1796 Foods

812. Coke Float

The first time I ever had a float was in Walt Disney World. It was a root beer float made with soft serve chocolate ice cream, and it was totally freaking delicious. Every time I’ve had a float since I’ve had the same combination - root beer and chocolate ice cream. Best soda plus best ice cream. Yum yum yum yum yum.

For this though, I figured I had to go with the classic pairing of coke and vanilla ice cream. Worst. Decision. Ever. It was so bad. It was horribly sweet, and the parts where the ice cream melted and made vanilla cokey froth just made me feel kind of sick. From now on it shall be root beer and chocolate ice cream all the way.

812 down, 984 to go

799. Root Beer

Since starting this list, I have had root beer more times than I can count. Every time I’ve either forgotten to take a picture, taken a picture and lost it, taken a picture and found it came out as a hideous blurry mess, or just had some other minor photographic disaster. The other week I finally managed to take a picture and have it look vaguely ok. Hurrah!

Root beer is the best. Unfortunately we don’t get it that much over here. Generally it’s only available in American-style barbecue restaurants/diners, or import stores that charge a ton for it. It’s not fair. At all. Literally the availability of root beer is one of the reasons I would love to move to the US. That and iced tea.

As root beer is clearly the best soda. I thought I’d give a list of what I think the order of soda goodness is. I’m sure you’ll all be super interested.

Laura’s Official Order of Soda Goodness

1. Root Beer
2. Dr Pepper
3. Cherry Coke
4. Ginger Ale
5. Grape Soda
6. Coke
7. Every other soda
8. (Absolute last position) Mountain Dew 

Because Mountain Dew, really? That stuff is like toxic waste with added sweetener. Drink the root beer people. Or not. Then there’ll be more for me :D

799 down, 997 to go

781. Beaujolais

This is all the ingredients I used for a recent chilli. I rarely follow recipes, and I like to try out different things, so even for a regular meal like chilli I tend to alter the ingredients a little each time. I do tend to use Clamato pretty much every time now as I’m ever-so-slightly obsessed with it, and truthfully it does add great flavour - a bit of sweetness, a bit of saltiness, and a slightly richer taste to the tomato. On this occasion I decided to add a little red wine and I had beaujolais. I don’t often drink a lot of French wine, I generally prefer new world or Italian, but this was nice and worked well both in the food and in the accompanying glass.

781 down, 1015 to go

779. Pasta e Fagioli

This was part of a meal I had recently at Carluccio’s, which is an Italian chain in the UK. To start I had pasta e fagioli, which is a soup piled high with pasta (it’s in there somewhere!) and borlotti beans. I think I’ve extolled my love of Italian soups here before, so I won’t go on too much, but it was chunky and delicious.

780. Campari

I decided to wash it down with a classic Italian drink of campari and soda. Campari is a herbal liqueur and it’s certainly an acquired taste. I remember trying it when I was 18 and I didn’t link it, but my palate has obviously adjusted since then as now I think it’s lovely. My favourite drink is a gin and tonic, and it’s not totally dissimilar to that; it has the same clean, refreshing feel.

780 down, 1016 to go

763. Mangosteen

On one of the (exceedingly rare) sunny days we’ve had in Wales this summer, I decided to have a very summery breakfast of fruit salad and iced tea. I’d picked up some mangosteen at the Chinese supermarket in town and paired it with some plum and apricot. It’s really sweet and has similar qualities to lychees and I loved it.

764. Lemon Myrtle

I flavoured my iced tea with lemon myrtle, which is an Australian herb with a citrussy taste. It added a lovely flavour. BUT I did make the stupid mistake of just putting it in. Next time I will put it through a tea strainer as it added a lot of unpleasant floaty bits to my otherwise lovely drink!

764 down, 1032 to go

755. Irish Stew

The other week I went for a night out with my flatmate and our friend. I had a feeling that I’d be having a drink or two so I thought I better start out with a hearty meal. I was in O’Neills, which is an Irish pub, so I decided to go for an Irish meal. I had the Irish stew, which was served with soda bread. The stew was surprisingly nice for basic pub food; the lamb was really tender and the sauce had a rich, meaty flavour.

756. Irish Whiskey

I decided to continue the Irish theme by having a Jamesons to go with it. I don’t tend to drink whiskey all that often, but I do enjoy it.

756 down, 1040 to go

748. Pastis

When I got my new job, my dad took me out for dinner to celebrate. We went to Cafe Rouge so I thought it would be a great opportunity to catch up on a few French classics from the list. I started out with a glass of pastis, which is an aniseed liqueur which you drink with ice water (like ouzo). I remember that my parents always used to get it when we went on day trips to France when I was younger, and I’ve always loved it as I’m a huge fan of anything that is aniseed or liquorice flavoured. It was a lovely aperitif for the meal.

748 down, 1048 to go

744. Sauternes

For Pie’s birthday, my main gift to him was a Lego X-Fighter, but I also got him a couple of smaller gifts including this bottle of Sauternes. I never used to be a fan of dessert wines but they have been growing on me more and more over the years. This Sauternes had a lovely honey flavour.

744 down, 1052 to go

704. Pilsner

On my birthday my friends and I went to Zero Degrees. They’re a microbrewery, so they make all the beers on site in the bar. I had an orange and coriander beer which was really interesting, as well as a glass of the classic pilsner. I’m definitely a fan of lager-type beers rather than dark beers so pilsner is a big hit with me. It’s light and smooth and really easy to drink.

704 down, 1092 to go

684. Biscotti

Biscotti are double-baked biscuits (biscotti literally means twice-cooked), which results in them being extra crunchy - perfect for dunking into coffee but likely to break your teeth if you try to eat them dry! I just picked up a single one to take home when I was at a coffee shop, so this was a classic biscotti with almonds. I would like to try making some of my own though as I would add other yummy ingredients like chocolate chips and pistachios.

685. Cafe au Lait

I just recently bought myself a mini French press so that I can make myself proper coffee at home. If I’m just having regular coffee I normally tend to have it black, but I added some milk this time to make it a cafe au lait. Also, this post brings my remaining total down to 1111 which I love (yes, I am easily entertained by small things!)

685 down, 1111 to go