Asking you, dear readers, for your Top 5 fresh herbs was a way to help us think spring. This winter has honestly killed me. It has been one of the longest and, even today, only five days before the beginning of April, I’m about to put on my ugly, annoying, tired heavy coat on my ugly, annoying, tired, uber-white (my skin is almost clear at this point) body. Just leaving off a hat these days is making me happy. No gloves? I’m doing somersaults in the streets.

Thank you for your excellent Top 5 Herbs. Some took alot of thought (which, you know we loved). Some of our favorites were Stacey of Stacey Snacks and her mention of a “BIG ASS POT of basil” – we can’t wait to plant ours. Giff of Constables Larder reminded us about the “red headed stepchild of herbs” – bay leaf. It’s true – it’s often forgotten, but so useful.  The Daily Spud made us realize how versatile the lovely and delicious rosemary plant is, helping us create both savory and sweet bites.  Heather, naturally, brought the crazy with her excellently thought-out list (and yes, Heather, you can win twice in this contest) – pineapple sage?  Fennel fronds? Lemon balm!?  LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS, OH MY!  Rachel’s choice of curly parsely made me laugh and also made me realize that some people actually love the stuff.  I guess it’s not just used as a really bad garnish on a cheeseburger plate.  Drfugawe so lovingly reminded us that mint ain’t just delicious in salads, but you can’t ever kill it.  Briga, an Italian with bold taste, decided that cilantro/coriander was an herb he couldn’t live without.  I’d agree with him.   Finally, one of our faves, Mark at No Recipes, reminds us that there are many more herbs that we need to learn about and love: green shiso and mitsuba.

Thank you to all for letting us in on your top 5.  Unfortunately, we can only pick one winner because we’re too poor to purchase two books.  And, thanks to our “custom random number generator”, today’s winner is….
Angela @ Angela’s Food Love.

Congrats, Angela.  Hope you enjoy our little package of seeds and the herb book.  Please join us next month for some more Top 5.

So, with that, I am proud (pun intended) to announce this month’s Top 5 winner thanks to that online random generator… Commenter #22 Proud Italian Cook.  She is the lucky winner of a few of our fave porky products – some Goya ham stock cubes (when you’re in a hurry), achiote paste (fabulous with many Latin pork dishes like pernil and cochinitas pibil), dried corn husks for tamales and dried pasilla peppers (mild in flavor, try them in some tortilla soup, chili or a mole). Congrats!  Proud Italian Cook does mainly, well, Italian food.  Hopefully she’ll be able to use some of these porky products in her Italian kitchen.

Thank you to everyone for all the thoughtful answers.  It is very hard to think of just five top pork products, but you did a great job.  Some of favorite answers were lardo di colonnata (how could I leave this one off my list?), char siu, pork belly, ribs of any sort,  Siu yuk (Chinese roast pig with cracklins), ham and cheese crèpes from Parisian street vendors (thanks for this drool-worthy imagery, Duo Dishes), and finally, one we’d love to try, Peter’s own “magic sex bacon”. Thanks again, all. Join us next time when we want to know your Top 5.  And remember, you can win again if you’ve been a previous winner – just not twice in a row.
 

‘Tis the season, so in that spirit, we’re joyously giving away two prizes to the winners of this month’s top five – your favorite holiday foods/drinks.

This month’s entries were fascinating, perhaps more fascinating than usual because the unique choices allowed us a small but intimate window into your lives, especially those that came with explanations of the traditions. Of course, there were also the inexplicable traditions, like Rachel (S[d]OC) and the case of the holiday cheese grits, jensenly’s Christmas fondue, and Heather’s English summer trifle.

But, without further ado, the winners of this month’s top five challenge (who will soon – holiday post service permitting – be the proud recipients of Jonny’s homemade mulled wine spice mix) are: (cue drumroll)

Joe @ Italyville (we love the 7 fish dinner and, even more so, the rabbit on Christmas Day)

Heather @ Gild the Voodoolilly (what’s better than a nut-encrusted cheese ball surrounded by cocktail weenies…?)

But, thanks to all who entered and shared with us their holiday traditions, likes and dislikes. Happy holidays to you all and best wishes for a healthy and delicious New Year! 

Not your average Christmas meal…

We couldn’t let this month go by without doing some sort of “holiday themed” post. We were scratching our head trying to come up with this months “Top 5″ contest thinking of such winners as, “Top 5 Most Friggin’ Annoying Christmas Tunes” and “Top 5 Christmas Sweaters Your Mom Owns” but settled on our original, and simple, idea of asking you to divulge your Top 5 favorite foods and/or drinks that you only really have around the holidays.

The first Christmas Jonny and I spent together was his first Christmas living in America. It was a bittersweet time for him because it was a reminder that he was really, really living in the US and not going home to the UK for awhile. It was also a serious reminder to him that he was stuck spending more time with my family than with his own. Not that there was anything wrong with him thinking this – my family is very loud, very loving and very crazy (in a good way?) and a quiet ‘ole Englishman would sometimes love to press the “mute” button on all of us every once in awhile if he could. That first Christmas, I thought I was pretty clear about our family’s traditions. We “do it up” for Christmas Eve dinner and our Christmas Day is basically spent leisurely opening up gifts and watching 5 reruns of “A Christmas Story” in a row only to be interrupted around 1PM by my mother screaming “brunch is on the table”. Brunch usually consists of some eggs, scrapple, pork roll, bagels and anything else that is found in the fridge. It’s nothing really that special, I guess.

This particular Christmas, I believe we all slept in. If memory serves correct, we all didn’t start opening up gifts till about 1PM and brunch was moved to about 3 or 3.30PM. After brunch we continued our normal Christmas Day which usually also involves a nap. Jonny and I awoke from our nap on the couch to find my sister also asleep and my mom and dad gone. They were invited to the neighbor’s house for dinner as were we. But Jonny was still in his “getting to know everyone” phase and, during this time, he was often treated as a specimen, being poked and prodded as though no one had ever encountered anyone from another country in their life. “So you really are English, Jonny, huh!? That’s soooo cool!”

A Ginger-Bling Would be a Fine, Strong Christmas Drink

Needless to say, Jonny didn’t want to go to the neighbors. He pouted as he looked around wondering what the frig was going on. “It’s Christmas! Where is everybody? When is everyone going to start cooking!?” I sat there unable to really understand why he was so upset, “Well, Jonny, we don’t really cook Christmas Day dinner. We have our big night on Christmas eve. I guess we could just go to the neighbors if you want to eat.” He couldn’t believe it… he began to get very irritated and sad… actually sad! As the night unfolded, we ended having our first disagreement based on our different Christmas traditions. I tried to do the best I could to make him feel better pouring him a huge glass of something strong and telling him we were going to make this work. WE were going to cook our own Christmas Day dinner. In my fantasy we’d start our own tradition. And then we looked in my parents fridge – nothing, not even leftovers from Christmas Eve dinner. We looked in the freezer – holy shit. Nothing but a ball of hamburger meat!!! And then I walked to the pantry with a desperate look on my face and there it was in all it’s glory – a can of Sloppy Joe mix. And that’s what I made my new love who moved across the ocean to be with me – canned slopply joe on toast. Why he’s still here I’ll never know. One thing I can tell you is that sloppy joe’s will NOT be on Jonny’s Top 5 Holiday Food list!

So, without further ado, I have based my Top 5 Favorite Holiday Food/Drink on the traditions I grew up with. You know, those things that only rear their head in December or only on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

1. My mom’s kind of gross, but very delicious Crab Dip that is on the app table every Christmas Eve (recipe involves mayo, cream cheese, sherry and lump crab or KRAB if you must).
2. Chestnuts (roasted on an open fire – kidding, we’ve never done that at home)
3. Egg Nog (the processed kind that is local to the Philadelphia region – ie: Wawa brand)
4. This delicious appetizer that our good family friend always bring over that involves a dried apricot topped with nuts and some cream cheese. Not sure what the hell it’s called but it’s DAMN good.
5. Communion. Let’s be honest, the lord’s communion tastes better after 2 cosmo’s, 6 glasses of wine and 2 Sambuca’s before midnight mass.

Hey, Jonny, why don’t you chime in with your Top 5?

1. mulled wine (gluhwein/vin chaud). Nothing says Christmas to me like the taste and smell of the aromatic spices in mulled wine, not to mention that warm alcohol goes straight to your head.
2. brandy or rum butter/hard sauce: I actually hate this stuff with a passion, but again it’s redolent of the Christmases of my youth when my grandma (gawd bless her) would have a tiny piece of Christmas pudding topped with about a pint of hard sauce, and then pass out about half an hour later. Not sure whether it was the booze or the cholesterol.
3. mince pies: another English tradition, but this one I really like. there’s no mince (it’s dried fruit & nuts, sugar and spices) in a sweet pastry sprinkled with sugar. perfect combination is a glass of mulled wine in one hand and a mince pie in the other, possibly mumbling some Christmas carols and trying not to spit raisins and hazelnut bits everywhere.
4. cheddar cheese and pineapple cubes on cocktail sticks: the essential 1980s hors d’oeuvre that always seems to get resurrected at Christmas.
5. Christmas cake: again, I’m not that keen on this traditional cake of dried fruit, nuts, sugar and spice wrapped in marzipan (frangipane) and thick white icing which is left to improve for at least a month before Yule, especially since I have awful memories of taking my sister’s Barbie plate and destroying my mother’s perfectly smooth icing one year and making her cry.

Nominate and Win!
Tell us what your top five Holiday comestibles are and win yourself some hand-made sachets of mulling spices and enjoy the holidays with some spiced-up booze!

As you might remember, last month Choosy Beggar Tina won herself the wonderful prize of a selection of English potato chips (crisps) by picking the most enticing variety of flavors in the inaugural We Are Never Full monthly top five giveaway. This month we’re focusing our attention on the vastly underrated group of foods that make up the world of condiments.

Flexible, complimentary, multi-purpose, and flavorful, condiments are the journeymen of the food world, and have been unfairly looked down on by the gastonomic cognoscenti as only good enough to disguise the taste of flavorless food or as just a topping burgers, hot dogs and fries. No longer. Condiments of all kinds are an essential part of many kinds of dishes, both as ingredients and as sauces, and we’re giving them the respect they’re due. So, go to your fridge and tell us which of your favorite condiments are clinking together in the door. The best top five will win a bottle of our latest condiment obsession, the very wonderful Pepper Plant’s Chunky Garlic Hot Pepper Sauce.

Entries must be submitted by 1:30 p.m. (EST), Monday, November 10.

Amy’s Top Five Condiments: (in reverse order)

5. hot sauce (pref. Frank’s)

4. Maille smooth Dijon mustard

3. blue cheese dressing

2. sour cream

1. Heinz ketchup and Hellmann’s real (full fat) mayonnaise mixed

Jonny’s Top Five Condiments: (in reverse order)

5. mango chutney

4. raita (yoghurt, cucumber and mint)

3. Lea n’Perrins Worcestershire sauce

2. HP sauce

1. Frank’s Original Hot Sauce

Check Out some other posts you might enjoy:

• Top Five Crisps
• Bandeja Paisa – A Colombian Gut-Buster
• Good Eats: Man TV?
• Striking Over Pasta?
• You Have A Friend in Cheeses