The Sports Guy touched on a subject near and dear to my heart this week… food. Or more specifically, GREAT food. It has inspired me to blog about MY food pantheon…

1. My mom’s potato salad – Everyone who has ever had my mom’s potato salad swears that it is the best they’ve ever had. Heart-stopping gobs of mayonnaise, mustard, boiled eggs, just the right amount of celery, and mounds of slightly overcooked potatoes make this numero uno for the ages.

2. Chili-cheese fries at Steve’s in Torrance, CA – Oh sure, you’ll be regretting it later (or more likely, whoever is sleeping in the same room will be regretting it), but these oozing, greasy fries heaped with chili of indeterminate meat origin and shredded orange cheese-like food and raw onions is a true culinary masterpiece. And you won’t gain weight from eating it since you’ll just shit it out within three hours.

3. Big Macs – Kind of a historic food for me. It represented my ascendance into quasi-adulthood. When Mickey D’s first came up with the concept, I was too young to try it, content to munch on the cheeseburgers. As my appetite grew, I aspired to the “adult” food and the $.55 Big Mac was the symbol of what “big kids eat”. It also signaled to my parents that McDonald’s was no longer the cheapest option in town.

4. My wife’s spaghetti – Betty Crocker’s recipe or it would be ranked higher. This is the recipe that Screech plagiarized and marketed to the student body in Saved by the Bell. The best spaghetti sauce ever.

5. Malibu Chicken – I doubt anyone in Malibu really invented this, and I’m not sure why Sizzler thought that Malibu was the likely origin of this inside-out Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe. A deep-fried chicken patty with melted fake-Swiss cheese and ham on top with a dip of mustard-mayo sauce…. Good stuff. Reminds me of those six-hour college study sessions at Sizzler with unlimited salad bar and sodas. Good times.

6. Blue Crab Claws at Joe’s Crab Shack in Miami – During the heyday of the dot-coms, I worked for a company (with the Donkeypuncher) that believed in hemorrhaging money and that sales meetings were the best way to do it. They rented out a big chunk of the restaurant and paid for all-you-can-eat crab claws for a couple of hundred people. Conservatively, you could have fed three countries with the stuff we threw away that night and paid off the national debt of Brazil, but the claws were spec-tac-u-lar!

7. Molson Ultra Dry beer – sold only in Canada – After a different sales meeting for a different company, my wife and I had dinner at a steakhouse in Banff. I decided to try Molson Ultra Dry for the first time and fell in love with it. Every meal after for the next week, I asked for this golden nectar. Even my wife agreed that it was the best beer she had tasted. Once back in the states, I tried to find it to no avail, using the Internet and even emailing Molson directly. Since the alcohol content is double the US standard for beer, Molson decided NOT to export it, making it impossible to get. Dicks.

8. Togo’s Large #9 (Hot Pastrami) – Sure, the fat content is roughly 40% ,but the sandwich is filling and tasty and has a high satisfaction-to-dollar ratio. One of my proudest moments is splitting a family size (according to their menu, can feed 4-6 individuals) Hot Pastrami and a full bag of Ruffles with a buddy during the Ed Zschau for Senate Campaign in 1986.

9. Haagen Dazs Swiss Almond Chocolate Ice Cream – The best, creamiest ice cream ever. Chocolate Ice Cream with chocolate covered almonds. Of course, it’s been discontinued, and I haven’t had it for almost 15 years. They have a pale imitation called Swiss Almond Vanilla, but that’s basically Baskin Robbins Almond Bon Bon. I worked at Baskin Robbins and Farrell’s dammit. I know my ice cream.

Shit, now I'm hungry.