Category Archives: Random tidbits

Friday Q&A, pt. 3: Food stuff and randos

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Via email, Rob V. writes:

Do you get unsolicited comments/advice/critique on your facial hair? I have a pretty solid beard going at the moment, and pretty much everyone I see points out the gray whiskers that seem to be winning out, or that there is a little spot that is a bit sparse. Others love to call me Wolfman Jack or Grizzly Adams. I mean, come on, right? I don’t go around commenting on other people’s appearances in a mocking tone. Well, not to their faces anyway. Can’t a dude grow some hairs without it turning into a conversation piece?

Well, I never have facial hair beyond a few days’ stubble, so not really. Sometimes I’ll go four or five days without shaving and someone will be all, “oh hey, growing a beard?” And I’ll say, “nah, just lazy,” and that’ll be about the end of it. I wasn’t trying to hide it, but just to clarify: The mustache I wore to interview Keith Hernandez yesterday was fake. It was my good fake so I understand how it fooled some people.

I cannot grow a mustache. I have a very thick beard that comes in fast but only a few lame mustache hairs. Unfortunately, every facial-hair style I’d ever want to fashion requires a decent mustache, so it limits me to a few days’ stubble and clean-shavenness. Such is the irony of my biography. Due to the regularity with which I have to do video stuff for SNY.tv, I haven’t actually tried growing anything out in years. So maybe my mustache is better than it once was. That’s the hope I hold on to.

I do, however, provide unsolicited comments, advice and criticism on people’s facial hair all the time. If I haven’t seen a friend in a couple of months and the next time I do, he’s got some sort of chin beard going, I’ll say, “You’ve got some sort of chin beard going, eh?” Usually I’m encouraging, though, and tell everyone they’re great beard guys even if they’re not necessarily great beard guys.

So to answer your question: No, some dude cannot grow some hairs without it turning into a conversation piece. That’s a sweet beard, and what the hell else are we going to talk about? You’re really a great beard guy, Rob.

https://twitter.com/kmflemming/status/251690874793230337

What? Yes! Of course they are! Bananas are delicious, and some form of peanut butter and banana sandwich has been favored by both David Wright and Elvis Presley. I repeat: David Wright and Elvis Presley.

Oh man, I just got an idea for a new Don Berg painting.

https://twitter.com/connallon/status/251690255336476672

OK: Are we talking homemade pizza bagels on real bagels here or Bagel Bites? Either way they’re in first place pretty easily. Pizza bites come second, and beg the question: Why aren’t we serving more foods in bastardized, microwaveable egg-roll wrappers?

I’ll put pizza Hot Pockets and Elio’s Pizza down for a toss-up because I haven’t had either since roughly seventh grade. I bet I’d prefer Elio’s today because occasionally I get a waft of something that smells just like Elio’s Pizza and I crave Elio’s Pizza and that never ever happens when anything smells like Hot Pockets.

https://twitter.com/Devon2012/status/251689030171893760

Yes, definitely. I don’t even understand what the downside is. I don’t get to enjoy sleep anymore? But the only reason I really like sleeping is because it staves off all those side effects of not sleeping. So if I wasn’t ever going to be tired and the rest wasn’t going to help my back feel better, why not? I could watch so much TV! Also, I’d love to be able to get out in the middle of the night now that I live in the city. Manhattan is awesome when it’s quiet.

I’m a pretty terrible sleeper and always have been. By now I’ve figured what I need to do to fall asleep, but for most of my life my mind would start racing irrationally after I went to bed and I would find myself staring at the ceiling in the dark for hours. There were times in high school and college when I’d go two or three days without actually sleeping more than an hour or two.

https://twitter.com/Bert1335/status/251688595931410432

There’s a place for all of them, but straight up? Crunchy. Call me old fashioned.

Statler or Waldorf. Sitting in my tower judging things and laughing about it is pretty much what I do here. In college, my roommates and I set up our couches stadium-style. We’d throw parties, and my roommate Will and I would sit up on the highest level couch demanding people bring us drinks and then mocking them. It was great. Girls really liked us, fellas.

https://twitter.com/omniality/status/251688238610259970

Face, because I also want that nickname. Also, the actor who played Faceman was named Dirk Benedict.

https://twitter.com/CatsmeatP_P/status/251688930087419904

I’m so glad Catsmeat asked this. The 90s-party phenomenon fascinates me, partly because it makes me feel tragically old for the first time in my life and partly because I feel I am almost always more appropriately dressed for a 90s party than people actually on their way to a 90s party. Right now I’m wearing a plaid shirt that’s way too loose-fitting to be trendy, some ratty brown pants and Doc Martens. Groups of kids on their way to 90s parties always seem to feature a bunch of people dressed for raves and a couple guys in old flannels with ripped jeans and Nirvana t-shirts. DAMMIT I WAS THERE AND THAT’S NOT HOW IT WAS!

There are a lot of 90s fashions begging to be revisited for 90s parties. Jnco jeans, for instance. Another good option is to just go as Dr. Dre, wearing a black White Sox hat, a black button down and black jeans, with optional black denim jacket.

But since I know you to be a great beard guy, Catsmeat, I’m going to say you should definitely go as this guy from the “Black Hole Sun” video. Not everyone would get it, but everyone who did would be a) really impressed and b) probably pretty cool.

 

 

Friday Q&A, pt. 2: Food stuff and randos

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https://twitter.com/bagelsNrahtz/status/249156919854501888

When I started this blog, TedQuarters.com belonged to a weatherman who never actually updated the weather on his site. At some point, my dad — who owns a bunch of domain names for his own work — set some sort of flag on it to let him know if it ever became available, then scooped it up when it did. Now Pops is playing hardball.

I kid. He’d be happy to turn it over to me, I’m sure, but all the back-end stuff is already set up on TedQuarters.net, so TedQuarters.com is just a placeholder redirect page. There’s an easy way to set it up so it just points here automatically without having to load the page again, but I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m super professional, fellas.

More importantly, if you haven’t yet visited TedQuarters.org, I suggest you do so now. It’s my favorite of the TedQuarterses: Simple but effective. If that domain ever becomes available, I’m going to purchase it and maintain it exactly as it is now, in Smilin’ Ted’s .50-caliber honor. Next time I’m in North Georgia I want to get together with this dude and blow some stuff up.

https://twitter.com/IanBinMD/status/249142646050795521

None. I don’t like sugary beverages. I’ll splash some lemonade in unsweetened iced tea, but that’s about as much sugar as I ever take in drink form. Notable exception: Slurpees, but those count more in the dessert category than the beverage category to me.

Side note: A 7-11 just opened up around the corner from my apartment in Manhattan. Apparently this is 7-11’s new thing; they’re not just for the suburbs anymore. I haven’t been to many of the urban locations, but this particular one is like a boiled-down version of a 7-11. It’s basically just a coffee area, a soda fountain, a Slurpee thing, a refrigerator full of drinks, and a huge hot-dog-roller machine spinning all sorts of hilarious 7-11 specialties. None of the random groceries, cans of motor oil and magazines you find at the more spacious suburban 7-11s.

I used to always say that my life’s goal was to have one of those hot-dog-roller things in my home, but then I realized that if it weren’t manned, the hot dogs would get pretty gross. I think my actual goal is to have a fully operational 7-11 inside my home.

Someday.

https://twitter.com/KevinTracey1/status/249142147624861696

Wait, why do I only have 33 seconds to live? That sucks.

I actually love hypotheticals like this one, but it’s always funny that we answer them as though we’d be thinking rationally if we knew we had 33 seconds to live. Also, in this case, as though we’d want to spend any portion of our last 33 seconds texting someone and not, you know, trying to savor the waning moments of our existence.

Most likely, if I were making sense, I’d want to text someone I’d trust to relay a message and say, “Hey I’m dying and for some reason I can’t contact my family, please tell them I love them and that I’m at peace.” Then I’d probably add, “this sux dude peace out lol!”

But if I were dying in some particularly silly way that I knew all my friends would get a kick out of much later, I might fire off a text to the Twitter shortcode, all like, “Oh, Carlos Beltran has really done it this time.”

Alternately, I might text my friend Ripps with the very same words he long ago guessed would be his last: “I should have had more cake.” This would make me chuckle a bit before dying and maybe make him laugh a little bit too as we both waxed nostalgic for our younger days when we would sit around talking about dying and cake.

Or maybe I’d send a different friend the very specific list of people upon whom I planned to enact revenge but never got a chance to, hoping he’d be inspired enough by my death to carry it all out for me and not just sort of shrug and be like, “Ted died? That sucks.”

https://twitter.com/richmacleod/status/249141449126461441

I think Rich is joking, but multiple people have asked stuff like this lately. I haven’t. Does it seem that way? I didn’t write anything Wednesday because I was having a crappy day.

This is awesome, but it’s not always easy. Sometimes I just don’t have anything to say, and I don’t want to force anything out just for the sake of it (not any more than I already do, at least). I don’t know what the typical output is like for bloggers, but given the range of subject matter here and the nature of my actual work responsibilities, I feel like I’m pretty productive.

https://twitter.com/ouijum/status/249140479726329857

You’ll get no judgments out of me. Actually, that sounds pretty delicious.

Track back any “authentic” food and you find some cultural exchange somewhere and practically everything is a bastardization of some earlier thing. Maybe the restaurant where you ate that sandwich becomes incredibly popular, pulled pork on Texas toast becomes the new standard, and in 100 years we start judging people when they serve pulled pork on baguettes. Then we realize that too is delicious, and the cycle repeats itself. It’s the circle of pork, or something.

The only thing I feel certain should not happen in any setting is mayo on a sandwich with fresh mozzarella. I’m sorry but the mozzarella means too much to me. We’re better than that, people.

 

Friday Q&A, pt. 2: Food stuff

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https://twitter.com/_KD13/status/246609461026893825

People ask the last-meal question with some frequency. My thing is: Why is this my last meal? Am I on death row for some reason? What’d I do? Is it an Armageddon scenario, in which my drilling skills are needed to save the world but I know I might die in the process? In either case, it’s going to be emotional, and it’s hard to say right now from the relative comforts of my desk how I’d feel when pressed to choose my last meal. And it’s hard to imagine a situation wherein I knew I was about to die and I’d be particularly hungry for anything at all.

That said, I know what Taco Bell tastes like and, awesome as it is, I’d want the world’s greatest burrito — especially if you could guarantee me that it is in fact the world’s greatest burrito. Really, if I didn’t have a family that loves me and sometimes depends on me for stuff, I might even volunteer to die in exchange for one of the world’s greatest burritos provided it came with the assurance that it is definitely, without question, the best burrito that has ever been served in the world. Because after that, what more do you have do live for anyway?

https://twitter.com/JeffSposato/status/246620292091371520

Oh man; there are so many delicious cured meats. I mean, bacon obviously, but after that it’s pretty much wide open. How about we narrow this down to criminally underrated Italian cured meats? In that case, it’s pancetta, capicola and soppressata. Everyone’s always all up in arms over prosciutto and how great it is, and I mean no disrespect to prosciutto because it’s pretty great, but it’s so expensive for what you get and due to its texture it’s really not ideal for sandwiches.

Next time you’re planning to buy salami, get soppressata instead. If they offer a choice, get the spicy kind. You’ll thank me later.

https://twitter.com/jenconnic/status/246604344982654976

Sure. Jen’s asking about this instagrammed turkey burger, which I enjoyed for dinner last night. It was my wife’s idea. She made the tsatziki from a recipe she found online — I think this one — because Greek yogurt was on sale at Fairway. For the burgers, I just added two chopped-up cloves of garlic and some salt and pepper to a pound of ground turkey, mashed it all together and separated it into four burgers. I grilled them and put ’em on toasted whole-wheat challah rolls with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, tsatziki and some sriracha.

Discounted bacon possibly available for trade from some guy

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There is a fever for bacon in this country. How do we tap into that? If we don’t do something to put Oscar Mayer in its rightful place, then shame on us.

– Tom Bick, Oscar Mayer’s director for integrated marketing communications and advertising.

So what did Bick and his boys in integrated marketing communications and advertising come up with? Something called the Great American Bacon Barter, in which an LA-based actor and comedian has been charged with making his way across the country without cash or credit cards, using only his bartering skills and the 3,000 pounds of Butcher Thick Cut bacon furnished to him by Oscar Mayer.

Here’s the thing, though: The article says Butcher Thick Cut bacon runs $8.99 for a 22-ounce package, which means this guy’s armed with just short of 20 grand worth of bacon, at least in retail value. Seems like it just can’t be that hard to make it across the country on that — living pretty damn well, I might add.

Do you have access to the Internet? Because maybe you could just look up the buyers for various regional supermarkets, offer to undercut the local distributors, then barter your bacon for cash money and drive across the country living like a king. Even if you allow for nearly a 200-percent retail markup, you could pawn off 2,800 pounds of that delicious bacon and make almost $5,000 with which to travel, some $40 of which you could use to purchase a toaster oven to cook the 200 pounds of bacon you reserved for personal consumption.

Spirit of the game? Maybe not. But hey, you gave me all this bacon and I have a very particular set of skills, one of which is telling people about how great bacon is and trying to get them to give me money for it, another of which is eating bacon. So I’d like to take a crack at it.

Hat tip to Moses for the link.

Sandwich of the Week

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Hat tip to @OGDougKopf and local legend White Sean for joining me on two trips to eat this sandwich.

The sandwich: No. 7 Sub Club from the No. 7 Sub in the Plaza Hotel basement. Note that the sandwich in question is exclusive to the Plaza Hotel location. TedQuarters celebrates the luxury lifestyle.

The construction: Turkey, Canadian bacon, jalapeno mayo, bbq potato chips, tomato and pico de lettuce on toasted french bread.

Important background information: Seriously, the Plaza Hotel basement is all sorts of awesome. Overpriced and touristy? Sure. But a beacon of deliciousness in midtown’s vast wasteland of pay-per-pound corporate food bars, and an elegantly decorated one at that. In addition to the No. 7 Sub, there’s a Luke’s Lobster and a Billy’s — for my money, the city’s best bakery. For a treat, walk in the main entrance off Grand Army Plaza (the midtown one, not the Brooklyn one) and pretend you’re some kind of baller.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: This is such a good sandwich, but it’s hard to put my finger on why.

It’s not the turkey and it’s probably not the Canadian bacon. Neither takes anything away from the sandwich, for sure. The turkey adds all-important bulk, a meatiness that prevents this hero from being a mere mess of toppings and condiments. The Canadian bacon — or “ham,” as we call it here in the States — lends some of that too, plus maybe some saltiness and a gentle nod toward porky flavor.

But it is some combination of the bread, chips, pico de lettuce and jalapeno mayo that make a seemingly ordinary roster of ingredients a very decidedly extraordinary sandwich, in flavor, in texture and in execution, from the first toasty bite to the final morsels scratched from the wax paper and licked from the fingers.

The bread is perfect. Warm from the toaster and crunchy on the outside but still soft in the middle and clearly same-day fresh, it feels like the ideal vehicle for a classic deli combo or, frankly, any hearty sandwich.

The chips, somewhere buried in the middle, add a familiar sweet and smoky taste, and some mid-bite crunch. The jalapeno mayo, present throughout but never overwhelming, brings creaminess and fire, a back-of-the-mouth heat that emboldens every other flavor in the sandwich.

And the pico de lettuce — I don’t even know what this stuff is beyond some sort of dressed lettuce, exactly, but it’s amazing. It’s delicious and clean-tasting, almost refreshing, and both moist and crispy. It provides a cole slaw-like effect but it is not nearly so vinegary and it contains no mayo. That’s clearly the difference-maker here, actually, and my limited food-describing capabilities prevent me from doing it justice. You should probably go check out this sandwich.

But it’s everything, really. It all just works. It doesn’t taste like they’re trying to be too fancy or go crazy with odd ingredients; it tastes like someone with a very strong understanding of what makes sandwiches great took a familiar classic and elevated it to its ideal form. It’s good enough that I want to go back to No. 7 Sub a few more times and try everything on their menu — high praise from a dude pretty dedicated to trying and reviewing as wide a variety of sandwiches and sandwich-purveyors as his budget and waistline will allow.

What it’s worth: Herein lies the rub. Presumably rent in the Plaza Hotel basement does not come cheap, plus all the ingredients in the No. 7 Sub Club are clearly high quality. Accordingly, the No. 7 Sub Club costs $13.

How it rates: 93 out of 100. I really loved this sandwich. If it were three or four dollars cheaper, it’d be among the very highest-rated sandwiches reviewed on this site. Even so, it’s a deserving Hall of Famer.

Serious guide to sandwiches seriously lacking

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The good people at Serious Eats put together a guide to sandwiches. It’s good and an entertaining read, but what’s missing? Only the best sandwich I’ve reviewed on this site: Chicago’s native Breaded Steak.

I’ve met a handful of native Chicagoans who’ve never heard of Ricobene’s or their specialty sandwiches, so I can’t fault Serious Eats for missing them. But you should not. Plenty of readers have now been to Ricobene’s on my recommendation, and all report experiences as good as mine. This is one of the best sandwiches in the world. If you’re in the Windy City, don’t miss it.

From the Wikipedia: Gummy bear

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I was enjoying some Haribo Gold-Bears last night and thinking, “man, Haribo makes by far the best gummy bears.” I even thought to myself that Haribo’s gummy is so superior to all others that it must be the pioneer in gummy candy. So I went to the source of all knowledge and found that not only were my suspicions correct, but that gummy bears have a surprisingly extensive Wikipedia page.

From the Wikipedia: Gummy bear.

According to the Wikipedia, a gummy bear is a “small, rubbery-textured confectionary” that is “roughly two centimeters long” and “shaped in the form of a bear.” The gummy bear is not to be confused with the actor Jason Davis, whose nickname is Gummi Bear, nor the Korean R&B singer Gummy nor the Australasian gummy shark, which is apparently edible but presumably tastes nothing like its sugary namesake.

The gummy bear has its roots in Bonn, Germany, where candy-man Hans Rieger founded the Haribo company and personally crafted the molds used to form bear-shaped fruit-flavored gum that ultimately begat bear-shaped fruit-flavored candy. The Wikipedia is pretty vague on how it all went down though. We know the Dancing Bear gum came out in 1922, under Rieger’s watch. Per the Wikipedia, “[t]he success of the Dancing Bear’s successor would later become Haribo’s world-famous Gold-Bears candy product in 1967.”

That strongly implies a missing link — and a successful one — between the Dancing Bear and the Gold-Bear, but the Wikipedia says nothing else about it. Was it the slow-dissolving gum product I’ve always dreamed of? Maybe, but I’ll never know. As it turns out, the era between 1922 and 1967 was pretty tumultuous in Germany, and no one thought to keep detailed history of bear-shaped candy lineage.

The gummy bear is still popular in Germany today under the name Gummibärchen, which translates to “little rubber bear.” Another German brand, Trolli, started making gummy candy in the wake of Haribo’s success and in 1981 became the first to market gummy worms. Gummy worms, everyone knows, are for cretins.

According to the Wikipedia, there are also gummy rings, frogs, snakes, hamburgers, cherries, sharks, penguins, hippos, lobsters, octopuses, apples, peaches, oranges and even Ampelmännchen. None are necessary.

It’s bears.

One intriguing gummy innovation are giant gummy bears. The Wikipedia reports that there exist gummy bears that weigh several kilograms, which would sound pretty intriguing if I could figure out the stupid metric system.

Haribo gummy bears — which are undoubtedly the Babe Ruth of gummy bears, in that they’re both the first popular gummy bear and still to date the best gummy bear — come in five standard flavors: red is raspberry, orange is orange, yellow is lemon, pineapple is clear, and, oddly, green is strawberry. Some newer brands offer dumber flavors, like the Apricot Green Tea gummy pandas I bought at the airport gift shop not long ago for like five bucks.

Gummy bears are made from sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, food coloring and gelatin. Because of the gelatin, they’re often not kosher or halal. Who knew? Maybe you did. Sorry. I guess I’m just drawn to pork products. Turns out Haribo does make halal Gold-Bears from bovine gelatin in its factory in Turkey, though.

Gummy bears have been linked to health problems like tooth decay and mad cow disease, but now they make gummy bears with multivitamins and cavity-fighting xylitol. The Wikipedia says gummy bears are one of the only candies to inspire a television show, and to the Wikipedia’s credit, I can’t think of any others. Gummy bears have also inspired a virtual novelty band and song and album and associated meme.

Friday Q&A, pt. 3: Food stuff

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Whoa. OK. I’ve had so many sandwiches in Nassau County. I want to say it’s my own eponymous sandwich — Berg’s Pepper Barge — from DeBono’s Deli in Rockville Centre where I worked for several years. But I’m pretty sure it’s still the Full Bird from Busco’s, the sandwich that made me love sandwiches.

In my sandwich pursuits, I’ve tried sandwiches from so many places and so many different types of places, but as far as I’m concerned there’s no place more reliable for great sandwiches than a good Long Island deli. Practically everyone from Long Island (and Westchester, for that matter) has one they rave about, but the staples are the same: plentiful Boar’s Head meat, fresh kaiser rolls and Italian hero bread, and — inevitably — some specialty sandwich including a chicken cutlet and bacon that locals rave about. In fact, I’d be willing to wager that some 75 percent of native Long Islanders reading this blog right now can identify by proper name a specialty sandwich from a local deli featuring chicken cutlet and bacon and describe in detail what distinguishes it from the chicken cutlet and bacon sandwiches at other local delis: American or cheddar cheese, Russian dressing or mayo or ranch or honey mustard, garlic bread or plain, etc.

They’re all delicious because it’s a fundamentally delicious combination. I’m partial to Busco’s version because it’s the one I grew up with and because I think they do a particularly good job of it.
https://twitter.com/vlams/status/239021825873547264

It’s the Cheesy Gordita Crunch, regardless of if it’s actually on the menu. Every decent Taco Bell will make one for you when it’s not.

It might just be you. I personally found the fire-roasted sauce a little disappointing, and I find that it doesn’t fill any obvious need in the taco-sauce repertoire. If I’m getting three tacos now, you can bet I’m dressing one with Salsa Verde, one with Hot and one with Fire: Sweet, Savory, Spicy. Not sure I ever felt I wanted to add smoky to that list.

Honestly? No. From what I understand, that lawsuit was mostly frivolous, and even if it wasn’t it probably wouldn’t have stopped me from eating Taco Bell. I eat Taco Bell because it’s delicious, not because I don’t think it’s going to destroy me from the inside. For all I write about it here, I really don’t eat it that often — especially since I’ve left the suburbs. Eating too much Taco Bell is pretty obviously dangerous no matter how they’re preparing their beef, so I try to moderate my Taco Bell consumption accordingly. And I can’t stop ordering ground-beef stuff because the ground-beef stuff is clearly the best.

Friday Q&A, pt. 2: Food stuff

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Well, as mentioned, I’d definitely want some time alone in the Taco Bell test kitchen before I did anything. But I’ve long hungered for something I’d call the Magma Gordita Crunch. It’s basically a Cheesy Gordita Crunch and Volcano Taco hybrid.

The issue is, Taco Bell doesn’t often put multiple sauces on the same taco-sized item, so you’d have to get creative to get the Lava Sauce and the Zesty Pepper Jack Sauce — both of which are crucial to my enjoyment of this item — into the same thing. The way I figure it, you start with the Gordita shell, but instead of using the yellow-and-white MexiMelt cheese to attach it to the inner taco, you use the Lava Sauce. Then you stick the red taco shell inside, with ground beef, cheese, lettuce and Zesty Pepper Jack Sauce. So it’s not as simple as a Volcano Taco inside a Cheesy Gordita Crunch.

Again, to reiterate in case Taco Bell is listening: Gordita shell, then Lava Sauce, then red crunchy taco shell, then seasoned beef, cheese, lettuce and Zesty Pepper Jack Sauce. No need to credit me or anything if you want to pretend it’s your own idea, but a shoutout on Twitter would be cool. And I have experience in fast-food commercials.

https://twitter.com/eliwerc/status/236473730077978625

Are we talking about sandwiches from Kosher delis or just sandwiches featuring a combination of ingredients that are Kosher? If it’s the latter, it almost has to be some sort of barbecue brisket sandwich. Brisket, when prepared correctly, is amazing and moist and delicious and requires no cheese. The best brisket I know of in New York City is at Hill Country, but I’m anxiously awaiting the coming of BrisketTown.

If we’re talking about sandwiches from Kosher delis, I’m not sure. I tend to find the traditional, New York City-style overstuffed pastrami sandwiches a bit overrated and usually way overpriced — especially at touristy mainstays like Katz’s and the Carnegie Deli. I’ve heard great things about the Second Ave. Deli and I’ve been meaning to try it but I haven’t yet.

Are we counting those hot dogs inside knishes from Ben’s Kosher Deli as a sandwich? Hush Puppies I think. If so, it’s that. What a concept.

Good question. I can’t answer this with much confidence because typically when I travel I try to eat the best available local delicacies in every city, and it’s rare that those are at the ballpark. So the only places where I feel like I know the food inside and out are Citi Field and Digital Domain Park in Port St. Lucie. Off the top of my head, I’m going to put it like this:

5. Chicken-fried Steak sandwich at the Ballpark in Arlington: I don’t even remember if it was good, but I remember that it was a chicken-fried steak sandwich.

4. Pretzel at Digital Domain Park in Port St. Lucie: I think about these whenever I see hot pretzels sold elsewhere. Specifically, I think: “That hot pretzel is not going to be nearly as good as the one at Digital Domain Park.” It’s not the pretzel itself, it’s the way it’s prepared: Grilled over charcoal, served piping hot, salted to order. So good. Now I’m thinking about them again.

3. Chili Half Smoke from Ben’s Chili Bowl, Nats Park: I haven’t actually been to the Ben’s location at the ballpark, but I love Ben’s half smokes so much that I assume they’re awesome everywhere.

2. Single Shackburger, Citi Field and elsewhere: I practically never get it anymore due to the lines, the availability of Shake Shack near my home, and the array of other options at Citi Field. They’re so good though.

1. Corn on the Cob, Peoria: I’ve written about this before. In the midst of a three-week, 5,000-mile baseball road trip during one of the worst heatwaves the Midwest had ever seen, my friends and I went to a Peoria Chiefs game. We had all eaten a ton of fast food and ballpark fare on the road and my insides felt like they were revolting against me. Out in the right field corner of the stands, they were roasting fresh corn. It was the first non-processed, non-fried food I ate in weeks, and it was absolutely amazing.

No, because sandwiches don’t have mouths or stomachs or consciousness. But otherwise, probably. I’d make a delicious sandwich. I suspect I’m not Kosher though.