Question of the Day | 05/06/2009 11:00 pm

What was the last incredible meal you experienced? Spare no details

Marlo Thomas, Joan Juliet Buck, Liz Smith and Joan Ganz Cooney share delicious specifics of mouthwatering experiences

Joan Ganz Cooney | 05/06/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Ganz Cooney Votes Mezzaluna Restaurant 'Best Pizza on the Planet'

My favorite meal is Contadina salad and pizza at Mezzaluna in New York where I go with my grandchildren. Mezzaluna, in my opinion, has the best pizza on the planet … thin crusted, very cheesy and just the right amount of tomato sauce. The salad consists of small pieces of apple, nuts and various kinds of lettuce, and my granddaughter and I always start with it, and then she and her siblings and I dive into the pizza. I could eat this meal every night.

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Liz Smith | 05/06/2009 11:00 pm

Liz Smith's Favorite Dinner

It was the one I had with my darling mother in Austin, TX, just before she died at age 95 of a massive stroke. In those days, she was still keeping house and cooking.

Here’s the menu:

Chicken-fried steak, cream gravy, mashed potatoes, black-eyed peas, collard greens, green string beans cooked with little new potatoes in bacon fat, a Jell-o "salad" of lime with fruit in it.

No desert needed. Beverage? Dr Pepper. Go on and laugh — but you never tasted my mother’s chicken-fried steak if you do.

That was several years ago and I’ve been dieting ever since to get over this dinner. (Me and Elvis!)

4 Comments

Joan Juliet Buck | 05/06/2009 11:00 pm

Joan Juliet Buck's Cultural Concoction

I’d take from different meals:

Stalks of celery and perfect Stilton at a bar on Jermyn Street, London 1999.
Lozenges of fava-bean paste in the House of the Medusa, an outdoor restaurant near Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, July 2008.
A single black truffle baked in a puff pastry at a ball given by the duke and duchess of Bedford in Paris in 1989.
Roast baby goat (Capretto) on the via Appia Antica, Rome, Easter 1984, crunchy skin and flesh like nothing I have ever eaten before or since.
Sugar snap peas served with pea shoots, made by Aneeta Clark, April 22, 2009.
Puntarelle Con Alici, sour greens dressed with oil, vinegar and anchovies, in Brera, Milan, 1975.
Italian sorbets in the forms of different fruit, at Carla Fendi’s house in Sabaudia in 2007.
Chocolate sorbet made by a friend, Paris, 1986.
A little cake called a Fragilité from Demel in Vienna, 1973 — airy, dusted with cocoa, with a filling of evaporated walnuts.
A single raspberry with walnut butter inside.
And to drink — Chateau Laffitte 1983.
And Panna water.
And to finish, an espresso as good as the one made at the last ferry stop on the Bosporus, July 2008, or in a bar in Lisbon.

3 Comments

Marlo Thomas | 05/06/2009 11:00 pm

Marlo Thomas's Authentic Italian Menu

My mother was Italian and a great cook. So for me an incredible meal is an authentic, Italian one — which I have at least once a week. It picks me up every time and, yes, reminds me of my mom. Required menu: a great antipasto; a salad with spicy olives, artichokes, garbanzo beans and peppers; a hot-out-of-the-oven veal Marsala, with a big bowl of pasta marinara; garlic bread and a nice Tuscan wine. Give me that and I’m in heaven.

6 Comments

45 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Maggie, that sounds heavenly! Now THAT I think I could remember––simple, but delicious. Five dollars for all three of you? Oh, it makes one weep.

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 05/07/2009 9:38 am

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Phyllis, those friends and I no longer live near one another, but when we do manage to get together, we love to remember that perfect summer day. Just recently, while stuck in a traffic jam in pouring rain, I thought about that day… and wished so much I could be back there, not a care in the world, wiggling my toes in the sand , savoring every bite, and in the company of such great friends. LOL.. it’s probably as close to a Hallmark moment I’ll ever be! :)

By Maggie W on 05/07/2009 10:45 am

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Those are the memories that we store in our "savor" drawer and bring out on rainy days. You make me smile, Maggie.

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 05/07/2009 12:17 pm

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Rhoda Ludy, that sounds delicious. Am going to replicate the meal, without capers because my youngest doesn’t like them, next time my sons are both home. Giving you credit, of course.

My most incredible meal was a bowl of long-cooking Irish oatmeal. My dad ate oatmeal and toast every morning before he went to work on the farm. He was dying and hadn’t eaten in a few days. I was sitting with him during the middle of the night, listening to his life ebbing away. He woke up, looked at me and asked for food. The memory of feeding him those few spoonfuls of that simple food fills my heart with gratitude.

By Joleen Knits on 05/07/2009 9:35 am

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oh, Joleen, that is the most beautiful, touching post I have read in along time … thank you!

By Ulla on 05/07/2009 9:57 am

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Joleen, that wasn’t food, it was sustenance, it was a final craving for the stuff of life, and I can’t think of anything better to send him off to the green pastures than Steel Cut Irish Oats.

What a beautiful story.

By EKA - on 05/07/2009 12:46 pm

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And you, Ellen, have said it beautifully. Steel Cut Irish Oats as the best of goodbyes cuts to the core of Joleen’s poignant telling of love ladled out in spoonfuls––a life measured well.

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 05/07/2009 5:28 pm

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Phyllis, Aren’t you amazed at the wonderfully poignant stories that turn up on this site ? Just amazing women.

Sick of this rain yet ☂ ?

By EKA - on 05/07/2009 6:39 pm

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Yes! And no, I love rain––took a walk today, sun had come out, halfway home and down it came; a very wet me! Oh, if only I had taken that adorable little umbrella of yours. Sigh~~~~~~~

By phyllis Doyle Pepe on 05/07/2009 11:01 pm

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Living just outside of DC, the fabulous restaurants available are incredible! My favorite, however, is The Willard Hotel. Not for the faint of heart when the bill arrives, it proves to be consistently outstanding. I always order a veal chop and know before it arrives at my table that it will everything and more in its presentation and taste.

The Little Inn at Washington in Washington, Virginia is my second favorite because from the moment you arrive until you leave it is quite a memorable experience.

At both of these restaurants one is sure to see a Senator or other high profile DC politician and it is fun trying to figure out just who they are.

Since I come from a long line of "cooks" my real passion is cooking. With so many wonderful restaurants available to us, when asked my husband will always say he enjoys my kitchen most of all. What a love he is! I have a brother who is a chef in Barbados and an elderly Mom who can still put a great meal together.

Enjoying a meal is not complete unless you are surrounded by the people you love and admire.

By deber B on 05/07/2009 9:42 am

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Oh so many…

Local is anytime I have the Filet Mignon at TexAz here in Phoenix. It’s a super casual texas style bar where a Filet is still only 20 bucks with salad and real mashed potatoes…the meat is served in butter ala Ruth chris, for half the price and the beer is always cold. If I get to choose my last meal, this will be my choice!

Out of town…I’ll have to think on this, it’s hard to narrow down because so many were special for so many reasons, the food, the view, the company…….

By C. Aune on 05/07/2009 9:48 am

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I love eggplant, but one dinner in Salem, Mass I will remember. We were at my brother and sister in laws. Dad and my brother went out and got 4 large lobsters. My sister in law made a salad of lettuce and the like. And we had clams to boot. that was it. But boy were we stuffed.

By Beth Cornell on 05/07/2009 10:47 am

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I’ve eaten in the most wonderful of resturants throughout this world, every ethnic dish imaginable. But the most wonderful meal, was the feast and I mean feast, that was spread for my Husband and I’s wedding, which took place off the gulf of Oman in the Middle east. The flavors of the vast and various dishes, along with the mystical setting, was litteraly stepping out of this world and into heaven! The day, the beautiful settings, the Family and friends. A day of first class ambience and one I’ll forever treasure, was filled with allure, fantasy, and most of all, love!

By HA BIBI on 05/07/2009 10:57 am