Pumpkin Butter + Mini Fried Dumplings

Rating: 8/10

Mini dumplings fried pot-sticker style dipped in pumpkin butter. These tiny little fried things filled with chives, pork, and cabbage are just precious. The savory, salty, chivey crispy, chewy flavor is totally complemented by the pumpkin butter's sweet, jamy, pumpkiny zest. It's like one supplies the taste the other is missing, and together they complete each other to make for happy mouth.

Nutrition:

• spoonful of Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter = 40 Calories, 9g sugar, 10% of daily Vitamin A
• 15 CJ Pork & Vegetable Dumplings = 360 Calories, 2g fiber, 10% of daily Vitamin C, 10% of daily Iron

Total Calories = 400
Some sprinklings of vitamins, fiber, and Iron but nothing to write home about. 

Jambalaya + Pierogies

Rating: 8.5/10

Creole jambalaya eaten with potato pierogies. This is kind of feeding my two new food obsessions of late: colorful rice dishes and dumplings of any variety. Plus, the contrast between the strong flavor of the salty, savory, chunky jambalaya and the mild, soft, and chewy pierogies only heightens the experience of both in my mouth. Makes me want to stalk befriend more Caribbean and Polish people so they'll invite me over for dinner.
(eaten @ Hell's Kitchen Lounge, Newark, NJ)

Oreo Gelato + Deep Fried Wonton

Rating: 7/10

If I can't get fried ice cream I'll settle for fried stuff dipped in ice cream. Hence the deep fried wonton with Oreo gelato. Okay combination. Neither did much for the other, but both still delicious. The gelato with its sweet, chewy, chunky creaminess. And the wonton with its crispy shell and salty, sour cream cheese filling. Really can't go wrong taste-wise with deep fried stuff and ice cream. Dependably good every time.

Tiramisu + Kimchi Fried Rice

Rating: 8/10

Tiramisu eaten with kimchi fried rice. Such an abundance of distinct flavors here. The salty, savory, sour, mildly spicy, chewy rice. The sweet, coffee, creamy, moist, cakey, cool tiramisu. So much going, mouth thoroughly stimulated. I'm not much a coffee or kimchi fan (one's too bitter and the other too sour for my taste), but in these particular incarnations and eaten together I could happily overindulge.

French Roll + Japanese Sausages + Swedish Lingonberry

Rating: 8.5/10

It's like an international festival here. Not really, but that was fun to say. Basically a sandwich of little Japanese sausages and Lingonberry jam in a half-baked french roll. I basically just saw some random leftover pieces of meals throughout the day lying around on the counter and decided to turn it into dinner. The salty, herby, teriyaki-sweet sausages plus the sweet and sour lingonberry jam on soft, fluffy, chewy french roll is a pretty delicious fluke I must say, and easy. Just heated up the sausages and bread and spread on some jam.

Nutrition:

• 2 Berkshire Japanese Sausages = 170 Calories, 480mg Sodium, 8% of daily Iron
• Trader Joe's Half Baked Idea French Roll = 130 Calories, 300mg Sodium, 10% of daily Iron
• 2 spoonfuls of Ikea Food Sylt Lingon = 70 Calories, 7g sugar

Total Calories = 370
Some Iron, some Sodium. Not much of value or interest here.

Lingonberry Preserve + Crueller + Arugula

Rating: 8/10

Man, I ate so many random combinations of food this morning, I can't even narrow it down to one. But I guess I'll start with all lingonberry related stuff. Cruellers dipped in lingonberry jam eaten with arugula. So much divergent flavors here my mouth was genuinely confused but in a good way, I think. The lingonberry really gave the crispy, chewy, mildly sweet crueller a hit of tarty sweetness. Then, the punch in the mouth that was arugula was like whoah where did that come from? Taste buds slightly shell shocked.

Feta Cheese + Garlic Noodles

Rating: 7/10

Stir-fry garlic noodles sprinkled with feta cheese. The lightly salty, garlicky, chewy, smooth noodles only benefits from the strong flavor of salty, sour, chalky feta. Adds a real kick and texture to the meal. I'm trying to figure out more things to go with feta because it's awesome and I have like a whole tub of it I want to finish before it goes bad.

Grapes + Milk

Rating: 7.5/10

Eating grapes and drinking lactose-free milk at the same time. On a milk binge lately because this gallon I have in the fridge is expiring in 2 days and also I could use the Calcium (slightly paranoid about growing into a brittle-boned old person). Not that I'm lactose-intolerant, but this milk is sweeter maybe from the lactase enzyme added and I like it. So I'm trying to drink it with basically everything I eat right now. Fruits are not exception. And to my delight, the sweet, tart, juicy but fleshy grapes added a wonderful splash of subtle flavor to the smooth, slightly sweet but ultimately plain milk; while the milk just washes over the grape taste without dulling it completely. It's a lovely mutual effect.

Nutrition:

• handful of red grapes = 62 Calories, 15g sugar, 1g fiber, 6% of daily Vitamin C
• glass of Lactaid 1% Milk = 110 Calories, 125mg Sodium, 30% of daily Calcium, 25% of daily Vitamin D

Total Calories = 212
Cool this milk has less Calories and more Calcium than regular milk. And a handful of grapes really don't add much to my nutritional needs.

Leek Boxes + Ranch Dressing

Rating: 9.5/10

Hot off the stove leek boxes dipped in ranch dressing. Love leek boxes, sans shrimp flakes of course. Just the name is adorable. I've heard they're like a Shanghai specialty or something; only in China would food be called boxes. I can still remember the first time I tasted one. I was 19 and hanging out in the basement of some guy's house where slasher films, ping-pong, and DDR were taking place. Then there they were on the kitchen counter, best midnight snack surprise. So began a life-long craving. Anyway, the hot, crispy, chewy, juicy, salty savory, leek boxes rock so hard with the creamy, sour, salty ranch dressing I could kill.

Linzer Tart + Italian Wedding Soup

Rating: 7/10

Great way to start a day in Sleepy Hollow. Italian Wedding soup eaten with a Linzer Tart in lieu of bread or crackers. I'm no fan of crackers unless it graham and bread is boring, so cookie to the rescue. Not a bad mix these two with the Tart's sweet, tarty, crunchy, powdery consistency and the soup's salty, chunky, chewy, smooth consistency.