100 Things You Must Eat Before You Die

I saw this list on some one's blog. The original comes from Very Good Taste. When I do not have students who give me interesting stories to post and am too lazy to cook and post and still want to do something out here in the blogosphere, this has come really handy. This also made me go and check out all these food items in Wikipedia, which gave me a few hours of interesting reading. This list is for an omnivore.
The directions:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. *
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

* - My philosophy is never say never. Though a few of the items make my stomach churn, I still might try them out when I have a stronger stomach and the opportunity.

Here are the hundred foods.
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue - On top of Alps in Grindelwald.
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush - The Indian version is called Bhaingan ka Bhartha
11. Calamari
12. Pho 
13. PB&J sandwich - I made one for the sake of writing Yes here and now I am hooked.
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart 
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - Many - strawberry, pineapple, apricot, plum and may be more.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes - In Italy. Carried some seeds too, but didn't manage to grow them!
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (Updated 6-Sep-12, ate it in Brugge, even though I had a dilemma)
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche - I started making this recently and can't stop eating it.
28. Oysters
29. Baklava (Updated on 18-Dec-12, ate in Fava at UB City)
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects - swallowed mosquitoes :)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala 
48. Eel (Updated 6-Sep-12, ate it in Brugge in a recent trip)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs - Thanks to living in Taiwan for 2 years.
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill - how do I know whether any of the restaurents have not fed me this!!!
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare - Rabbit will do?
87. Goulash
88. Flowers - Hibiscus, drumstick, roses, pumpkin and may be more
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake - I had all the chances at Huaxi market in Taipei, but.....

In case you attempt this list, please post a comment with the link :)

Experiments with a bar of chocolate

The chocolate bar in question here is not a regular bar, but a 1Kg semi sweetened one, the kind used for chocolate fountains. My friend gave it to me, which was leftover from her son's birthday party. She also told me to make something for her kids with that before they relocate to UK. I was in the process of perfecting my Caramel Custard at that time and didn't end up making anything with that for a while. 2 days before they were leaving to UK I tried making Chocolate Fudge with that chocolate bar. I didn't find a proper recipe for the same and sort of tried a free hand recipe of my own. The outcome was a very tasty but gooey, difficult to handle chocolate paste. It got stuck to the aluminum foil and every time I ate it I had to pull pieces of it out from my mouth and also lick all my fingers. Then I remembered a recipe my sister used to make when we were kids. She got it from a friend of hers - Chocolate delight. So I mixed my gooey chocolate fudge with a little milk, layered it with Parle-G biscuits (in my sister's recipe it is arrowroot biscuits though) dipped in milk. This cut the sweetness a little and turned out handleable and delicious.

Late in the night just the day before they left to UK I managed to feed my friends' 12 year old daughter who was luckily still awake. The one who freaked out on it was another friend's toddler. Since she liked it so much, her mom made similar stuff using biscuits and Nutella, with very good results, though I am yet to taste the same.

Then I landed in Divya's blog and found a chocolate almond biscotti recipe.. I need to finish the kgs of almonds Shyam has brought from Kashmir (what was he thinking!!). So there we went, that is Aparna and I, blanching almonds, cutting chocolate, mixing flour. 

Aparna setting the mix in tray

The biscotti getting baked

 The gooey mix went inside the oven pretty fast. After the initial baking, I needed to cool it before I could cut and bake the sides. I was not patient enough to let the chocolate cool properly before cutting it into smaller pieces for baking the sides. So the biscottis don't look as good as the ones in Divya's blog, but tastes pretty good.

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

There is 700gms of chocolate still left. I will make the biscotti again to get it also to look as good as Divya's ones. Then I will go searching again for more chocolate recipes :)