The Hill I Will Die On

Candy corn is the worst Halloween candy, and I am ready to defend that out loud. Of all the Halloween candy out there, it is the most offensive. It is an insult to candy, and it is an insult to corn. I know the candy corn people are already reaching for the bag to fight…

A perfectly cooked steak beats a beautiful crème brûlée, and if you put both of them in front of me and told me I could only have one, I would not even need to think about it. Team steak. All the way. I know the crème brûlée people are already warming up their spoons to…

The hill I will die on Honeycomb is a simple one: if I could only eat one breakfast cereal every single day for the rest of my life, it would be Honeycomb, and I would walk right past every other box on that aisle without looking back. Not my favorite this month. Not the one…

At the movies you can only pick one: popcorn or candy. I am team popcorn, and history is on my side — candy already lost this fight once.

The hill I will die on tomatoes is the strangest hill I have ever climbed, because I am standing on both sides of it at once. Tomato flavor makes wonderful food. Salsa, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, the red sauce on a Friday night pizza — all of it. But the tomato itself, a raw slice…

The hill I will die on chips is not one I wandered onto by accident, and I want that on the record before anybody starts typing: I have put a lot of thought into this. Here is the list, in order. One, Doritos Nacho Cheese. Two, Ruffles Sour Cream & Cheddar. Three, Miss Vickie’s Smokehouse…

The hill I will die on pumpkin is one I plant a flag on the first cool morning of September, with a candle already lit and a cup of coffee going cold beside me: pumpkin earns every single bit of its season. Pumpkin bread. Pumpkin muffins. Pumpkin pie. Pumpkin cheesecake. And my very favorite thing…

The hill I will die on pork is one I have been quietly astonished by my entire adult life: ham, bacon, pork chops, sausage, BBQ pulled pork, and ribs all come from the SAME animal. Say that out loud and really hear it. Six completely different foods. Six different aisles of the grocery store. Six…

The hill I will die on is bread, and I am not going to pretend otherwise: bread is life, life without bread is no life, and some days I live for bread. I have watched people push a roll to the side of the plate like it was a napkin. I have sat at tables…

The hill I will die on sandwiches is one I will plant a flag on with a butter knife in one hand and somebody else’s plate in the other: a sandwich ALWAYS tastes better when somebody else makes it. Same bread. Same turkey. Same exact mayo out of the same exact jar in my own…