Jeni’s is so very worth 10$ a pint. Holy crap is it. Jeni’s is the second coolest thing to ever come out of Columbus.

Of course I’m the first.

*Columbus* is the coolest thing to come out of Columbus, David. He discovered America, after all.

Tanners Dairy’s Peanut Butter Swirl ice cream, with chunks of frozen, formerly liquefied, peanut butter preserved at the height of their fluid movement in a wealth of the best vanilla ice cream on earth.

And, once a year, I crave my pumpkin seeds roasted in olive oil, with a special blend of seasonings. I could make them any time, it just takes a pumpkin. Yet, I only *really* crave them in October.

People are loving the Honey Crisp apples. Me? An apple has to be a fight. It has to be hard enough to fracture into strata when I bite it. Red Delicious are mealy misnomers. Neither are they red–more black sometimes–or delicious. I like gala. You want sweet-tart? Try pink lady. You like ‘em hard, like me (heh) then try my test. You were a drummer, remember tuning a snare drum. Flick the apple with your finger, and the higher pitched the resonance, generally, the harder the apple. It’s not hard and fast every time, but it’s close. Plus, they look at you funny in the store.

K

David: If only you had a baby with Jeni’s (we won’t tell Filamena!), your child would be the Chosen One. Or, at least, the Chosen One For Columbus.

Keith: I don’t know that I need an apple to be a fight, so much — just as long as it’s juicy. The Honey Crisp has a unique taste I like, but don’t love. Gala and Pink Lady are both reasonable eating apples, so they will find their way into my mouth if none other are available. What’s fascinating to me is how many g-dang varieties of apple there even *are* — http://www.allaboutapples.com/varieties/

Also: Tanner’s Ice Cream is a big win, absolutely. Were we closer, we’d be there all the damn time.

A big loser is Grida’s, near us. Everybody loves them, but they obviously keep their soft serve riiiiight next to the grill, because their ice cream always tastes *faintly* of fried onions. Not exciting.

– c.

Interestingly, this list —

http://seasonalcooking.suite101.com/article.cfm/difference_between_eating_and_cooking_apples

– lists Empire as good for both eating and cooking, and Red Delicious as terrible for cooking. Maybe I’ve had shit versions of the Red Delicious. Hrm.

– c.

Pickles-vinegar AND ice cream? name the baby after me. And by after me, I mean I want you to name it after I’m gone so I don’t have to see its face when it realizes you just named your daughter Sparkle Peen.

I crave salt. If I could get away with it, I’d make myself mini salt licks. BBQ flavored, buffalo flavored, garlic… Little waxy strips of om nomness waiting for me.

I don’t want vinegar and ice cream at the same time.

…unless.

Hrm.

Man, that’s not true at all.

Ever have really quality balsamic vinegar on hand? Syrupy, aged, and sweet?

You can pour that right on vanilla ice cream. I’ve done it. Actually, you can use it to macerate strawberries and put *that* on ice cream.

Shit. I’m pregnant, y’all.

(Oh, and that mini-salt lick idea. I’m not kidding when I’m telling you that is a winner winner chicken dinner business model.)

– c.

Pickles-vinegar AND ice cream? name the baby after me. And by after me, I mean I want you to name it after I’m gone so I don’t have to see its face when it realizes you just named your daughter Sparkle Peen.

I crave salt. If I could get away with it, I’d make myself mini salt licks. BBQ flavored, buffalo flavored, garlic… Little waxy strips of om nomness waiting for me.

I also typically crave whatever snack my husband just made for himself, which is uncanny.

(And if you ever come across Gravenstein apples, get one. It’s what I’ve labeled as a Phenomenal Apple.) Pink Ladies are my second choice. The only red delicious I’ve ever had that didn’t make me want to cram it down a goat’s throathole in a juiceless-flavorless rage were from Washington state, icy cold and crispy with loads of flavor. Thank you, Boy Scouts, for selling me a box every year.

What the hell? Creepy ghost post of halfness… Sorry for the spam, C!

Madness. MADNESS.

And I’m a sucker for quality balsamic. Rosemary is good in ice cream, too. If you’ve never had Vosges chocolates and caramels before, that might be right up your alley. They are ridiculously decadent and delicious. They have toffee with smoked bacon. That’ll make your cravings shoot through the roof. They are unbelievably delicious.

Now that I’ve given myself a buffer, here’s my real craving: booze. I’ll beat a nun up with a baby to get at a good bottle of Bordeaux.

And then follow that up with a Parmesan salt lick.

I was with you 100% of the way until you got to chocolate.

Delicious apples suck. I am convinced that a bunch of farmers grind up their lima beans, mold them into apple shape, and spray them with red wax. CARNUBA wax, whatever the fuck that is.

My favorite apples are winesaps. Can’t get them here.

Straight vinegar does wonders for heartburn. And nausea. I drank a lot of it both pregnancies.

My old doctor growing up, an osteopath, told me to always listen to what I was truly craving, which was why the morning after my mom found me at 2am eating tuna out of the can with a fork we called the doctor. I was anemic.

My mother makes an excellent roast served with steamed veggies (potatoes, carrots and onions) and vinegar on the side. I always use more vinegar than is probably necessary, but I’ll weather the odd looks from my family because it’s so incredibly delicious.

I adore vinegar. My sister, as an appetizer for most of her dinners, pours virgin oil and balasamic vinegar into plates and we dip bread in it. Yum!

You don’t like soda? Is that even allowed? I’ll call Glenn Beck, he seems to know stuff…

Know what food that I crave but most Unamerican nazi sympathizers hate? Anchovies! They’re salty, oily, a little gritty but ALL DELICIOUS! Unfortunately you can’t cook them in a pizza in the same oven as other pizzas cause they take on some of the fish taste, but they’re really good.

Also cause he’ll never see it but the best thing to come out of Columbus was not David but Columbus from Zombieland. Case. Closed!

Y’know, I have never eaten an anchovy.

I might have to rectify that soon.

And no, soda’s nothing exciting. Once in a while, I’ll grab for a ginger ale or a Jones soda, but the rest don’t do anything for me. It’s not like I didn’t drink them as a kid: I did, but even then it didn’t wow me. And diet soda is like someone peeing in my mouth.

– c.

You start with APPLES? And Bacon (yes, capital B, just like capital G in fucking God) gets a grudging nod way down past pineapple and coconut? That’s like waxing poetic about Kathy Bates and then, maybe the next day, admiting that, OK, if Misha Barton where spread eagled naked on your bed you might dip a wick, but only, you know, if you hadn’t worn your self out boxing the compass with Ms. Bates. Where’s the damn MEAT man?

See, but that’s the trick about cravings.

I love bacon far more than I love apples (though, I should note, bacon + apples + red cabbage makes an excellent dish), but I do not at present *crave* bacon in any meaningful way.

I cannot help if I want to bang the culinary equivalent to Kathy Bates.

Though, let’s be frank, Mischa Barton looks like a heroin-addled muppet. Something out of Trainspotting meets The Dark Crystal.

– c.

So my cravings:

Sriracha: I’ve oft referred to this as “the ketchup of the gods.” It’s one of the few things in the world (bacon being another,) where I can think of fewer things it’d go poorly with than good with. It’s second only to salt in the frequency with which I cook.

Creme Brulee: It’s my favorite dessert, it works well cool, warm and anywhere in between. Although, I don’t appreciate other peoples’ creme brulee as much as I appreciate making it. Any time I get to use a torch in the kitchen is a time when I am happy.

Ramen: This is such a silly weird one. But, if you look at the numbers, I’m not alone. It’s one of the most eaten foods on the planet. I like both low and high end ramen. The low end, I like because of their versatility (they go wonderfully with Sriracha. I also like them with tilapia, an egg drop or shrimp.) The high end, I like because of their heartiness. Until you’ve had ramen made in japanese mineral water (it’s called kansui I think. I know the hirigana but I’m rusty on my translation,) you have not lived.

You’re correct about apples. The rind has a lot of the vital nutrients. I will use it in recipes separately. For example, when I make my signature apple pie (not my grandmother’s, which I posted online a few weeks ago,) I’ll process the rind and use it to flavor the crust. Red delicious apples are hard to cook with. But the second most common apple, granny smith, have quite a bit of culinary use.

And the culinary equivalent to Kathy Bates is Alton Brown’s obsessive fan in his parody/homage to Misery, thank you.

Chocolate is probably always on the top of my list of food craving. I like the dark, dark chocolate, but in a pinch will purchase crummy chocolate.

Stew. Right now I crave a nice thick bowl of home made stew. Lots of potatoes, thick hunks of carrots, bits of celery and onion. Thick broth, maybe a bit of cream cheese for an extra kick. Oh god, and it’s only 9:30 in the morning.

Peanuts. Sea salt and pepper drenched. What I can’t find are peanuts in dark chocolate and milk chocolate does nothing for me. Too much like a mouth full of wax. Blech.

Molé. A rich sauce with chocolate, ancho peppers and much, much more. Eaten with chicken. Oh, so good.

Baby carrots, but they need to be the sweet kind. I could eat those like candy.

I don’t crave ice cream in the winter. I’m too cold for that. But coffee. Give me hot liquids until about May and I’ll survive.

Rankings are tricky — kind of a food nympho myself. I want to swear fealty to meat in all its marbled, died-just-for-me glory, but I find myself having just rolled off a nice Porterhouse, still in my gustatory refractory period, and a package of Sno-Balls will be winking at me from the corner like some diseased toothless Meth whore and suddenly I’m out behind the 7-11 with the wrapper around my ankles sticking my tongue in the white hole that winks at you from the ebony expanse of its bottom, and stipping off its coconut flecked goo-robe. And I know the thing is like 10% flour, 40% sugar and 50% chemicals — it’s like eating the DuPont annual report for Christ’s sake — but there I am, tell-tale crumbs in my beard, waiting for the Poterhouse to chase my Escalade out of the parking lot with a golf club. Our appetites are cruel mistresses.

Sadly, I tend to crave things I’m allergic to. Apples. Cherries. Mangoes. Why the hell am I allergic to mangoes?! And every time some nutritionist or doctor chirpily tells me that apples make great healthy snacks I want to kick their teeth in and make THEM live through the subsequent rash brought on by a single apple or glass of apple juice.

There are many sweet/savory combos that totally knock my socks off. A corn fritter with a bit of maple syrup. Sea-salted caramels. A Vosges deep milk chocolate bar with plantain chips in it. I really do crave salt plus sugar.

Even more than coffee, I totally do the splits for chai latte or a really good homemade hot chocolate (One 3 or 4 oz bar of dark chocolate whisked into 1.5 cups of equal parts whole milk and half and half, preferably with a tablespoon or two of liqueur; or, even better, make the bar a Green & Black’s Vanilla White Chocolate, which is the One True White Chocolate that will make you realize all others are merely confectionery coating or sad seconds.

Once every two or three years I crave a root beer, birch beer, or cream soda; otherwise I too really don’t like soda much.

I HAVE to make a pumpkin dessert at least once a year. I adore crystallized ginger and almost any dish that makes use of it. And sweet potato fries—thin and crispy—are the best things ever.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few hundred things. Flavor is a blatantly sexual thing—the more intense, the more sensual.

Hah! Popular topic. I like Pink Lady apples. So how about…a pink lady apple drizzled with a balsamic reduction over rice pudding ice cream?

I don’t crave it, but it sounds like a good idea.

Oh, and tapioca? You’re a heathen. Yeah, the stuff they call “tapioca” in grade school or grocery stores is crap, but real homemade tapioca, made with small pearl tapioca, is ambrosial.

But I don’t even know what tapioca is! It’s a mystery. A strange, disturbing mystery.

(Out of all seriousness, I’m not opposed to tapioca. It is weird, though.)

Starch from the cassava root, I believe. Very handy gluten-free starch for those who can’t handle gluten.

I’m addicted to the chewy texture of good small pearl tapioca. It’s awesome.

Well that doesn’t sound diabolical at all.

I’m almost disappointed.

– c.