Culinary Q & A with Meghan

Occupation: Administrative Assistant

What did you eat today?

For breakfast: I always have cereal for breakfast and I always eat breakfast. I’ve never understood how people could go without eating breakfast. If I don’t eat within the first hour of waking up, I start chewing on my own arm, I’m so hungry. Today I had a bowl of Honey-Nut Cheerios. Usually I have Oatmeal Crisp or Mini-Wheats or actual oatmeal.

For lunch: I brought lunch with me to work today and I usually do unless I forget it at home or if the only thing left in our fridge is frozen peas. Today I have a meager lunch of left-overs: cheesy rice with broccoli mixed in (not home-made but pre-made from the grocery store) and some baked ham (also not home-made but pre-made from the store. I try not to eat too much packaged food because then I start feeling like I’m living after the apocalypse or like I’m living on a spaceship. While both of those scenarios are kind of appealing, sometimes I need to eat a real vegetable.)

For dinner: Sad to say but I will probably try to finish off the ham left-overs. I’ll probably make some pasta to go with it and we have a bag of Caesar salad that I have to use up.

I also try to eat little snacks throughout the day because if I don’t I end up ready to gnaw on own foot by the time lunch or supper rolls around. Usually, I will have some fruit or a granola bar.

What do you never eat?

Hmm…I never eat sushi. I don’t like most seafood and I hate raw fish. I wish I did like sushi because it’s such a trendy, sophisticated thing to like but alas, I am neither trendy nor sophisticated.

What is your personal specialty?

Well, I’m really good at picking up the phone and ordering pizza. I like to cook but I’m not very good at it or very creative so I don’t really have a specialty. I like to try new recipes from allrecipes.com. That is my favorite cooking website (aside from cookingforengineers.com – oh my god…best beef stroganoff recipe ever) because they post user reviews which are always helpful.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

My slow-cooker is my favorite kitchen item because it allows me to be a lazy cook while appearing like I’m not.

World ends tomorrow. Describe your last meal.

Eggs Benedict from The Upper Crust. So. Good.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

I love The Italian Kitchen in the West end. It’s a real hole-in-the-wall place and it’s a little divey but the food is soooo good and cheap. The owner makes the food himself, from scratch so you have to wait a while but it’s always worth it. My favorite dish there is the spinach mushroom crepes in a cream sauce.

If I don’t feel like cooking and I want something fast-foody, I will get a salmon bowl from Tokyo Express.

I don’t eat out too much because it really adds up (money wise and calorie wise) but it’s one of my favorite things to do. I love food and I love going to new restaurants.

What's the best place to eat in Edmonton?

Even though I love to eat out, I really don’t do it enough to know where the best place to eat is. A few of my favorites are:
-The Italian Kitchen (For cheap, delicious Italian food)
-Punjabi Sweets (In my humble opinion, the best Indian food buffet in the city. It too is a bit of a dive but the quality of the food more than makes up for it.)
-The Upper Crust (for breakfast)

If you weren’t limited by geography, where and what would you eat?

This is a tough one. I love Italian food so I guess Italy would be the “where” and anything loaded with carb-y goodness would be the “what”. Or possibly some crusty bread and cheese from France. Oh and wine…oh god…the wine.