You know you have them–call them vices, foods you love and have to have every so often, or just items you are just a slave to. I could probably list 50 things here, but I’m going to start with five and maybe do another one of these soon. Here are five food items I crave either weekly, monthly, or a few times a year.

1. Buffalo chicken wings–It’s probably the sauce more than anything, but it’s also the fried. The crispy fried skin of chicken wings soaked with buttery, tangy hot sauce. You may as well inject this stuff, but then you wouldn’t get to taste it. I have gotten by of late by ordering those fried chicken tenders (or even grilled if I’m on a diet) at Buffalo Wild Wings (sorry, nobody does it better….it’s just true), but the real deal is sometimes the only way to kill the craving.

2. Green curry–an amazing combination of spices, hot peppers, coconut milk, fish sauce and other stuff that makes up a thick, spicy and addictive sauce that is cooked with meat and/or vegetables, and served over sticky rice. Sometimes you have to find the best green curry where you live, and that’s not always easy. But once you find it, you are golden. Or at least that’s the case with me.

3. Steak–I’ve tried to eat little or no meat before, but I’m just not wired for that. I love beef, and I especially love a great grilled steak. I also make a killer steak sauce, but if the steak is good enough I don’t like to drown it in anything extra-curricular.

4. Fried chicken–We have a diner here in Madison called Hubbard Avenue Diner. They have fried chicken every Thursday and Saturday, and sometimes on Saturdays I have to practically beg my wife to let me take us there. Their chicken is just phenomenal.

5. Donuts–I can’t always walk past them, but I really can’t walk past Dunkin’ Donuts or Krispy Kreme without buying a donut or twelve. Yum. Nothing like fatty, doughy, fried sweetness. Sadly, there are not many donut shops in Madison–only grocery store and gas station donuts.

What are your cravings? Let me know in the space below, or e-mail me at mikeyskitchen@gmail.com and I’ll post your replies soon!

note: this photo is not mine, but it looks a lot like my gazpacho

I posted a recipe a couple years back called Guy Gazpacho on Bullz-Eye’s Grub for Guys section, and I re-posted it here last May. And I thought that now is a good time to re-visit that one, because it’s getting brutally hot outside everywhere, and because tomatoes are coming into season, as are cucumbers and peppers. Plus, hey, it’s Wednesday, and that means it’s a great time to have another Wing Sauce Wednesday column. That’s because wing sauce is one of the secret ingredients of my gazpacho.

If you, like me, love Buffalo wing sauce and feel like you’d be really happy just doing shots of it, this is the soup for you. It has 2 tablespoons of wing sauce, but I have started adding more like 3-4 per batch. The other secret ingredient for me? Avocado. It gives the soup a nice smooth texture and taste. I also do not use onions or raw garlic as many chefs would, because my stomach is not a fan of that stuff in its raw state. But you could certainly add some of either or both. There are no rules, but if you do make this gazpacho on Wing Sauce Wednesday, you should definitely add the sauce. Trust me, it’s worth it on Wednesday or any day.

I love Buffalo wing sauce. I love it so much that I am starting a new column every so often here called “Wing Sauce Wednesday” in which I will review a product made with Buffalo wing sauce, or tell tales of something related to wing sauce, or bathe in it. Okay, maybe not bathing in it. But man, my mouth waters when you mention this stuff. Anyway, it’s become a mainstream flavor in so many foods now, that I thought we’d start to mention as many as we can–weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, or whatever.

First up, Nabisco Wheat Thins Spicy Buffalo. Wheat Thins are delicious, and have a signature sweetness that offsets the whole grain crunch. So how would a spicy flavoring alter the overall experience? It’s really good–with a very generous dusting of Buffalo wing sauce powder, a bit spicy but not too spicy, and with that nice tang that wing sauce has. And you can tell by the sweetness you are eating Wheat Thins. The only drawback? That sweetness is a bit odd against the salty and spicy tang–odd, but tasty…if that makes sense.

Anyway, if you like Wheat Thins and wing sauce, you should definitely try these crackers.

It’s that time of year again! We’ve been making it an annual tradition to post some snack recipes in advance of the Super Bowl, and this is the fourth year we’ve done that on Bullz-Eye’s Grub for Guys. This year, I made five new recipes that you can find on Grub for Guys on the Food & Drink homepage–queso meatballs; ham, avocado & corn tostadas; pizza potato skins; easier Italian beef sandwiches; and grill & chill Buffalo poppers.

It was way too much fun, as it always is, making these things and transforming our kitchen into a test kitchen. The poppers are the one gratuitous recipe I have to do every year with wing sauce. But the meatballs and skins were my favorites out of the bunch. Of course, everything is good…trust me, I wouldn’t steer you wrong with food like this. Hopefully you can try a few of these as you watch my Giants upset the Patriots again. Enjoy!