We love Butler soy curls. I soak them in water sometimes, but usually vegetable broth of some kind, sometimes water with a good slug of soy or fish sauce added. Then I drain and squeeze, and saute. They brown quickly and this adds a lot to the flavor. The Butler people sell a chik-style seasoning which is pretty good, lots of nutritional yeast in there I think, I often sprinkle this on during the saute step. Then I add them to whatever - favorites are cubed cactus with chile and cumin for tacos, green chile gravy, onion gravy. I've added soy curls to stir fries often, I use it like chicken. They are delicious. Taco night at our house is generally soy curls.

Growing up in the midwest, with foodie tendencies:

The local chinese restaurant where Chinese people ate, with a pal, asked for spicy dish - the waiter told us we did not want it, we insisted we did, and got something szechuan with dried peppers (we picked around them), numbing peppery tastes, and squid. I didn't know it was squid at the time, but remember the white meaty morsels with cross-hatches curled in on themselves. Never had any of these before, this was in 82 I think, before there was szechuan anything that I'd ever heard of, it was amazing. I was 14, I think actually this changed my life, forever, and directly led to me being on this forum. The shock, the pleasure, the discovery, I was so young and it was just formative, ya know?

My first oyster, 89: I didn't really do this myself, one of my roommates showed up at midnight with two big coolers full of oysters he'd picked up on the Texas gulf while visiting his parents. We all got into them with some screwdrivers and a swiss army knife, ate them with tabasco and a bottle of cheap whiskey somebody contributed. OMG. The taste of the sea, I still have dreams about this sometimes.

Fish sauce, yeah, I suppose in the 90s - heard about it, went to the asian grocery and bought some after reading about it in Saveur magazine. Pretty soon was putting it on my oatmeal, haha, sort of like congee but I didn't know such a thing existed at that point.

And then, most recently, a few years ago went into a little mexican place by the tracks in KCKS, saw tripas tacos on the menu. Well, I like tripe, I thought, and ordered them. The gal serving me asked if I wanted them crispy and I said sure. Oh my goodness, not tripe - so much better - crispy little elbows of chitlin deliciousness, in their fresh corny tortillas made to order, full of onions and cilantro. I was astonished, so good, so ummmm, couldn't believe it, a new thing. Still obsessed with tripas tacos, but never had any so good as the ones at El Matador Cafe on Merriam Drive in Kansas City KS, down by the railroad tracks and the propane yard.

I agree, it's strange. I just clocked my first month in my new home near Portland OR in the Pacific NW - foodie paradise, right? But ... spent the last 20 years in Kansas City. The food here is different, I miss my locals, I have found myself searching out the few mexican places where I can find tacos de tripas like I had back home. The guacamole is weird, I think they grind up lettuce or something in it. I went to Pok Pok, it was good, I shouldn't complain. But they don't sell the same things quite in the grocery. Ok, we had dungeness crab last night and it was delightful. Still, need to do some adjusting. We hear about BBQ here but aren't about to do that, jeez, how could it be any good? Bright side, excellent tofu made locally, downside they don't have any that's smoked. No cincinnati chili.

Well, this isn't dinner normally but I've been making "Vegetable Gravy" for biscuits on Sunday mornings quite a lot this summer, and plan to do it again with the (probably) last haul from the farmer's market on Sat. this weekend.
My method: fry thinly sliced mushrooms in oil or butter in a hot pan so they get brown and a little crispy. Add about 1/4 as much onion in small dice, saute, add a clove or two of garlic, cook for a minute and then add small dice of zucchini or other squash, ripe red bell pepper, etc. Sometimes I change it up and add par-cooked carrot or turnip, kohlrabi etc, also in small dice. Cook till the veggies are starting to brown a little and the mixture is fairly dry. Then add flour sufficient to thicken, 1 T per cup of liquid approx. and saute for a minute. I use almond milk for the gravy usually. S&P to taste, I like a lot of black pepper. Usually a little lemon juice and chopped parsley at the end to brighten it up. This is good on biscuits, which of course should be in the oven while you are finishing your gravy. MM good.

I do this too, it makes shopping time consuming but I try to stagger the trips. Natural Grocers for bulk nuts and vegetarian proteins like tofu, seitan etc. once a month (much cheaper usually than Whole Paycheck or the regular supermarket, there is no Sprouts near me so have not tried that one). Aldi for vegetables in the winter, and staples like beans and rice, almond milk, canned/frozen vegetables once a month. Costco for paper goods, nuts, olive oil, maybe once every couple-three months. Local farmer markets from May - Oct for vegetables weekly, and eggs when I need them once a month or so. And Hen House, my local sort-of high end conventional supermarket, for loss leader deals on cheese, free range local eggs in the non-farmer-market season, and some locally sold coffee that I love and don't want to live without (Roasterie French Caramel Cream, it's great).

We've been eating bitter melon, it's addictive stuff - I was afeerd, but like dandelion and escarole, so tried it out. It does have an astringent flavor, but is very good and I want it again and again. I clean out the pith, as explained by the farmer market vendor/internet. Slice it thin, salt for a while. Rinse off and stir fry with some sugar, maybe a little sherry and black vinegar or balsamic.

Really good with creamy scrambled eggs, and in fried rice. We also like it on grits or polenta. It tastes like nothing else I have ever eaten, which is why I love the foodie carnival ride. :)

My folks were fairly poor when I was young, not actually poor since my dad had a steady job as a french literature professor, but mom didn't work until I was about 9, and that assistant french professor salary was pretty small and there were four of us kids. Back then he did not get paid in the summer, Mom grew a big garden and we ate out of that. Beans to supplement, and home-baked bread. Dad needs meat at meals so we had: Corned beef hash (lots of potatoes, one can of corned beef, mixed together); hamburger many ways, usually as a sauce for rice or potatoes or noodles, 1/2 lb per meal for 6 - tomato sauce with spaghetti, stroganoff (canned mushroom soup, lots of dill from garden) with noodles, etc. Lots of garbanzo beans, tabbouli salad with garden veggies, and in the winter a lot of soup beans and biscuits.

I love SOS to this day, chipped beef creamed on toast, that was a pretty fancy meal. Don't eat this often anymore, mostly it's creamed eggs on toast. Regularly in the winter have soup beans with biscuit dumplings, one of my favorites. I am mostly (ovo-lacto) vegetarian now, but Mom's recipes never really needed meat.

This is not helpful to Jayometer's question, but due to the latest posts about ethiopian-eritrean, I thought I'd share. Was once, in the 90s, in a restaurant that said "Ethiopian" on the sign. In Vegas. Inside, it was a small bar-restaurant, emphasis on the bar. There were 8 or 10 guys at the bar area, clearly doing some serious day-drinking and talking animatedly. Two were missing legs. Then I noticed that there were machine guns hung up on the wall, several of them. And then I noticed that the flags were not the Ethiopian flag, it was the Eritrean flag. Not sure how I knew that, must have seen it on the news. It was then that I figured out, I was NOT in an Ethiopian restaurant. The food was great and one of the drinkers came over and insisted on giving us booze. A pretty good late lunch, that was, at the Retired Eritrean Freedom Fighter bar.

I make enchiladas with a filling of crumbled, well-browned firm tofu "chorizo" - I take inspiration from Kenji Lopez-Alt's recipe, though I don't follow it exactly always. I add chopped mushrooms, a chopped onion, and maybe some diced zucchini, bell pepper etc. I saute all this till it's fairly dry, in batches. In olive or peanut oil. In a pinch, I have seasoned it with a packet of taco seasoning, which actually isn't a bad idea if you are serving your non-foodie family. I make my own chile sauce with anchos and pasillas, but Hatch is a decent canned brand. Fry corn tortillas till leathery, blot well on a towel to remove excess grease, and roll up after dipping in the chile sauce with plenty of cheese or vegan cheese substitute. I bake these without sauce on top to avoid too much early mushiness, and pour on extra chile sauce prior to serving. People love them, and don't know they aren't made of meat unless I tell them.

Lot of people put up info on yelp. KC peeps do a lot of home cooking too I think. But I too am sad that there is not much KC traffic here because yelp requires a lot of sifting. I personally LOVE ABC Cafe, not just for the dim sum (which is great) but also for the wonderful steamed red snapper, the delightful beef with pickled vegetable (some sort of pickled cabbage) the mild and lovely chicken with ginger, and the incredible, delicious appetizer of turnip cake squares with XO "sauce", a dice of jalapenos and crispy fried shallot. Tater tots from heaven is what these are.

I'm not much of a frequenter of fine dining, what there is of it in JoCo. But there's no better lunch than tacos at the Olathe branch of Bonito Michoacan grocery. Talk of the Town (bar-restaurant) at 119th & Quivira has an awesome Saturday night steak special, a strip and salad and baked potato for something like $12. There's a very good Korean restaurant at 7800 Shawnee Mission Pkwy, Sobahn. A great little Salvadorean diner El Pulgarcito at Shawnee Mission Pkwy & Merriam Drive in Shawnee.

I love eggs every way except raw. When fried poached or boiled, I want the white cooked and the yolk runny, but make plenty of exceptions. A runny-yolk fried egg sandwich is guaranteed to mess up your shirt in the car for example, so for that purpose I want the yolks broken and cooked firm. I like scrambled eggs best when they are creamy and just barely cooked, with a few curds and a lot of bavuese egg. You gotta cook the eggs last and pay attention for this to work out. Hard boiled eggs are delightful, especially when still warm, and demand a lot of salt and pepper to dip the egg in.

I currently work on a large office campus - the only realistic purchase option without taking a long lunch is the mostly-disappointing cafeteria. So I bring my lunch. Usually veggies, a bit of leftover dinner (which could be soup, or a taco made of leftovers, or the tail end of the steak dinner I had out on the weekend). If no leftovers, a cheese or peanut butter sandwich with some frozen veggies steamed in the microwave while I get ready for work. A piece of fruit which I usually eat in the AM for a snack/breakfast since otherwise my breakfast is coffee with milk. A hunk of cheese and some crackers for the afternoon. It's not fancy but it keeps me happy without feeling gross, which is what a lousy cafeteria burger would do.

Addictive would be candy. I use sugar like a drug. Never eat it at home hardly, (not militant about this, I use ketchup on fried potatoes and every now and then put jam on my toast, but just don't want sweets mostly) - but when at work? OMG, if there's candy I will eat it until I have sores on my tongue and my joints ache. Because work sucks, apparently, and although I like my job okay, my body/brain says I need to feel happier. Sugar does this for me for half an hour, then I must have more. I try to not have access to candy at work.