You are what you eat.....

My current roommate and one time love of my life, okay, still the love of my life, and I went to the Big City yesterday and shopped at my favorite market.  It's Mediterranean and the smells when the door opens speak to me - saying, "you're home."

Couldn't tell you why, unless you accept that I think I was Egyptian in a past life.  Probably during Cleo's days, but that's another post.

I bought all the food I love - tabbouleh and the like - and he said, "Do you realize you eat like a cow?  You graze on green stuff.  Even the bread you inhale is wheat."  And he's right.  Dammit.  I hate when he's right.

I haven't always had the luxury of eating only what I like.  Meat and three were put in front of me during my youth and I ate it or didn't get dessert.  Most nights I got to watch my younger brothers eat their pudding or pie while I pouted.  I was a great pouter and still am.  It's one of my talents.

I didn't then, nor do I now, eat meat and three.  Gimme the three and I'm happy.  I also don't eat food with faces.  (Chicken and fish don't count - beaks and gills cancel out the face part.  Or at least in my own little world.) 

My parents weren't happy when I refused to eat what was served; they were Depression children so they were glad to get any food and did not appreciate my evolved palate, at all.  Many tears were spilled into meatloaf or fried porkchops that I couldn't get down.  Mine, not theirs.  In my house you ate what was cooked and there were no arguments.

When I had children I resolved to never make the same mistake.  My children would eat what they liked and dinnertime would not become a battlefield.  Ever heard the expression "Paying for your raising?"  Yeah, I have.

I have the three pickiest eaters ever, and their choices don't overlap much.  Oldest son - meat and potatoes.  No chicken, or broccoli, or asparagus, or anything more exotic than steak and baked potato.  Thanksgiving?  I cook him a rib-eye and he will eat the mashed potatoes, but nothing else.  Except damned red velvet cake, his favorite and something I make once a year and hate.

My daughter flirts with veganism.  No butter, cheese, or dairy of any kind.  Flirts being the operative word.  She went two years looking with disdain at the rest of us enjoying shrimp or grilled fish but the last time she was home she wanted to get Burger King.  She is a little bipolar.

My youngest son?  My gourmet.  No green veggies except broccoli, asparagus, or artichokes.  No chicken except fried.  Hold the mayo.  Forever.  Loves a strip steak, baked potato, and salad with Greek dressing.  And lobster if you have it, with lots of drawn butter.  And trifle.  With raspberries, please.

Bottom line, in an attempt to repudiate my own experience I became a short-order cook for years.  I didn't enjoy it, but what great dinnertime conversations occurred because my family was not engaged in tug-o-wars that no one won.  Only one problem, I wasn't in there engaging in said convo - I was still cooking.

I maintain that my way was the best, however.  Not one of my kids ever left the table hungry and in tears.  And they got dessert if I had had time to make it. 

Today?  I never cook except major holidays - Thanksgiving lunch, Christmas Eve jambalaya and Christmas morning brunch, and Easter Low Country Boil.

And if they don't like what I serve?  Let them eat cake.  Before I finish it off.