aged baked blanched braised breaded brined broiled candied caramelized chopped covered creamed crisped cubed cured curried diced dressed dried drizzled dusted encrusted enrobed filled finished fried garnished glazed grilled herbed marinated mashed melted mixed muddled pickled poached roasted rolled sauteed seared seasoned simmered sliced smoked soaked spiced sprinkled steamed stewed stuffed sun-dried toasted topped torched tossed truffled warmed whipped wilted wrapped

(If you have some favorites menu-participles that aren't on my list, let me know!)

I have a special fondness for the word "drizzled". I find that when I'm in an unfamiliar city, doing a search on "CITYNAME restaurant drizzled" or "CITYNAME cafe drizzled" turns up the kinds of restaurants I like!

It turns out I'm not alone in my fondness for the word "drizzled"; according to an April 23 posting on Arnold Zwicky's language blog, "Part of the pleasure (or the annoyance, if you're so inclined) of drizzled is its specialization to the cookery registers of modern English. You see or hear drizzled with and you know you're in the world of recipes and menus, or at least dealing with someone evoking those registers."

The novelist Polly Shulman told me she's going to adopt this quirk of mine for a character in an upcoming novel. I feel ambivalent about this. On the one hand, if one's achievements can't achieve immortality, it's consoling if one's quirks do. On the other hand, if too many people start using my drizzled heuristic for finding good restaurants with search engines, restaurants might start to over-use the word even more than they're already doing, and the heuristic will cease to be effective.