Food Pantheon

I am sure this is just the start of me stealing ideas from Bill Simmons, which will ultimately end as a copy cat anthology. But he's not reading, so on with it.

Without further ado, here is a list of my all time favorite things to eat, the Food Pantheon. It goes to show, until recently, just how unhealthy my eating habits used to be.

No. 5 Hot-Z Pizza with Black Olive and Pineapple

This was a favorite during the stretch where we would frequent Underground beneath the Columbia Hot-Z. I always thought their pizza was quite underrated. And I don't want to hear about some sloppy pie from the local Italian shop, this is a close second to the thin crusts I used to make when I worked at Dominos. Admittedly it was not the most popolar combo, but it had the perfect confluence of great tasting pizza, bland olives and fruity pineapple. As if I were the only human to ever try it, this was almost worth ordering just to see people look at me like I was an alien.

No. 4 Grand Central/Manhattan Bagel's Buffalo Chicken Sandwich

Even when they forgot to leave off the coleslaw (which happened a little too often), this was and is the best version of the buffalo chicken sandwhich I have come across. Chicken, blue cheese dressing, crisp lettuce, and buffalo sauce on bagel, sesame seed or asiago roll. Nicely packed in a little box with a pickle wedge and your choice of macaroni salad, apple sauce, or chips. I love this sandwhich. I've had it for lunch at work more times than I really care to count. But in the interest of being thorough, I'd say it's a fair estimate to say that I had it every day for at least six months. And that is being very conservative. When you add that up, thats five days a week, 20 times a month for six months, at $6.50 a pop, totalling $780.00. That's only $120 less than what I was paying for my car during that stretch. And you wonder how they were able to make that expansion when they changed names to Grand Central.

No. 3 Green Chile Beef & Bean Burrito

Every weekend I'd leave the bar with a hearty appetite and stop at Turkey Hill to grab this killer masterpiece. With a whopping 670 calories, 26 grams of fat, and 1,870 mg of sodium, aside from eating rat poison, this might be the most unhealthy food you could ever eat. But when you add a grab bag of Salt N' Vinegar chips and a Mountain Dew to wash it all down, it's hard to find anything that better caps off a night of binge drinking.

No. 2 Tomato and Mayonaise Sandwich

I've probably eaten more these than any other food in my life. Sliced tomato with mayonaise on white bread. And enough salt to de-ice a highway. I actually started off using Miracle Whip then switched to mayonaise. After my mom told me there were about three times as many calories in mayo, I tried switching back in an attempt to eat healthier. But much like trying to come back to Bud Light after going to Miller Lite, it just isn't the same. I easily ate 2-3 of these a day during summer breaks back in high school.

No. 1 My Mother’s Home Made Noodles

My all time favorite food, made by my mother for as long as I can remember. As far as I can tell, it is just water mixed with flour, rolled into a noodle, and cooked in a pot with chicken broth. It looks like it’s a tremendous pain in the butt to make, and I guess that’s why she doesn’t make it as often as anymore. I usually only get it on my birthday these days, but it’s still good enough to rank number one in my all time favorite food pantheon. Even during that one year when my mother inexplicably thought that I liked it mixed with mashed potatoes.