the "5 things to eat" thang

Cyndi over at Cookin' With Cyndi has tagged me for the "5 things to eat before you die" meme. Woohoo! I feel like a high school kid who's been noticed by the popular crowd! Thanks, Cyndi!

Today the Huz and I drove to an apple orchard and picked up a bag of Ginger Gold apples. They are incredibly crisp, tart and juicy, and I would be sad if I thought I could never have another one, but since I know I can, and will often, it doesn't make the list of 5 things I want to eat (again) before I die. The items below are special because they're either really, really hard to get (France isn't on the way home from work, you know) or because I can't afford to have them often, whether calorically or budget-wise.

So, enough with the introduction! Here's the list:

1. I'm in the sushi-lover camp. I especially love unagi, flying fish roe, salmon, and fluke, so I'd ask for a plate of that with some sort of roll and a side order of seaweed salad made with sesame oil, and a really good bowl of miso soup. (Is it OK to compose an entire meal and call it one of my items?)
2. A bowl of seafood chowder from the Seaside Shanty in Chester Basin, Nova Scotia. Absolute heaven, made with lots of cream and butter and absolutely no thickener other than chunks of potatoes, which are small and in far less quantity than the scallops, shrimp, mussels, clams, haddock, & lobster that fill the bowl and poke up out of the broth.
3. Paella from Sevilla in Greenwich Village, NYC.
4. Bread eaten plain with just about any cheese, in France.
5. Haagen Daaz strawberry ice cream. Look it up, nothing in it but cream, sugar, eggs, and strawberries. I absolutely adore this stuff!

Ahem. One less polite than yourselves might feel compelled to point out that there are no fruits or vegetables on my list to speak of; the potatoes in the chowder don't count, although perhaps the seaweed does. But, this isn't the short list of which I will now proceed to make my sole diet for the rest of my life, so I'm not going to sweat it!

So now, who to tag? This meme has been making the rounds for a while, so a lot of people have already written it up, but I think the following folk have not:

1. Lynne of From Lynne to Lean, who is changing her eating habits even as we speak;
2. Ed of Is It Edible?, whose selections will no doubt amaze and inspire us all;
   
3. Barbara from You Gonna Eat All That?, in hopes of enticing her out of semi-retirement;
4. emlingren from Unloading Here!!, ditto, times two; and
   
5. Eva from Running Home, because I know she can come up with choices that, if not universal, will still appeal because of the winsome way she presents them.