A Few Random Things to Know About Me

Everyone has their "quirks" and things. I imagine after reading this long, you have come to know a few of mine already. I thought we could have some fun, though, if I listed a few that might never come up. Specifically, here are some oddities about me and food.

1. I think "carrot" is a rotten thing to do to a cake. In fact, I could do without carrots altogether. Contrary to popular belief, I do not hate them. I simply would prefer to do without them. Many years ago my mother and I took a tour of England and Ireland with one of those tour companies that provides a lot of your meals. On the plane ride over, the airline meal had carrots. (This trip was back when airlines actually fed you substantial, albeit crappy, meals.) I made the mistake of telling my mother that I would be more than happy to not see another carrot anytime soon. Well, the Universe was listening, and apparently thought I was being sarcastic. Every single meal that the tour company provided, including breakfast, had carrots mixed in so far that I could hardly separate them. There were carrots in the omelets for crying out loud. How mean is that? I mean, it isn't that the English are so enamoured of the carrots or anything. I've been back to England several times since, and I have never ran into the carrot problem again.

2. One vegetable I do truly despise ... no hate ... is celery. I was the only little kid I ever knew who licked the peanut butter off the celery and wouldn't eat the celery no matter what you bribed me with. In fact, I wouldn't even lick the last part of the peanut butter off in case I tasted the celery. I think celery tastes sharp and nasty, and if I had one vegetable I was allowed to eliminate from this planet, that would be the one. I hate it when it shows up in "salad sandwiches" (like chicken salad, egg salad, etc.) In fact, I hate them so much I will almost never order such a sandwich in a restaurant because I'm sure nasty celery will be waiting for me.

3. I think meat and fruit should never be in the same cooking dish. Even more importantly, there is no form of citrus that belongs on a pizza other than a tomato. Pineapple pizza is just plain wrong. Ham and pineapple is very wrong, too.

4. I do eat liverwurst, and I think it is yummy. Go ahead and groan now. Toddler loves it, too. Fortunately for those of you groaning, liverwurst has tons of calories and you can pretend you are skipping it for that reason.

5. Guacamole isn't worth the calories. If something is going to have that many calories, it should be flavorful and delicious, not bland and almost nonexistent. I mean, at least, if something is green it should taste like a vegetable, but guac tastes almost like nothing. What a waste of valuable calories.

6. I am "salt" not "sweet". I can easily give up all the cakes and cookies in the world forever for one bag of lard soaked fully loaded, salty potato chips. If someone ever invents a truly calorie free chip that tastes like the real thing, I will know that nirvana is around the corner. In the meantime, I pretend that I like Baked Lays just as much and am thankful I have no noticeable side effects to fat substitutes.

7. I really do like diet sodas, especially Diet Pepsi, Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi, Cherry Coke Zero, Pepsi One, and Coke Zero. I just think they taste great. This isn't a diet thing with me, though lord knows I need it, I just like them. I love Chik-Fil-A because they give me a choice between Diet Coke, Diet Caffeine Free Coke, and Coke Zero. Oddly enough, when Coke Zero first came out I hated it. I don't know if they changed the formula or what, but now I like it. The hardest part about being pregnant was staying away from all the diet sodas. It was torture, I tell you.

8. Pregnancy really does change a woman's taste buds. I really don't care much for Dr. Pepper, although I loved it as a kid. Now it just tastes funny to me. When I was pregnant, though, I could hardly keep my hands off it, and of course with all that caffeine it was not a good idea. And beef, oh, yes, beef. Even better, beef with thousand island dressing -- something else I normally don't eat. But me, who scoffed at the idea of cravings, just dreamed every day that Darling Husband would take pity on my and bring me a Big Mac with a Dr. Pepper and make my day complete. I even ended up slathering Thousand Island Dressing on my hamburger at home to keep me from going insane. It worked, but barely.

Aah, food. I love it. And it shows.