Our Humble Foodie Beginnings.
When ranking fried potatoes, the highest echelons are reserved for smiley faces frozen potatoes, tater tots, and the Rainforest Cafe’s waffle fries (any disbelievers, go to the Rainforest Cafe and if you still don’t agree with the last statement, I’ll venmo you the refund for your fries order). Nonetheless, it is a very valid claim in saying that our snobby and well-feed generation of Foodies was raised on the likes of Smiley face fries, hot pockets and warheads.
Our generation spends more money on food than any generation before us; arguably part of that is for social interaction however we easily stomach high price tags and exotic items without the blink of the eye, which is strange considering our roots. Let’s look at the heavy hitters of our foundation:
1. Fluffernutter – The cheapest white bread + sugar laced styrofoam that had literally zero nutritional value besides calories and was impossible to spread in small portions also known as Fluff + peanut butter from GMO peanuts (the horror!)
2. Nutty Bars – No words will ever describe how good these were. I would trade anything I had for these. Or Reese’s Sticks. (AH)
3. SunnyD and Tang – Both space-age, orange flavored liquids, you may even call one a kick in a glass – both are probably code words for illegal substances now; our childhood innocence = ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
4. Lunchables – What was it that transformed you into the Bourdain of the cafeteria if you were lucky enough to have a mom that packed you one of these? The sweaty cheese? The wet lunchmeat? The fact that there never seemed to be enough crackers?
5. Bugles – No one actually liked Bugles, you just wanted bugle fingers, LBH
6. Shark bites – “You’ve got eat them… before they eat you!” Violence, sugar, and that white mystery flavor no one could ever identify. Pure magic.
7. Airheads – With that whole Brexit/EU debacle and the general uneasiness of the internation economy, I say we just switch back to the tried-and-true cafeteria currency of Airheads; mystery flavor obviously will still reign King
8. Gushers – If you had these in an Aladin lunch box, you, my friend, were royalty
9. Dunkaroos – Someone plz fix the frosting to cookie ratio and then call me
a
a
Fast forward and look below to how we have grown.
Chikarashi‘s Hokkaido Uni Poké with a soft-poached araucana egg, fresh wasabi, kinome, and asatsuki blossom
Dudley‘s Crispy Rice Salad with a fried egg, watercress, ginger and lime
Dizengoff‘s insane tehina hummus with chips and an egg
Ice & Vice‘s UFO Cone consisting of an Underwest Donut “Car Wash” vanilla lavender donut with three casual scoops of @foodbabyny ice cream (concord grape, donut soil, raspberry doulis, and rainbow sprinkles), “Tico Time” (pink guava & chili lime plantain chip) and “Milk Money” (toasted milk, sea salt & chocolate ganache), all inside a coconut almond macaroon waffle cone
The Wayland‘s Milk & Honey – Burrata with unfiltered extra virgin olive oil, raw honey, smoked pepper and sea salt
ChikaLicious Dessert Club‘s coneCHURROS with vanilla soft serve, caramel drizzle, and rainbow sprinkles, all lovingly housed in a thick churros cone
Estela‘s egg, pancetta, and avocado sandwich
Speedy Romeo‘s the Gravlax, made with grilled dough, fennel cured salmon, ricotta, red onion, capers, and lemon
And the team behind The Wayland and Good Night Sonny’s has a new (and amazing) restaurant in the West Village, The Wild Son, and to the left is their Good Morning Sunshine, featuring an over easy egg, crispy pulled bacon, avocado, tomato and rosemary aioli