Monday - Beans and Insight

Last night, we had Daphne's farmer's market yellow beans.  I let her snap off the ends.

Then I steamed them and added some basil and garlic oil.  They were not bad, and Daphne ate them up.

So, the farmer's market experiment was very successful.  At least this time.

My friend Emily pointed out that maybe the same strategies I'm using on Daphne actually worked on me, although it was accidental.  I was, for most of my life, a VERY picky selective eater.  (Selective sounds so much better, don't you think?)  When I got married and had to start cooking things besides rice and frozen waffles, I pretty much HAD to start trying new things.  It was a slow process, but I eat a much larger variety of things than I used to, and I'm not quite as reluctant to try things.  There are things from my previous "bad list" that I love now, like mushrooms and eggplant and oatmeal, for example.  There are things that I tolerate now, like asparagus and green peppers and onions.  I eat salad now.  And I like it. That's a big thing.  You can ask Kev.  Still, though, there are things I just can't like no matter how many times and different ways I've tried.  Like tomatoes.  I just don't like them.  I want to like them, but I don't.  But at least I've tried.  I even tried one of my kryptonites - mustard - recently.  It was disgusting, but I tried it.   Anyway, the point Emily was making, and she's probably right, is that just being more invested in the choosing and cooking of foods has made me more adventurous about it.  So, thanks, Kev.  If it wasn't for you, I'd probably still be ordering sesame chicken from the New Big Wong every Wednesday and having cereal for dinner a couple times a week.  Not that there's anything wrong with cereal for dinner.  But maybe not a couple times a week.