About the Sturgeonites

SAM

• Nickname: “Late to Brunch,” “The Spatula”
• Earliest food memory: I was 4. My mom was in the hospital, about to give birth, so I was eating dinner at my Auntie’s house. She, a dietician, took a harder line than my parents on eating a full, balanced meal. I balked at eating either broccoli or well-done pork chop (accounts differ), but she insisted that I couldn’t leave the table until I put at least one more bite in my mouth. Well, my parents called, and we had to leave to see my new baby sister. I was forced to take a large bite of broccoli/pork chop. I stuck it mostly in my cheek, like a squirrel gathering food for the winter, and chewed. We walked out of their house to the car, and I was still chewing. We arrived at the hospital, still chewing. We went up to see my parents, food by now mostly liquid but I was still holding out. My parents gave me a hug. I mumbled a “Hi,” food-juice dripping down my chin. I got in trouble. (I hope you weren’t looking for “earliest heartwarming food memory,” or anything.)
• Favorite sandwich*: Pulled pork.
• Food hero: Yang Bingyi, founder of Din Tai Fung
• Food crush: Calvin Trillin
• French fries – mayonnaise or ketchup? Chili and that awful nacho cheese that comes in those big foil bags. But if we had to pick one of the above, ketchup. Preferably with some tabasco mixed in.
• Least favorite restaurant in DC: La Madeleine French Bakery and Cafe (multiple locations). All I can figure, every time I eat here, is that I just don’t understand how a French Bakery is supposed to work — that I’m ordering from the wrong section of the menu, or there are full meals I should order when I’m getting stuff a la carte, or something. I just always feel dissatisfied afterward.
• Shameful craving: No shame when it comes to desire for guo tie, spam musubi, corned beef hash, kraft dinner, korean fried chicken. But I feel terribly guilty when, sometimes, when it’s hot out or I’m really thirsty, I just really want a can of Coke. Since probably age 17, it’s just never as good as I want it to be, and I know it counter-productively dehydrates, so I feel guilty because I should know better by now. (Mexican import cane-sugar Coke excluded)
• Best book on food: most important book on food — Counter Intelligence: Where to Eat in the Real Los Angeles (Jonathan Gold); first book on food — Kitchen Confidential (Anthony Bourdain)
• Most recently consumed: tortellini (from a supermarket family-pack) alfredo, biscuits (homemade) with chicken pate (homemade), chocolate-chip cookie (homemade)
• Won’t eat: some types of raw fruit, including tomatoes (cooked / processed is fine — it’s a texture thing); I get really frustrated eating small poultry, shrimp-completely-in-shells where you aren’t supposed to eat the head, and feet of non-fowl animals, because the ratio of effort to food is so poor, and I’ll say I’m not going to eat them again, but I don’t mean it.
• Favorite other food blog: the Minimalist (technically a newspaper column but whatever, I read it on the Intertron)
• Who do you hate more – Guy Fieri or Rachael Ray? Guy Fieri. For that show where he eats the promotional giant food items.
• Short about me: I am not short. I eat with chopsticks left-handed, a cause of no small amount of consternation among others. I am heir to generations of strategy about how to best attack an all-you-can-eat buffet. I did not grow up eating rice all the time, but I do now. I feel weird getting a table for one at a restaurant, unless I have a newspaper with me.

* According to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a burrito or taco is not a sandwich, so we’ll save that discussion for another time.

BECCA

• Nickname: “The Loud One,” “Frank,” “Non-Impostor Becca,” “The One Who Always Talks About NYC Food”
• Earliest Food Memory: I don’t remember the event, only the re-telling, but apparently when I was ten or so months old, my parents wanted Chinese food, so they drove to their favorite Chinese restaurant in NYC from home in Northern NJ. Somewhere between the restaurant and the George Washington Bridge, I passed out in the car seat with the orange section clenched in my tiny little baby hand. My older brother put the whole wedge in his mouth like Brando in that scene in the Godfather, and made me laugh when I woke up.
• Favorite sandwich: It’s a tie between Katz’s Deli’s pastrami on rye with JUST enough Gulden’s spicy brown mustard and the Chicken, Mozzarella, and Pesto sandwich on an Italian roll from Cold Cut City on 231st St in the Bronx, where we used to go from high school to get lunch.
• Food hero: My great-aunt Florrie, who had a catering business AND once mailed me homemade Devil Dogs when I was a freshman in college
• Food crush: Bourdain. Bourdain, Bourdain, Bourdain. His books, his show, his hair, his life. Bourdain. Amen.
• French fries – mayonnaise or ketchup? My father’s family is partly in Canada, so I think I’m supposed to have some love for Mayonnaise, but I am ketchup all the way. Or plain. I love fries.
• Least favorite restaurant in DC: Ledo Pizza. Squares? Are you KIDDING me?
• Shameful craving: Frozen vegetables, from out of the bag, while I stand in front of the freezer. Also, frozen grapes, by the grocery store bag.
• Best book on food: “The Botany of Desire” by Michael Pollan. It’s the book that started him down the road toward “Eat Food. Not much. Mostly plants.” but it’s not didactic. It’s a beautifully-written, plant’s-eye-view of how people and plants have “domesticated” each other.
• Most recently consumed: Leftover Buddhist Mixed Vegetables from Mr. Chen’s Organic Chinese (I am neither a vegetarian nor one who only eats organic, it’s my favorite take-out joint in DC and my stomach was bothering me yesterday so I wanted something light), brown rice (homemade because I ate the white rice last night instead of the veggies), Diet Coke (I prefer from the fountain, but I can handle from the can)
• Won’t eat: Mushrooms of all kinds (that includes Morels and Truffles – I don’t CARE if 19 French people died trying to smuggle this from Alsace, I don’t want your fungus!), raisins (but I will eat all other dried fruit and LOVE grapes when not dried), Taiglach (Jewish Passover dessert), papayas
• Favorite other food blog: Smitten Kitchen. (This past holiday season, I was staying with a friend in Maine and as a gift, I made her the SK homemade oreos. I moved on to stay with a friend in Boston who had made the same cookies ON THE SAME DAY. Clearly magic.)
• Who do you hate more – Guy Fieri or Rachael Ray? Guy Fieri. I can’t tell a lie, I learned to feel confident in the kitchen watching Rachael Ray. Her voice may cut glass and her abbrev’s may be cutesy, but I learned a lot watching her throw stuff together. Also, I hate Guy Fieri.
• Short about me: As you may have surmised, I hail from NYC. It is my food touchpoint, and although I acknowledge that other places have great food and are worth seeing, I just instinctively compare to New York. I’ll try not to so much on the blog. Unlike Sam, I am short. I am the only non-hapa on this blog, although I lived in Hong Kong for a semester while in college, and traveled throughout Asia afterwards. The only food adventures I have told myself not to fall down the rabbit holes of: baking my own bread and buying my own deep fryer.

HILLARY

• Nickname: “Miss Hillary,” “IGR,” “Yes I Am Really Going To Eat That”
• Earliest Food Memory: I have vague recollections of the Chinese buffets where my parents, (then) poor college students, used to take me as a baby. They also claim to have taken me to a place called Gordo’s Mexicateria. Fortunately I seem to have blocked that out.
• Favorite sandwich: Four-way tie: pulled pork, banh mi, Hot Brown and, uh, Chick-fil-A. Don’t judge.
• Food hero(es): my Vietnamese father, who makes killer French food, and my white mother, who makes killer Vietnamese food.
• Food crush: #1 fat man Jeffrey Steingarten
• French fries – mayonnaise or ketchup? Up until a few months ago I would have said ketchup, but I think Spike Mendelsohn and his damned flavored mayos have changed my mind.
• Least favorite restaurant in DC: I remain unimpressed with the Heights’ non-brunch offerings. I feel like I’m supposed to like it because it’s local and it’s in Columbia Heights, but I don’t.
• Shameful craving: sometimes I want grocery store sushi. Just, you know, spicy tuna roll or whatever.
• Best book on food: The one that had the most impact on me growing up was The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors, which I read cover-to-cover at the age of seven. Now, however, I’m loving Julia Child’s My Life in France.I’m also on the Pollan bandwagon, I love (of course) The Man Who Ate Everything, and I highly recommend The United States of Arugula. Okay, I’m done.
• Most recently consumed: doctored-up creamy black-eyed pea soup with cumin, no-knead bread, grapefruit juice from Trader Joe’s. I wish I hadn’t eaten all my roommate’s alfajores.
• Won’t eat: fake sugar or the products containing it, iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, raw onions, canned tuna, most things involving hot dogs
• Favorite other food blog: I get really excited when I see that Smitten Kitchen has updated. Probably because she’s not overly precious.
• Who do you hate more – Guy Fieri or Rachael Ray? I HATE RACHAEL RAY. I can’t rationalize this. I just do.
• Short about me: 50% Asian, 100% sexy.