What are your favorites? What makes them stand out to you?

The top end root beers trend towards creamy or spicy. That's the spectrum. Our favorites are: Sprechter's (traditional out of Wisconsin I think), Henry Weinhardt's Root Beer (a local brewery that makes a fantastic root beer), and Virgil's (which favors lots of natural ingredients).

There are some other good ones too, like Sparky's, but those are definitely our three favs. Personally I like it very creamy but with a good amount of spice. More creamy than spicy though (which probably means more vanilla in the mix).

Because I thought it might be upsetting to some stomachs to interrupt a food discussion with carrion.

Thanks! It's good to know the method I've chosen to scar this poor character for life (given that his brother and father are among the seagull food) works.

Shee-it. Chief Justice Roberts suffered a seizure.

Also, Bill Walsh died. RIP.

eta: And Tom Snyder.

Sheesh.

Cilantro Yay/Grapefruit Yay

Add me to this list. Definitely.

Registering for pole dancing in another window. Very exciting. Talking with the women who've taken this class before has been very informative. One woman, who swears she's remedial at best says that even remedial pole dancing looks hot, and it makes her feel more attractive in general, although she's never done it anywhere other than class.

I joked that for the women I know it either makes them painfully hot or dramatically undateable--I mean, krav, trapeze, pole dancing? Either a wet dream or a nightmare.

Since I don't do trapeze I should be safe. Perfectly dateable, me. Oh yes.

I don't care about cilantro one way or another, and am keeping mum on the root beer topic.

That means we get to guess.

My kittens are on no for ita and root beer-- too sweet.

Anyone want to risk a tabby?

Hi all.

Cilantro? Yay.

Grapefruit? Meh. I haven't had one in years, but I've only ever been able to eat them if they're positively smothered in sugar, which pushes it too much to the opposite end of the spectrum. If I were pressed, I'd have to say nay on the grapefruit.

Bacon? Hell yeah.

Olives? Gloomcookie and Vortex, if you don't share, I will cut the both of you. Calabrese olives are my favorite. They have a nice bite to them.

Octopus and calamari? Most definitely, but it must be cooked in such a way that it's not rubbery. Grilled with a little salt and lemon is delish.

Root beer? Only in a root beer float and very rarely. Most of the sodas I drink are of the diet variety; the regular versions are too sweet and give me a stomach ache.

Pancakes? Never in a million years. Their texture is all wrong. This is most likely the reason why I don't like Ethiopian cuisine. I can't get past the texture of injera.

Brunch peeps, I had a fabulous time and I'm sorry I didn't get to hang out longer. It's a shame none of us are talkers, though....

Kat brought up utensils. That got me thinking, notsomuch about which ones are used, but HOW they are used. If they are right-handed, most Americans will hold the fork in the left and the knife in the right, but once the food is cut, will switch the fork to the right hand to consume it. Europeans will keep the fork in the left hand for the actual eating if they are right-handed. I wonder how the difference came about. FTR, I use a fork and knife European style.

I read one theory of the difference in knife/fork usage between the US and Europe that said that the settlers in what is now the US didn't start using forks on a wide basis until the 18th century or so, and as a result, would cut with their knives in the right hand and spoons in the left to steady the meat, and then scoop up the meat pieces in the spoon after switching it over to the right hand. After the fork became more widely available, they kept the same motions.

I'm not really up on how cilantro tastes, so can't rate yes/no on it, but I definitely do not like grapefruit, can take or leave squid, and lovelovelove root beer (although A&W and Hires are worse than Barq's in terms of massmarket brands, and IBC and Sprechters are much better in the higher-end brands). But, I'll say that one of my favorite soft drinks is the ginger ale available at Big Bowl restaurants here in Chicagoland--real ginger infused in fizzy soda water, yum!

This is such a nice case of the excellent timing of a hivemind-at-work - just over the weekend, over shabbat meal, we were wondering about the knife-in-the-right-hand-fork-in-the-left, with the sometimes switch-the-fork-to-the-right-hand-in-order-to-eat that some people do.

[Edit: our very rough based on almost-nothing conclusion was that most of the people who switch immigrated (or their parents or grandparents immigrated) from European countries (Ashkenazi), while those who don't switch (I don't) - mostly from everywhere else, North Africa, for example (Sepharadi).]

Of the family of the Good Ex of the East, the German relatives didn't switch and the USian relatives did. I do. Er, for data collecting purposes. Hi, Nilly!