My food story.

I vow, here and now, to raise my kids as i was raised (at least with regard to food). I was a fairly picky eater* and my parents would on the occasion that we were eating a fast food restaurant (not often mind you) order me chicken mc-parts or a plain hamburger. On Fridays during lent (for Catholics, a time when no meat other than fish is consumed) when the staple was Mac and Cheese my parents would make sure i had some option (whether it was pizza or what have you). However when my dad made smelt, or chili so hot the stainless spoons melted a little, or when we ate sauerkraut and kielbasa or potato pancakes or my dads infatuation and experimentation with grits, i ate what was put in front of me. (and i didn't leave the table until i did.... a challenge that only ever bested me and reduced me to tears when peas were involved... ok dad, you got me i do eat peas now...). When we went to restaurants, the only time i ordered off of a kids menu was when i had "ruined my dinner" by snacking too close to dinner and so smaller portions were in order. More clearly than these rare times, I recall eating calabash in south Carolina (a kind of southern comfort food involving deep frying and spicy) or crab legs in an all you can eat place (i, at 10ish and 60lbs, out ate a 50 year old Lebanese man who weighed 250
lbs at the table next to us). In fact my dad used to make spicy buffalo wings for the super bowl which I loved. I however was (mostly) used to my dad pulling my leg so i NEVER believed that they were really called buffalo wings, or more to the point that it wasn't just some food my dad invented (like the time he ground up peas into festive St Patrick's day mashed potatoes to trick me into eating them or the time he tricked our cousin in to eating the cute little "chicken drumsticks" which were actually rabbit). So when we went to Ground Round (kind of a brown derby sort of place, where you can eat peanuts and chuck the shells on the floor) near our home and they had buffalo wings on the menu i was flabbergasted. While everyone was chatting about dinner and preparing to order i quietly ordered. With no one paying special attention, the waitress asked me how i wanted them: mild, medium or hot i asked for hot (i still am not sure what i thought she meant). When our food was brought they delivered me a huge steaming pile of wings so spicy that everyone at the table stopped talking all at once and realized what i had done. They left me to eat them at my own risk, which i joyfully did, no realizing that not everyone loves SUPER spicy food. My parents raised me on a weird combination of comfort, soul, ethnic and Latino food, not to mention a huge range of fresh (from lake Erie) but less than classy fish like walleye and perch. All of which i greedily ate more than my portion of, not realizing that kids who are truly picky would never consider eating what I thought was completely the norm.

Thank God (and mom and dad) for that.

*(ironically 30 years later I still don't like raw tomatoes or cheese....
see dad!)

-c