Tag Archives: best thing I ever ate

Winner: Just-melted borscht at the end of a desert hike? ‘Incredible’

23 May

Thom Cheney and friend, Bart Forry, on their way down from Observation Point in Zion National Park.

Time spent with the Boy Scouts typically introduces young men  to hot dogs — not borscht.

However most of us first encounter the classic beet soup, Thom Cheney, a solo graphic designer in Portland, Ore., had a bit more serendipitous introduction.

And because he did, he’s the winner of a night for two at the Hood River Hotel and a guided rafting trip on the White Salmon River with Zoller’s Outdoor Odysseys.

Cheney entered our April sweepstakes with a brief tale of “the  best thing I ever ate.” Here’s what he wrote:

Hiking in the southern California desert with a friend. He snuck a frozen container of borscht into my pack that his Russian neighbor made. After a long, hot hike, it was incredible and worth the trouble of packing it in!

Cheney and his friend, Bart Forry, had grown up in Riverside, Calif. As Boy Scouts, they had been introduced to the nearby San Gorgonia Wilderness and Whitewater Preserve.

After high school, the two hooked up again, and decided to return to the Pacific Crest Trail where it passes through the Whitewater Canyon. It’s a desert environment. Hot. Dry. Perfect for … cool, refreshing, recently-melted-in-the-backpack borscht.

Cheney recently was reminded of that trip while attending a conference in Palm Desert, Calif. But not enough to return for good. He’s lived in Oregon for 18 years, and likes it just fine. Not so hot. Not so dry. Not so many people.

Congrats, Thom, and thanks for sharing.

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Fried chicken asserts itself — on the plate, and in her dreams

23 May

What’s real, and what’s a dream? Sometimes a great meal can seem like a dream. And vice versa, as Katie Jundt discovered. She shared her memory in our “best thing I ever ate” sweepstakes.

“The fried chicken at Portland’s Screen Door restaurant was so good that I literally had a dream about it the same night.”

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We all love great Italian food, even when we live in Honolulu

23 May

Claire McGee, a photographer from Newport, Ore., tells us the “best thing she ever ate” was a classic example of a classic Italian dish — consumed in Hawaii, the multi-cultural crossroads of Asian and American (but not exactly Italian) cuisines. Here’s her entry in our recent sweepstakes:

“Vegetarian Lasagne – at a restaurant in Honolulu.  It was very light / and cheesy  -  shredded cheese – Went back years later and they no longer had it on the menu – I asked/ they said – Changed chefs!   ACK”

She can’t remember the name of the restaurant, but says it was at the corner of S. Beretania and Pensacola. She discovered it “sometime during the 80′s when I lived there, and later, on a return visit to the islands, the cook had gone!”

If that cook is reading this, we’d love to find out where he/she is slinging the linquine these days.

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Budget lunch of bread, chocolate? A perfect memory

22 May

Sometimes the “best” meals aren’t the fanciest, or most expensive. They’re the ones you create out of circumstance, with people you love, in a place and time that exist only in memory. Here’s Jimeva Welch’s entry in our “best thing I ever ate” sweepstakes:

As a young, tight-budgeted family, we went to San Francisco. Lunch came with the realization of how expensive restaurants were. We dined on fresh baked sourdough bread on the waterfront, and finished it off with chocolates from Ghirardelli. Delicious!

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OK, Hood River Hotel has a winner in “best thing I ever ate” sweeps

16 May

But you’re going to have to wait to learn his/her name.

In the meantime, we’re sharing — other great tales.

First, thanks to all of you who entered our sweepstakes by submitting a brief (40 words or less) recollection of the “best thing I ever ate.” We got some great recollections. And we have winners.

One official.

One unofficial.

Our unofficial favorite entry put us in a bit of a quandary because, unfortunately, it exceeded our 40-word length limit. Our judges felt obligated to select a winner from those entries that kept it at 40 or fewer words. We’ve notified the winner of a night’s stay for two at the Hood River Hotel, and a rafting trip on the White Salmon River with the great team up at Zoller’s Outdoor Odysseys. We’ll share that entry with you in a few days — but only after sharing a few others that we also liked. Building the suspense, right?

So, here’s the too-long — but quite nice — entry from Geronimo Tagatac:

The best meal I’ve had was an impromptu meal in the old spice port city of Malacca, on the coast of Malaysia. My girlfriend and I were at a loss as to where to have dinner. “Go to this place,” said Sam, the twentysomething owner of the Jalan Jalan Hostel. “Capital Satay,” he said, pointing at the Indian section of the city on a map. It turned out to be a wildly popular place with the locals and a few foreigners. We dipped thin meat slices and shrimp into the spicy peanut sauce in the pot on a gas burner in the center of the table and quenched the fire on our tongues with cold beer. Later, we walked past the brightly lit cathedral on the river in the warm, humid air and congratulated ourselves on our wonderful find.

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