Hash browned potatoes, Hummus-mushroom-tomato sandwich

I went with a friend to see a very nice larger-than-life outdoor puppet show, “As The Crow Flies: tales from four directions”, by Paperhand Puppet Intervention; my wife had to rush home for some work matters. After the show, we all ate together. I put together a quick meal that I think was reasonably tasty.

I periodically make brunch, and often make hash browned potatoes then. I am picky with my first meal and don't like onions, garlic, or anything heavier than plain hash browns. Tonight I put together a hash brown, but included onions, sweet peppers, and toasted arbol pepper hot sauce. I am so happy that organic corn is finally available, and love making roasted corn with Earth Balance non-hydrogenated margarine, lime juice, and salt. I also made a sandwich with whole wheat bread of tomato-basil hummus with tomato and a mushroom saute (I sauteed a few types of organic mushrooms and, when they were almost done, put a little Merlot red wine in, and shredded fresh basil; I mixed in some freshly ground black pepper and salt).

Yesterday, we attended a wedding reception with good Indian food. I couldn't believe how good the kachoris (referenced below; vegetables in flattened dough, fried) were! We also enjoyed good rice and several vegetables at the all-vegetarian and mostly all-vegan spread.

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Five Items Everybody Should Try

According to fzelders.nl/weblog, a meme is "an idea, project, statement or even a question that is posted by one blog and responded to by other blogs. Although the term encompasses much of the natural flow of communication in the Blogosphere, there are active bloggers and blog sites that are dedicated to the creation of memes on a regular basis". Today I was "tagged" with a meme coincidentally by both Chris at Eat Air - A Vegan Food Log and primaryconsumer at A day in the life of a vegan. The meme, started by The Traveler's Lunchbox on August 21, asks food bloggers to select five "top picks for things you've eaten and think that everyone should eat at least once before they die". They already have 163 people (and 163x5 = 815) responses.

I need to think about this for a few days, but some candidates that come to mind right now are:

• A dish from my favorite restaurant, Millenium (San Francisco, CA)
• Tempeh in some form - either sauteed tempeh in general or some specific dish
• One of my current favorite treats, Ciao Bella Blood Orange Sorbet
• Some of my favorite fruits like Minneola tangelo
• My chocolate baklava (currently number 9 in a google search of "chocolate baklava"!)
• A dessert from the gourmet vegan restaurant Sublime (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
• Isle of Bute Foods' vegan "Scheese" (from Scotland and unfortunately not available in the U.S.; I discovered it in London this past January)
• A coconut-milk based vegan cake from Café Parizäde here in Durham, NC - as well as their grilled polenta with spinach (or maybe the annual Thanksgiving event in general - for a few years it has been the country's largest vegetarian Thanksgiving -- in 2005, for example, we had almost 500 people come from near and far for a huge menu of all-vegan gourmet food!)
• Any number of my Mom's dishes, such as her kachori or even homemade pizza (we lived for some years in Ohio in a multi-family home owned and occupied on one level by a lovely Italian woman who came to be in name and feeling a beloved grandmother of mine)
• Vegan pizza from Pizza Lucé (Minneapolis, MN - they make their own cashew "cheese") or DaVinci's Gourmet Pizza (Nashville, TN)
• A good rava masala dosa.
• I am currently excited about my idea from about a month ago of creating lime-seitan sticks, but that may be a passing fad.
• Perhaps a fresh from the oven hot sticky bun from Sticky Fingers Bakery (Washington, D.C.)?
• How about some divine dark chocolate of more than 65% cocoa content - such as from Sharffen Berger, Chocolove (especially their hand-numbered single-origin vintage Chocolatour bars), Endangered Species (especially Deep Forest Mint, Supreme Dark, and Dark with Cocoa Nibs)?

I can list only five?!