"Only a chocolate Jesus can satisfy my soul"

Trish Wilson had this goofy food meme posted yesterday & it looked kind of fun. Also I've been asked for a couple of recipes lately so I'll try to work them into the post as well. Along with the obligatory Tom Waits mention.

Favorite food to crunch: I hate crunchy food, and I don't like to crunch it loudly when I have to eat it.  I don't like raw things, and I dip most crunchy things into some kind of dip or soup or coffee to make them less crunchy.
Favorite comfort food: Tater Tot Hot Dish (veg. version w/wild rice).  Or any kind of soup, but especially the paprikasc my grandmother used to make, with hard-cooked eggs poached right in the broth.
Favorite picnic lunch: A baguette, an avocado, a hard-boiled egg, some mustard, cheese, stuff to make sandwiches, etc. Plus some kind of fruit. And wine, of course.
Favorite food scene in movie: in "Diva" when that guy Gorodish butters that baguette and puts garlic & caviar on it.  With the snorkel & mask on.
Favorite food lyrics: Have I mentioned Tom Waits today? Here's 'Chocolate Jesus' from Mule Variations:

Don't go to church on Sunday
Don't get on my knees to pray
Don't memorize the books of the Bible
I got my own special way
But I know Jesus loves me
Maybe just a little bit more
 I fall on my knees every Sunday
At Zerelda Lee's candy store
 
Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied
 
Well I don't want no Anna Zabba
Don't want no Almond Joy
There ain't nothing better
Suitable for this boy
Well it's the only thing
That can pick me up
Better than a cup of gold
See only a chocolate Jesus
Can satisfy my soul
 
When the weather gets rough
And it's whiskey in the shade
It's best to wrap your savior
Up in cellophane
He flows like the big muddy
But that's ok
Pour him over ice cream
For a nice parfait
 
Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
Good enough for me
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Good enough for me
 
Well it's got to be a chocolate Jesus
Make me feel good inside
Got to be a chocolate Jesus
Keep me satisfied
 
-Tom Waits

Best food smell memory: Making strudel with my grandmother & aunts; the smell especially of poppy seed strudel.
Favorite summer snack: Very cold ripe melon chunks. Or gin-soaked olives.
Food that reminds me of the ocean: I almost never think of the ocean, but I guess scallops always make me think of seashells and hence oceans.
Favorite winter snack: Hot cocoa, or tea and buttered toast.
Most likely to eat for lunch: Nothing, or maybe forage for some snacks. Unless I go out to lunch, in which case it's sushi or whatever's at the hot bar at Whole Foods, or maybe curry.
Least likely to eat for lunch:Fast food.
Makes me gag: Varies. Lots of things. Anything I don't want to eat at any given moment, or anything not fresh.
Food tradition I hate: Eating til it hurts at holidays.
Saturday night food: Takeout whatever.
Favorite wild foods: Morels, soaked overnight in saltwater, soaked in clear water to get rid of salt, dipped in flour & pepper, sauteed in butter. With a chunk of fresh baguette, or in an omelette with sharp cheddar cheese and fresh sage and caramelized onion.  Or, if there's a lot of them, made into a creamy soup, with lots of fresh sage.
Favorite food for sex play: Don't get anywhere near me with any kind of food if you want any sex.  Yes, yes, I have issues. Though if you catch me in just the right mood, mangoes are kind of sexy.
Favorite medicinal food: My interpretation of my grandmother's chicken soup, with still-warm, freshly-baked bread and chunky peanut butter.  You have to dip the bread in the soup to obtain the full medicinal effect. Or so I've been led to believe.
Food that reflects my heritage: A terrifying thought, as I'm Swedish, Irish & Hungarian. And I grew up in Minnesota, where they really do use ketchup as a spice.  But I grew up mostly on more or less Hungarian-E. European-German food, so you couldn't go too far wrong with some kind of sausage & potato combination, with sauerkraut. No lutefisk please, though I like lefse just fine. Irish whiskey is OK, but it's not exactly a food, is it?
Food most like me: Some variation of the samosa/pasty/calzone archetype, or what are those Mexican things called that have the filling inside the cornmeal dough & then cooked wrapped in cornhusks?  Tamales. Anyway the delicious but unassuming bread-type thing wrapped around the very tasty filling is the food most like me.
Favorite raw food smell: Garlic, or maybe fresh rosemary out in the yard. Or sage. Or bread rising.  Or the smell of a pile of root vegetables, freshly dug up, with the dirt still on them.

So the recipes are in the posts below. Scroll down or click on the links in the list above. Except for the chocolate cake, which isn't mentioned above, but the recipe is posted below anyway.

[update, a little while later] How could I forget my other favorite Tom Waits food lyrics?

"Eggs & Sausage (In a Cadillac with Susan Michelson)" from Nighthawks at the Diner:

Nighthawks at the diner
Emma's 49er, there's a rendezvous of strangers
Around the coffee urn tonight
All the gypsy hacks & the insomniacs
now the paper's been read
now the waitress said

Eggs & sausage and a side of toast
Coffee and a roll, hash browns over easy
Chili in a bowl with burgers and fries
What kind of pie?

It's a graveyard charade, a late shift masquerade
& it's 2 for a quarter, dime for a dance
Woolworth rhinestone diamond earrings,
And a sideways glance
Now the register rings
Now the waitress sings

Eggs & sausage and a side of toast
Coffee and a roll, hash browns over easy
Chili in a bowl with burgers and fries
What kind of pie?

Ah well, the classified section offers no direction
It's cold caffeine in a nicotine cloud
As the touch of your fingers
Lingers burning in my memory
I've been 86ed from your scheme
Now I'm in a melodramatic nocturnal scene
Now I'm a refugee from a disconcerted affair
Now the lead pipe morning falls
Now the waitress calls

Eggs & sausage now a side of toast
coffee and a roll, hash browns over easy
chili in a bowl with burgers and fries
Now what kind of pie?
A la mode, if you will
Just come in and join the crowd
Have time time to kill....
See I just come in to join the crowd
Cause I had some time to kill