New thing #1: Menudo is boring

I tried tripe for the first time tonight.

Menudo is a soup of tripe, hominy, and bright red chili broth that is a frequent sight on the tables of Mexican families, especially on Sunday nights. Well, tonight is Sunday, so I thought it would be appropriate. I also got a pupusa just in case I didn't like it. For people who don't know, a pupusa is a thick corn tortilla stuffed with (in this case) pork, refried beans, and panela cheese. And it's a good thing I did, because menudo is utterly boring. I expected the tripe to have a taste, but no, it was just chewy nothingness. Even with the flavorful broth, the tripe itself tasted like nothing at all.

Tripe is another thing to add to my list of foods I don't like because of their lack of flavor. I don't care at all that it happens to be from the animal's stomach. So what? Chorizo is made of salivary glands. Foie gras is liver. It's not like stomach lining is all that different. Here's the list of unappetizingly bland foods in its present form: jicama, hearts of palm, water chestnuts, and now tripe. Oddly enough, I adore eggplant, despite the fact that it has barely any of its own flavor and is essentially a sponge for other foods.

Since being back in LA (last night) I have also had dinner at the very interesting restaurant Encounter. Encounter, as I said in a previous post, is shaped like a UFO and sixties themed. Upon walking into the building, you go up an elevator with purple lights and hilarious music, and up to the restaurant. Once you're up there, you have a great view of downtown. Finally the food came. I played it safe, ordering ahi tuna tartare for my appetizer and mushroom ravioli with goat cheese for my main dish. It was good, but I do not feel that the meal warranted its price. Nothing about it was surprising or new. If you pay $17 for an appetizer, it had better not be the same ahi tuna tartare that you can get anywhere else. It should be fun. Here's the formula they used: sesame sauce, pickled sushi ginger, avocado, wasabi in a ring around the plate, and very fresh tuna. Good, but certainly not different or utterly delicious.

Going back to the tripe, now I can at least say I have tried it.

Going Home For Spring Break

My palette is about to have a wake up call. I'm going back to LA for Spring Break next week. Needless to say, I'm rather excited and am already planning what I'm going to eat.
The first thing will be dinner in the strangely shaped themed restaurant by the airport. Have you ever seen this thing? It's a relic of the sixties. Shaped like a UFO, Encounter is just plain odd. I've never been there before, so it should be an interesting "encounter".
I am inordinately excited about good Mexican food. Pozole, tortas, chilaquiles, sopes, and possibly something I've never tried before like Albondigas are all on the list of things to hopefully eat by the end of the week. But the goals don't stop there.
In-N-Out is a must. Animal Style Fries and a Double Double. Yum. Artery clogging goodness.
Good pizza is a maybe. I might make my mom take me to Mulberry Street Pizza in Beverly Hills for a slice of their unforgettable Eggplant Parmesan Pizza when I go to get my hair cut. To die for. Especially with a drizzle of their delicious chili oil.
My parents found a Peruvian restaurant in Pasadena, which might be important to try.
Getting some Spanish food at 3 Drunken Goats would be divine.
Thai, Japanese, Korean and Chinese food would all be wonderful as well.
And then there's the homemade food. I want to bake popovers for some reason. And some recipe I've never made before. And Emily wants to bake cookies with me.
My main plan, however, is simply to try things I've never had before so that I can review them.
Last time I was home I got in sea urchin sushi and quail egg pizza. Who knows what will be tried this time? Bull's testicles?

(P.S. Random food fact about sea urchins. The edible part of sea urchins is their gonads. Of which they have eight.)

I'd add a picture to this post, but it's not working for some odd reason.

Goat Brie and Rosemary Bread

Once again, Bushel and Peck's has affirmed itself as my favorite place in the town of Beloit.
I just tried goat's milk brie from there for the first time, and loved it. Somewhat to my surprise, it is fabulous paired with their rosemary garlic bread. The cheese is half the price of normal brie and has a clean, almost soapy flavor that is a great contrast to the rich, fatty nature of brie. The rosemary bread had a surprising lack of garlickiness, despite what it said on the label, but was nonetheless very appetizing stuff. I was worried at first that the two wouldn't pair well, and nearly bought another bread because of it, but it looked so good that I just couldn't pass it up.
This excellent pairing is one of the few things that makes up for the fact that I barely got to eat lunch and that the food in Commons is usually terribly boring or just plain bad.

First Post: An Introduction to Liz

Hello, my very tiny group of early readers. Welcome to my blog.

This blog, as anyone familiar with Cookie Monster and or the wonderful generator of lingo that is the internet will know, is about food. And college. I'm Lizzy, a first year college student with a penchant for dinner parties and the fine food that goes along with them. I've been watching the Food Network since I was in third grade and if I was back home in LA instead of going to college in Wisconsin, I'd have a hefty collection of Bon Appetit magazines. I've eaten at restaurants belonging to Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, and Carme Ruscadella.

In this blog, I'll be ranting about the horrors of Commons, reviewing foodstuffs both delicious and deplorable, and telling of you about what I like to eat.

Additionally, I'll probably tell you some other things, but with more brevity: how I feel on a particular day or if I watched a movie or a tv show, read a book or an article, and if it was good.

I can't wait to get started, talk to you later - Lizzy