40 for 40 - the international foodie edition

40 for 40 - International Food Edition

It's appropriate since this is about food that I'm starting from scratch. I typed this once, inexplicably lost it (I hate you recently, Blogger) and had to start over.

This one is just for the Pastor.

1. Two words. One is Cancun. The other is Guacamole. Two more words: room service.
2. Getting to Greece after having terrible food for two weeks in Kosovo. Eating stuffed tomatoes. Were they really that good, or were we that starved for something edible? The Pastor was sick and ever since has accused me of trying to kill him that day because I had misplaced our Ziploc bag of meds.
3. Pizza in Kosovo with ketchup instead of tomato sauce. Also Kosovo - weird, white cheese.
4. Having a piece of good ol' American apple pie on the boat between Greece and Italy.
5. Being cheap in Amsterdam and not wanting to eat in a restaurant. Getting cheese, crackers and fruit at the grocery and having a picnic outside.
6. The worst international meal? Perhaps Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (Google it). It was worse than the worst school cafeteria lunch.
7. It's okay to eat a sandwich out of the package in England. I'd never do that here, the sandwich wouldn't be good. Or healthy.
8. Dessert crepes at the hotel in Costa Rica after starving all week at the jungle research facility with the rat infested kitchen. This was the 2nd meal we have eaten in a hotel that's famous for John Kennedy staying there.
9. Another Kosovo memory. The Pastor pretending to drink wine (sneaking it to me) and me pretending to eat a giant bowl of honey (sneaking it to the Pastor) when we were eating dinner at the home of one of the Pastor's Bible students.
10. Having pasta by the Leaning Tower. No, not that one, the other one.
11. Forcing the Pastor to find every Starbucks in a foreign country so that I could obtain an oversized, heavy, fragile coffee mug that I'd have to try to fit into my small and light backpack. Later, I'd find a way to put it (and other stuff) in the Pastor's bag.
12. Eating Croque Monsieurs at that cafe near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
13. Nutella crepes on the street in Paris.
14. Fondue in Switzerland.
15. Indian food in the Indian district in Manchester. I especially loved the Indian sweet shop.
16. Eating at Nando's in Manchester - especially the night when the Pastor had just received his Ph.D., yet a fellow diner mistook him for a waiter.
17. While the Pastor was working on his Ph.D., I'd walk down the road in Didsbury to the Illy Cafe where I'd get my latte. The barista would always call me "Love" because that's what boys call girls in England. I'd go next door to get my gingerbread man.
18. Having High Tea with the kids at the Alice in Wonderland themed tea shop in Oxford.
19. Walking to the Cafe Nero every morning in Oxford to get the best Caramel Lattes of my life.
20. Towards the end of our European adventure, laying in bed thinking about what I was going to order at the Mexican restaurant the day we got home.
21. Eating French pastries at that cafe when we went to the Cathedral in Chartres, France.
22. Is the Bahamas international enough to count? Not being able to eat my food, because the Pastor's food had an eyeball in it that was staring at me.
23. Dining at the original Hard Rock Cafe in London so that we could get our "free" sundaes after eating our $20 burgers.
24. Thank you England. If not for you, I never would have known about delicious flapjacks.
25. The hotel we stayed at when we went to England for the Pastor's graduation. Every morning we had croissants, cheese and lattes for breakfast.
26. This number is dedicated entirely to Nutella. I know I mentioned you in #13, but that's not enough. I didn't discover Nutella until my first trip to England in 2005. That's when I found what I'd been missing the first 33 years of my life.
27. We are fancy people. We went to the Louvre. We ate at the McDonalds. Le Filet of Fish. We went to Stonehenge. We ate at the McDonalds.
28. The Pastor realizing his backpack was so heavy after he'd carried it all the way across Europe. The Pastor realizing it was heavy because I had filled it with cans of coffee. Coffee, you know, that stuff that's one of the world's most plentiful resources.
29. The Pastor showing me the map of all the places we were going to go overseas and all the things we were going to do. Me, being excited, not at seeing the famous church on the map (much to the Pastor's dismay), but at seeing a cookie shop. We did go to that cookie shop.
30. Having hummus for breakfast in Israel.
31. Having a bagel in Old Jerusalem. That was a good bagel.
32. The market in Munich.
33. Me and Nate and Cam having tea and scones with clotted cream - yum! - at St. Michael's Mount.
34. Fish and Chips. In London and at the beach, Exmouth. With smashed peas in Manchester.
35. The Fire and Stone Pizza place in Oxford where we took the kids every Thursday for 5 pound pizzas, that's price not weight.
36. Eating at the oldest restaurant below sea level in Manchester.
37. Eating a grocery store picnic on the train from Scotland to England because we hated Scotland so much we decided not to stay there.
38. The grocery stores in England. More gingerbread men. Olive bars. Candy bars.
39. Eating Greek yogurt at the base of Areopagus.
40. And finally, my favorite. We didn't eat him/her, but the cow someone ate. Seeing the cow everyday tied to our front porch in Kosovo, and then getting to see the bar-b-q.

Thanks Pastor. I love you.