My best friend lives overseas. Every time she comes "home" (once a year) she buys a pallet of tortilla chips (waaaaaay less expensive than buying masa -to make her own tortillas, then cut and fry to make her own chips- and shipping it). She also has a series of ill-fated cilantro plants. Neither tortilla chips nor cilantro is sold within 2 days driving distance of where she lives.
I will wear my PAJAMAS to the store at 3am to go fetch coke or chocolate syrup or milk if I find we're out (coke for me, milk = hot chocolate for my son and = coffee for my husband... AND I usually get dressed. But not always. I live by the university. I can get away with it ;). But I do my best to make sure we're never out of those 3 things. I will also NOT eat breakfast if we don't have food to zap (leftovers from dinner or in a box) or eggs in the morning. ((I can't think straight for the first few hours in the morning, if it requires thinking, it doesn't get made)). Olive oil, butter, garlic, bread, basil, cilantro, spinach, my dried herbs/spices, and BestFoods (aka Hellmans) mayonnaise also make the list of things I would grow, make, or pay 10x their value in order to have in my kitchen. Given those things I could be happy cooking anywhere.
How about you? What are your "must have" foods?
Cheese-of allmost any kind except for Blue. And NM green chile... I could die if I went more than a week without
And Bacon... I feel for those that cant/dont eat pork, Bacon is soooooo yummy!
I cannot EVER run out of butter...real butter...I have about 4 boxes frozen and rotated at all times. =)
Red bell peppers
tomatoes
zucchini
eggs
CHEESE!!
Romaine lettuce
garlic
yes, all my spices
chicken
flank steak
soy sauce
Do coffee, beer, and cigarettes count?
:)
Coffee and cream.
IF I get to have a few bonus foods: cheese, tortillas, and spinach. If my kids are with me, bananas, spinach, milk, bread, peanut butter, jam and Greek yogurt.
On the coffee: NesCafe doesn't count. It doesn't have to be FANCY coffee, but a decent roast, freshly ground, and brewed in my French Press. Darn it. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I stink in the kitchen. Flippin' uninspired bland bleck. BUT. I DO make a fine cup of coffee (or espresso, if working) and a perfect cup of English tea. Coffee is my vice and my pleasure. It turns me from a gremlin-poltergeist-zombie (THAT bad!) into a human. So above ALL: Coffee!
PS: GOOD MORNING Western Washington!!! It feels like summer these past few days, doesn't it!
My favorite food is chicken. I love it fried, baked, BBQed, smoked, rotisseried, cold, warm, hot, in sauce, melted cheese, chili, gravy, soup, cassaroles, with or without rice, potatoes, noodles or just about anything else.
I love the legs, breasts, and thighs (I know, I'm a man!) wings, hearts and gizzards. I've bought a bucket of it for dinner and eaten it all week, then come home on Friday night to have my wife say with a smile, "I made your favorite, pan fried chicken", and ate it for dinner, then ate the left overs on Saturday. I just love chicken. I just wish I lived near someone that could teach me how to get the outside thick and crispy like Popeyes makes. (Their hot and spicy is my favorite.)
Now my mouth is watering and its not even breakfast time yet.
Good luck to you and yours.
Like the staples I always have in the house?
Coffee, Aquafina water, mandarine oranges, black olives, pickles, and mozzarella string cheese :)
Oh, and vodka and cranberry juice, LOL
Now, if it was up to me, I would live solely on a diet of pepperoni pizza with light sauce, beef hard shelled tacos with that awesome white cheese, white queso dip and tortilla chips, and steak and cheese subs. It's a wonder I don't weigh 2 thousand pounds!!
My new guilty pleasure that I'm NOT sharing: Edy's Double Fudge Brownie Ice cream... and I RARELY eat ice cream ;)
I live in South Africa now. While home this summer, I filled two extra empty suitcases with stuff I can't here. The biggies are: corn tortillas, chili powder and onion powder (now really?). I NEED enchiladas to survive! Others are Kraft mac and cheese, Betty Crocker boxes of potatoes and sweet pickle relish. Normally we don't need those things, but when you can't have them....... I feel like a hoarder and a mean mom. I have to ration fruit roll ups for goodness sake!
Cheese and ice. I know ice isn't food but if the world as we know it ended I would totally miss it.
lettuce, tomatoes, avocados, and at least 3 different kinds of fresh fruit (anything but papaya).
Even if my food choices are not the best i make sure everything i eat is 50%raw. Two meals a day i eat with 50% fruit, and 1 meal is half salad. I hit the fruit stand pretty regularly, and i live in South Texas, near Mexico. Mexicans sure know their produce, i can get it fresh and cheap and somewhat local.
Kraft Dinner - I need that to survive =)
Earl Grey Tea. Caffeinated.
Otherwise, I can roll with it.
ETA: C'mon Theresa....isn't there O. more thing?.....Be honest! LOL
I've traveled to a bunch of countries, so the choices are usually varied and I can't find the "comfort" foods I rely on at home. The only thing that I ever really search out and must have is coffee. Fortunately I've never been anywhere that doesn't serve it one way or another.
I cant live without carbs. Tortiliias, bread, chips, cereal, noodles. I know this because I failed miserably at Adkins.
Cheese and triscuits....Nachos, pizza, coffee and cream and sugar...chips and salsa
we keep sausage and beans on hand alll the time, cause we can make a meal out of sausage or beans, or both.
but I can't think of anything I'd really have to run to the store to get. Granted, I live 30 minutes from the nearest store. I guess if I had to, I'd buy eggs at the convenience store, as we use eggs daily. Oh coffee to probably.
When I go to California, I stock up on Trader Joe's items: olive tempenade, rice crackers, 21 seasoning salute, and more.
Smoked Chipotle Tabasco Sauce.....
We joke that if I worked outside of our home or just ate out and about more regularly that I would have to carry a bottle of it in my purse! I love it on my morning eggs, my tuna......everything!
Chocolate and salty anything...and pop(Ginger Ale).
If I dont have either in the house I have to get it or else. I dont know what it is. I just have to have it here. Even though I know it is the chocolate that is making me break out constantly!!
Eggs! I love them and so does my two year old. omelets, scrambled eggs, anything sooo good. Something I wish I had more of that I absoulutly love in tomatoe juice, not the store kind but home made tomatoe juice. mmmm I love it. my dad cans tomatoe juice and I usually try and get a couple jars. Right now I am pregnant and keep tellling my mom she needs to share a couple quarts because the baby needs lycopene lol. I also get into these weird food moods where I will crave something and that is all I will want to eat for a week straight. I went one week eating omelets for almost everymeal. another week making pot pies (home made pie crust over campbells chucky beef veggie soup) every night for dinner. Though I do this with alot of things. I find a song I like I play it over and over making everyone else hate it, same thing with movies. My two year takes after me in this!
peanut butter and bannana sandwiches are my new favorite. hmmm and milk. My daughters would be apples
Pizza... oh I have to have my pizza. I could easily eat pizza everyday from different places. Oh I love it. mmmmm
PS It is what I had for lunch today, hahaha
Milk, protein powder, bread/bagel/scone, black tea... Must haves to start my day!
I love, love, love Win Schuler's Bar Cheez, from MI. No one carries it out here in the west, so whenever anyone visits, I ask them to pack some for me in their suitcase. I used to bring it by the suitcase full and freeze them, but I've run out. My mom usually sends me some every Christmas.
iced coffee, anything chocolate and got to have my diet coke!
Black tea, whole or 2% milk, real honey...I would drive to the store in any weather for those items. If I am at someone's home and all the have is 1% or heaven forbid Skim, I'm off to the store.
Next would be whole, hearty, whole grain bread, like Ezekial's, or Ancient Grains and butter, eggs and bacon for my husband.
Fresh organic eggs from my friend's parents' chickens, and plain, nonfat yogurt. I was a Nancy's addict for many years, but I have guiltily started switching over to Greek yogurt because of the higher protein content.
My main one....
Sara Lee wheat english muffins and JIFF peanut butter, every morning. I mean everrryyyyyyyy morning. Like on and off 10+ years but straight every morning for atleast a few years.
For my kid I have to either have apple sauce or yogurt (has to be dannon light for some reason thats her fav) on hand. If I run out of 1, I have to have the other stocked. For my guy Pastrami and Diet Coke (but he can make do with Arnold Palmer if he *has* to).
I cant think of any food I just cant live without and I find it funny how many of you have lists of items youd just die without. I used to love chocolate, ice cream, milk and cookies, pineapple, orange, chips, crackers, and cake and pie. I ate plenty as a younger person. About the time I hit my 20s, I started noticing everytime I ate these things, I got sick. I had a head ache, I had blisters in my mouth. I was in the bathroom for days. After I got tired enough of that feeling, I started testing which foods triggered my problems and stomach trouble. I now stay away from those foods. I was never one to like hard candies, have never had a gummy worm/bear, mango, kiwi, or many of the fruit/power drinks on the market. I dont drink coffee or tea because it makes my heart beat weird.(even decaff) So I could eat these things but then I pay the price and it isnt pretty. I CAN live without them. Its been years since I had these foods and I still miss it, but I can live without the stomach upset, migraine and 3 days unable to leave the bathroom from eating 1 chocolate chip.
When I first moved west I could not live without real sour dough rye bread. Everyone who came to visit was told not to get on the plane without it.
Then I lived in Europe. My mother sent tortilla chips. Now you can get them everywhere. I adapted to foods round the world and so in food I miss nothing except Chocolate I bring from Germany and Switzerland.
But, aspirin 500 mg that melt under your tongue, these I bring home for my months in America. My skin cream from Europe a staple in my suitcase every single time. Ceres herbal tinctures...the best in all the world. Omidalin that takes the sting out of bites I haven't lived without it since I first began working in Europe. From here I take shampoo, vitamins (we have the best).
