Foodie meme: second helpings

[shewhomust]

In fact, picking up exactly where I left off:

What sauces can you not live without?

It occurs to me that there are times when nothing but mayonnaise will do. Sometimes the real thing is better, but mostly, Hellmans will do just fine (I wouldn't want to put the real thing on my chips, for example).

Where do you buy most of your food?

Most, by volume, still the supermarket, though I'm working on that.

How often do you go food shopping?

Two or three times a week - one big shop and then odds and ends and emergencies.

What's the most you've spent on a single food item?

Haven't a clue. Mostly, it isn't the single expensive items that cause expenditure, it's the way stuff adds up.

What's the most expensive piece of kitchen equipment you own?

Does the cooker count?

What's the last piece of equipment you bought for your kitchen?

Probably a coffeepot.

What piece of kitchen equipment could you not live without?

Knives. And a steel to sharpen them with - which will probably be my next purchase, as I seem to have worn out my steel.

How many times a week/month do you cook from raw ingredients?

Pretty much every day, and often more than once.

What's the last thing you cooked from raw ingredients?

Does baked potatoes with tuna salad count? How about dates and bananas in yoghourt for dessert tonight? No? Then it'll be last night's salad and rice pudding.

What's your favorite thing to make for yourself?

Just one thing, and just for me? Toast, probably. Or the salad of grated root vegetables. I like cooking for other people, but I don't do elaborate cooking just for me.

What meats have you eaten besides cow, pig, chicken and turkey?

See what I mean about cultural assumptions? Lamb's the obvious omission here, but I know there are whole areas of the US where it's a rarity.
Apart from lamb, then, and mutton: goat; deer (and reindeer); duck, goose, pheasant, guinea fowl, pigeon, quail; rabbit, hare; frogs and snails (if snails are meat); ostrich.

What's the last time you ate something that had fallen on the floor?

That's not a memorable occurrence in my kitchen.

What's the last time you ate something you'd picked in the wild?

When the blackberries were fruiting last summer.

Place the following cuisines in order of preference (greatest to least):

Actually, no, I'm not going to do this. That isn't how it works.
[Indian, Chinese, sushi, Thai, Mexican, French, Italian.]

Place the following boozes in order of preference (greatest to least):

whisky, brandy, rum, gin, tequila, vodka.
It depends on the whisky, obviously, and the brandy - I'd take most single malts in preference to cognac; armagnac in preference to a Speyside malt. I don't do industrial vodka.

Place the following flavors in order of preference (greatest to least):

garlic, basil, ginger, lime, aniseed.
I suppose garlic has to come first, I use so much of it - though it's more about what it contributes to the dish than in its pure form. And I prefer lemon to lime.

Bread and spread:

Yes, please. Wholemead or soda bread or dark rye or sourdough or... And I prefer my butter unsalted.

What's your fast food restaurant of choice, and what do you usually order?

Chippie! And I order haddock and chips (except once a year, at the Gala, when I have chips and curry sauce.

What's your choice of tipple at the end of a long day?

At the very end of the day? Armagnac or single malt.

Favorite cookbook/s?

Claudia Roden's Middle Eastern cookbook.

Got any favorite food blogs?

The Old Foodie.

What's the next thing you'll eat?

That depends what the next thing is that I cook. There's the last of the roast - but shall I make potato and celeriac mash to go with it, or shall I stir-fry some vegetables and serve them with the saffron pasta?