As my bathroom scale can attest, I love food — often to a fault. Food isn’t just a means of sustenance — it’s an every day celebration of cultures and flavors and pairs deliciously with friends and family and many happy occasions we celebrate throughout the year. In 2018, I picked ten special dishes to highlight memorable moments of eating throughout the year. If you’re not hungry now, you will be at the end of this list.

10. Ceviche

I recently learned how to make ceviche with a simple recipe involving freshly-squeezed lime juice and a white fish (usually tilapia). It was particularly easy to make but also very, very tasty. I put a bowl of this together for Cinco de Mayo last year and could have easily eaten the whole bowl myself. I never thought I could find something tastier than sushi that I could do with fish without cooking it with heat, but I was wrong — ceviche wins every time.

9. Ice cream layer cake

This was a fun treat for Father’s Day — a frozen chocolate cake with layers of ice cream woven in-between. This cake was particularly special because my kids helped to make it! I also regretted not taking a better picture of it — I actually put my “good” camera aside so I could enjoy most of Father’s Day without worrying about the pictures, but somehow I missed getting better documentation of this fun little dessert.

8. Super Bowl Food

In our house, the Super Bowl isn’t about the game. It isn’t even about the funny, memorable commercials. It’s always about the food — and nothing but the food. Nachos with gooey cheese and buffalo wings with blue cheese on the side especially make this day something to look forward to.

I also have a tradition of getting Hannah to pick the winning team, and so far she’s been four-for-four. I don’t know if she’ll pull it off again, but I know one thing — our whole family will be well-fed (and our stomach lining will be regretting it for days).

7. Garden Bruschetta

In my opinion, the whole purpose of having a garden in your backyard is to grow your own tomatoes — those ripe, succulent fruits with flavor you can’t buy in any grocery store. And one of my most favorite things you can do with tomatoes is turn them into bruschetta — with basil from out own garden as well along with fresh-chopped garlic and olive oil served in a toasted baguette. Sprinkle some shredded Parmesan on top and you have the best appetizer you can put in your mouth. There has never been an occasion where we’ve had any of this left over.

6. Chocolate liqueur cake

For Mother’s Day, I found a recipe for a chocolate liqueur cake online and decided to roll up my sleeve and try making it myself. It wasn’t terribly difficult, much to my relief. It came out moist and delicious, with quite a bit of the actual liqueur flavor coming through even after baking. I was particularly proud of this one.

5. Tiny cheeseburger from Golden Corral

I came upon this inexplicable morsel on Father’s Day. My dad wanted to go out to breakfast with my brothers for a morning full of fat, sodium, and calories down at the Golden Corral. The food was greasy and mediocre, but on the way out they started to bring out the lunch items, and this was one of them. I had just enough room to pop one of these teeny, tiny cheeseburgers in my mouth on my way out the door, and my goodness, it was delicious. The burger tasted flame-broiled, the bun seemed to be buttery and toasted, and the pickle just seemed to bring it all together in cheeseburgery goodness. It was by far better than anything else on the buffet, and I only wish we’d come for lunch instead.

4. Pete Ricketts’ steak fry steak

On a rainy September day, my dad and I headed up to Fort Calhoun for a steak fry with the Governor. I’d wanted to go mostly to rub elbows with four different governors and a handful of other VIPs in attendance (including patriarch of the Ricketts family, Joe Ricketts).

What I didn’t expect was that the steak at this fairly modest shin-dig would be really, really good. I couldn’t identify which part of the cow the steak came from, but it had been slow-smoked by the All-American Beef Battalion and seasoned with Walton’s out of Wichita. And it was darn good steak, too — far more tender than the cut would suggest.

3. Fazoli’s

Some of my favorite foods have more to do with the memories behind them than the food itself. After a fun night of dancing with some Jitterbug friends, I suggested we get something to eat at a nice Italian restaurant around the corner. Unfortunately, they were either too busy, too understaffed, or too indifferent to serve us anything. After half an hour of waiting, we hadn’t even gotten someone to take our order, and even the drink I’d ordered at the bar hadn’t made its way to our table. I wasn’t terribly eager to pay $20+ for a plate of spaghetti, so I suggested we bail and wound up going to Fazoli’s instead.

Wow, what a difference. The food probably wasn’t the same “quality,” but we got it right away, paid a fraction of the price, and had unlimited bread sticks to boot. And believe me, after all that waiting, we were absolutely starving, and the pile of noodles with red and white sauce you see above was absolutely delicious. Naturally, the company of good friends made it even better.

2. Rib Eye Steak with Mushrooms

No steak in the world (or Omaha) beats Vivian’s steak. She sautéed it in butter with her cast-iron skillet and served it up with fried mushrooms and garlic cloves, which go well either atop of the steak or on a baked potato (or both). Whenever Aldi has a deal on rib-eye, I make sure to pick up a bunch — both to cook right away and to freeze for later. This is my favorite dinner item any night of the week.

1. Jack Stack “Mom’s Carrot Cake”

Kansas City may be known for Jazz and Barbecue, but Jack Stack will always be known for the warm, gooey ecstasy that is its carrot cake. Vivian and Jenny discovered it by accident when a waiter found himself with one extra cake and decided to give it to them for free — and they’ve have been clamoring about it ever since. Mention “Jack Stack,” and they won’t talk about the burnt ends or the ribs — they’ll mention the carrot cake every single time.

Seriously. It’s served piping hot with cream cheese frosting melted on top, and you will savor every freaking bite. At the end, you’ll wonder why you bothered eating anything else that day when you could have just had this.