meal very carefully to be exceptionally awesome. On the menu were food trucks; the Easy Slider Truck (www.easyslidertruck.com) and the Guava Tree Truck (www.theguavatreetruck.com) in Dallas. My Husband and I partook in the best of the East Slider's offerings- The Sweet & Low-Down burger; Angus beef with goat cheese, strawberry jam, salty, crispy bacon (though both my Husband and I both picked it off) and toasty buns. For dessert, because I am a pastry chef and I have actually never been much of a fan of cake, we instead arranged to have two croquembousche (conical towers of cream puffs) and a tree of macaroon cookies made by an amazing local baking company called Bisous Bisous (www.bisous-bisous.com).




[Photos courtesy of Becca Ann Photography in Dallas, TX]



What about you? What is the best meal or item you've ever eaten? Did the setting make a difference? Leave your story in the comments!

1 comment:

  1. OK I'm with you on all but Colombia (was ACTUALLY with you and I'm grateful for it!). The other one that comes to mind was the picnic on the bed in Paris, mostly for the hunt and the dessert.

    Another memorable one was the birthday when my mother broke into our house during church and made my favorite pork roast with potatoes, carrots and applesauce. The house smelled just like my childhood and it lived up to all the memories.

    There was also a good steak in a tower restaurant in Toronto a long time ago. Good steak dinner but I mostly remember the best cup of coffee I think I've ever had with dessert.

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