And they just so happen to be in season during winter, the season of resolution. If you’re searching around for dietary alternatives to holiday excesses like salami-and-cheese cracker sandwiches washed down with a bottle of wine, look to the orange and the green. Even if you cook them in cream and butter, it’s hard not to feel virtuous and healthy when these two are on your plate, in the same way a Prius might ease your guilt about driving the two blocks to the store.

There are endless ways to combine these two, but in the following posts I present some of my favorites. First up: The Classic.

While I will grudgingly dice a rib or two to make a mirepoix, I otherwise steer well clear of celery. And since discovering that Suzanne Goin, as revealed in her cookbook Sunday Suppers at Lucques, sometimes substitutes fennel for celery in a mirepoix, I have happily abandoned celery and its ribs all together.

Recently at a restaurant in Portland, the kind that only has two seatings a night and serves a six-course fixed menu, I was faced with an escarole salad that had celery in it. Maybe, I thought, escarole has some magical property that makes celery taste good.

It doesn’t.

So I ate the rest of the salad and left a neat pile of celery on the side of my plate. A perfectly logical course of action, except in the eyes of my fellow diners.

“You’re not eating your celery,” said G.

“I don’t like celery,” I said.

“How could you not like celery?” asked C.

And then we were off, discussing all the foods I didn’t like. The part that bothered me was that G. had been the one to point it out. Picky eaters should stick together, and he’s a much pickier eater than I am. (I should say here that G. has come a long, long way and is not nearly the picky eater he once was. But still.) He doesn’t like beans. He doesn’t like tomatoes. He doesn’t like vegetables as a category. The next night, when we were served chili with beans in it at a Halloween dinner party, did I point out that G. was picking all the beans out of his chili? No.

But then it occurred to me that G. had not only not had my back at dinner the night before, he had been the first to stick the knife—or celery stalk—in.

“You’re not eating your beans,” I said.

All heads at the table swiveled in his direction.

“You don’t like beans? How could you not like beans?”

In high school I became a vegetarian—the ultimate expression of picky eating—and by the time I grew out of it in my mid-twenties (thank you, France), I was ready to eat just about anything. Lamb brains, sweetbreads, Brussels sprouts, fresh peas, sweet potatoes, venison, braised goat shoulder, kale, kale, and more kale. Anything except a short list of foods that I cannot, will not eat on a train, in the rain, here or there or anywhere. Of course, in the spirit of the old dinner table rule I still (nobly, bravely) take a taste if served one of these offending flavors because it is true that your taste buds are changing all the time and you never know, you might like it.

That philosophy is the reason I often find myself in a nice restaurant, politely spitting out an olive into my napkin. I don’t like olives and I’m not ashamed to admit it. For some reason, my dislike of olives is a regular source of amazement and disbelief among my friends. “How could you not like olives? You, of all people?” they gasp. Or, from those who have known me for a while, “Oh yeah, I forgot you don’t like olives. It’s so weird.”

Olives have a very strong, very particular flavor and it’s one that overpowers any other foods served with it (for me, at least). I spend a lot of time picking olives out of bread, pasta, and sauces. But I do like olive oil. I love olive oil. There is no rhyme or reason or rationale for food likes and dislikes. You either like something or you don’t. I don’t spend time trying to talk other people out of their food dislikes (or I try not to), and while I wish I could be a gracious guest and eat all of the delicious pasta puttanesca you served me, the truth is that you will find a pile of olives on an otherwise empty plate.

Every once in a while, science (or pseudoscience) presents you with a legitimate reason for your aversion to a certain food. Enter cilantro. Or devil weed, as I like to call it. Supposedly a like or dislike for cilantro is genetically based. If you don’t have the cilantro gene, then it tastes like soap. No one wants to have their mouth washed out with soap masquerading as salsa. I’ve also heard that it’s a matter of smell; some people are unable to detect the chemical in cilantro that makes it smell so good to other people. Cilantro, like olives, has a very strong, very particular flavor. And unlike olives, it’s very hard to pick cilantro out of a dish. Trust me, I’ve tried. It would be one thing if you were always fully advised of cilantro’s presence, but it often shows up unannounced. When the surprise guest at your meal turns out to be cilantro, head for the exit.

There’s only one thing I’ve ever liked cilantro in: spicy eggs Indian style, at Sartaj in Sausalito. I hate cilantro, my friend LEI hates eggs; we both love spicy eggs Indian style. I have no explanation for it.

Addendum: It turns out that I was wrong about LEI’s dislike of eggs, even though I have a very distinct—so vivid, so clear—memory of her saying that she didn’t like eggs but loved spicy eggs Indian style. She usedto hate eggs; now she loves them. This is proof of two things: (1) Memory is incredibly unreliable, and (2) It is true that your taste buds change and, just as you can become allergic to anything at any time, you never know when something you always hated could become your new favorite thing. As further proof, LEI also reports once hating olives but now loving them, thanks to a revelatory bite of olive shortbread at Abraço.

I had a similar experience once with the color pink, but not yet with olives or cilantro.

What exactly made the Bi-Rite sandwich so special has been lost to the mists of time; all I can remember is that she took it off the list around 2003 or 2004 because she had one and it was too dry. It only takes one bad bite to get an item crossed off the list. The SF MOMA café chicken sandwich was a chicken breast on focaccia with arugula and onion jam. The key to the sandwich was the cutting of the chicken breast into two or three slices, rather than leaving it as one thick piece, which often leads to the specter that haunts all chicken sandwiches: dryness.

LKA was in town last weekend and took a trip to SF MOMA to check out the Robert Frank show and also to check in with the chicken sandwich. Was it still good enough for the list?

The good news is that the arugula and onion jam remain, but the bad news really outweighs the good: the chicken breast isn’t sliced anymore; it’s thick and dry. She also reports that they’ve changed the sandwich to a pressed panini (or panino, as the case may be), so the bread is now smooshed yet crisped. The verdict? Off the list.

As the one-time keeper of LKA’s list, I felt a little panicked at the realization that there was now nothing on it. A friend in a coma is a situation you really want to be prepared for, so I pressed her for more items to put on the list. What about the Out the Door spring rolls? “Sure, put it on the list,” she said.

That was all I got out of her that night, but I suspect the brisket from the Salt Lick Barbecue might make her list, and something from Osha Thai, maybe. For some reason items on the coma list tend to be from restaurants or similarly less accessible places. If LKA’s ever in a coma, I’m not going to be able to whip up something at home. And if she’s ever in a coma in a city other than San Francisco, I’m definitely in trouble. Getting from San Francisco to the Salt Lick in Austin to wherever LKA lies in a coma is a logistical challenge, to say the least.

All the talk about LKA’s list made me start thinking about my own. I couldn’t remember anything that was on it. You should never let your coma list get out of date; your life could depend on it.

I present my coma list, newly updated as of August 3, 2009:

1. My friend Manu’s chick peas (aka chana masala). I’m sure if I were in a coma and you asked him nicely, he’d make a batch for me.
2. The beef cheek ravioli from Babbo. If my coma happens to fall within ramp season, then forget the ravioli and bring the bavette with ramps and pecorino.
3. A chili dog from the Varsity. Fries to go along with would be nice, but don’t bring onion rings.
4. My dad’s pulled pork.
5. Gloppy mess: this is something any friend can make at home (M.G., I’m looking at you). Spaghetti, pesto, and roasted cherry tomatoes. Glop it all together and bring a big bowl.
6. Almost anything with an egg on top (except for loco moco, which is disgusting). Candidates might include the kimchee fried rice topped with an egg from Namu, an egg pizza from Pizzette 211 or Delfina Pizzeria, or one of those French salads with frisee, a poached egg, and lardons.
7. Crispy potato tacos from Primavera. If they’re not on the menu, you can never go wrong with the chilaquiles.
8. Salted caramel ice cream from the Bi-Rite Creamery.
9. Blue Bottle New Orleans iced coffee.
10. The special vegetarian sandwich they have sometimes at the Bi-Rite: spicy aioli, roasted red pepper, avocado, onion, and provolone, pressed and hot. If that’s not on the specials list, remember that the ham-and-gruyere is always a safe bet.

So friends, please take note. And please send me your list so I won’t be caught unprepared.