Happy Friday my sweet little cinnamon buns!!!
I hope you’re hungry and excited for this week’s Friday Open Thread ’cause we’re gonna talk all about food! Specifically the most delicious, mind blowing, unforgettable, mouthgasmic thing you’ve ever eaten. I’m already drooling just thinking about it. Those of you that have read my column Femme Brûlée here on Autostraddle know that I spend a lot of time thinking about food, and the only thing I love more than creating new recipes is eating them. Food is one of my favorite experiences in life. It brings people together, carries history and culture, and if you’re really lucky brings out the “happy food dance” that everyone has inside them. You know the one, when something is just so perfectly delectable in every way and the minute it hits your tongue you can’t help but close your eyes, make a guttural noise or sigh of enjoyment, and wiggle side to side or nod your head in happiness and approval. When my food elicits that response in someone I know I’ve hit the culinary jackpot, and that’s what I want to hear about today. The dishes that have caused you to close your eyes and let the experience of taste wash over you. The foods that you could eat incessantly and never get tired of, or that one thing that you had at that one place that one time that makes you long for the day that you can go back and eat it again.
The food I long for is from a restaurant that has closed down since I discovered it so I’ll never get to have it again which is heartbreaking to me but also makes the memory of the meal that much more special. It was at Jolie’s, a farm to table southern restaurant in a suburb of New Orleans, LA. I was on a road trip with my best friend and our atlas of all things suggested we stop there, so we did and it was hands down the best decision we’ve ever made. We had impossibly soft buttermilk biscuits with hand churned herb butter, rabbit stew dolloped with perfectly circular flaky dumplings, fried green tomatoes that crackled and glittered when we bit into them and literally brought a tear to my eye, the creamiest baked mac and cheese I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting, and shrimp & grits with the biggest, juiciest perfectly cajun seasoned shrimp piled on a pillow of fluffy warm grits. We. Threw. DOWN. And then, last but so far from least you’d need a map to get there, was their peach cobbler with homemade brown butter praline ice cream on top. BROWN BUTTER PRALINE ICE CREAM melting over the most perfect ratio of crust to caramelized syrupy peaches that were exactly in season and bursting with juice. This is the dessert, and meal that I dream of. If you ask me what I want on my death bed, it’s this. I don’t care that the restaurant is closed, I will hunt down the chef and FIND A WAY. We ate so much that eventually our conversation consisted solely of grunts and moans that would’ve sounded very strange out of context. We also had to nap in the car in the parking lot afterwards cause we were both too full and happy and sleepy to drive. Favorite meal, favorite memory. Food is just magic.
So, tell me your magic food moments! Maybe you’ve found the best croissant in your city, or your partner makes the best meatballs and people wait for their arrival at parties toothpicks in hand. Maybe it’s a brand of ice cream that has a power over you causing you to tiptoe to the freezer at 3 am for snack time or something simple like peanut butter on Ritz crackers like your grandma used to make to curb your childhood hanger. Whatever it is, I want to know about. How it tastes, smells, sounds. How it makes you feel, and what memories are attached. Let’s make this the most delicious Friday Open Thread this site has ever seen!
Now, who want’s to go first?!
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