Jeff Houck

The Tampa Tribune’s food writer since 2005, Jeff Houck covers the way people live through their food. He also hosts the Table Conversations food podcast and believes that everything crunchy is good.

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Eat The Rosebuds While Ye May [What’s On Your Culinary Bucket List?]

Posted Sep 30, 2009 by Jeff Houck

Updated Sep 30, 2009 at 07:46 AM

“What’s on your ‘bucket list?’” my friend Jane Graves asked me on Twitter the other day.

Ah, the bucket list. Things you want to experience before you kick the bucket.

Cute.

Not really.

I loathed the 2007 cancer-buddy-road-trip flick “The Bucket List” starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Or, I should say, I loathed what I actually saw of it before I fell asleep.

The plot of two terminally ill mismatched friends racking up life experiences on an unlimited budget was so ludicrous that it was more entertaining watching the shabby special effects. The idea of a post-chemo Nicholson scaling not only an Egyptian pyramid but a Himalaya was laughable enough without it being so obvious that he was sitting in front of the same green screen used by my son’s high school TV production class.

“The boys in front of the Pyramids look about as convincing as Abbott and Costello wearing pith helmets in front of a painted backdrop,” film critic Roger Ebert wrote.

When I think of movies and buckets, I think of this:

But I digress.

If forced to draw up a bucket list, my top two would be:

1. Never write a bucket list.

2. Buy a bigger bucket.

Don’t misunderstand. Goals are important. There’s a big world to see and precious little time to do so. I just think that you shouldn’t wait for a dire situation or a lame movie to motivate you.

So I threw it back at Jane and added a little flavor. “What would be on your culinary bucket list?”

“Daiquiris at La Floridita in Havana; osso buco with risotto in Milan; tapas in Barcelona; asada in Buenos Aires,” she wrote back.

Impressive. Made my mouth water.

Encouraged, I threw the question out to the general Twitter population. Some swung for the fences, craving cooking lessons in Hong Kong, a picnic in a hot-air balloon or dinner on the Orient Express.

Doris Truong, a Washington Post copy editor, said dining at El Bulli in Spain was on her list.

Walker Lawrence, an employment lawyer in Chicago wants to eat at Alinea across town from him in Lincoln Park. It can take months to get a table at what has been described as the best restaurant in the country. “I had to cancel my reservation because it was on the day of closing for house,” he wrote.

Gretchen Cothron, a law student and food lover at the University of Tampa put Spain and Thailand on her to-do list. “Spain because it’s the birthplace of molecular gastronomy. Also, I love tapas! Thailand for the culinary adventure. I’ll eat bats & bugs…”

Equally as impressive to me were the simpler, more achievable replies.

Berrykeller: To learn how to make a great soup and a simple yet elegant dinner.

manila58: A good gazpacho recipe; make wine vinegar; compile a cookbook; develop a restaurant concept; catalog my wines.

Smoofinator: Sushi…how shameful is that? I’ve only recently conquered my fear of raw food stuffs. (With the exception of oysters!)

Shameful? Not at all. It shows that one person’s Japanese delicacy is another person’s Alinea. All ambitions are relative.

My culinary bucket list is pretty short. And unachievable. I wish my grandmother Josephine was still around to teach me how to make her chicken cacciatore.

I have the pot she used to make it in, but I don’t have her. There isn’t a time I cook with that pot that I don’t think of her and that delicious dish.

The point is: Never wait until tomorrow to enjoy the delicious flavors you could be enjoying today.

Carpe eat ‘em.