eats

I am a very picky eater.

It's true. I only recently gave mushrooms a fighting chance. Once I got over the biting into the squishy head part, I discovered they pretty much taste like whatever you cook them in.

And when I say whatever you cook them in, I don't mean you in the general sense of the word; I truly mean you as in not me. Because if we are talking about cooking mushrooms, chances are you will cook them before I do.

Though I am trying to be more open-minded when it comes to food, there are some tastes I do not ever foresee changing for me. For instance, I hate chili.

Hate. It.

Don't try to tell me what I am missing because I know exactly what I am missing: that horrible, mushy, beany texture and taste mixed in with too much spiciness and a lot of red sauce and I remain grateful to miss it. Every time.

I do, however, let bygones be bygones. If a friend, for instance, wants to eat chili nearby me I will not hinder him from doing so. Please just do not expect to kiss me afterwards.

Actually, unless you're Drew please never expect to kiss me. After anything. Or before, for that matter.

Oh, but when we were playing in Toronto I came down with the old Rhino Virus.

Yeah, a cold. And yeah, I am still talking about food here, which you'll see in just a moment.

I basically read Twilight in a day, lost my voice, and ate a lot of crackers (which was not actually the cause of the cold, but rather the result). My good friend Kevin started to work some magic in the kitchen and informed me that he was making his special award-winning chili (I may have added the award-winning part, but there seem to be so many awards out there for chili when, if we just concentrated on awarding people who make the economy better or invent more stores like Loehman's that sell designer clothes at like a fraction of the cost, there would be better dressed people in the world who have both saved money and don't have bad chili breath and are all the happier because of it. I'm just saying.). Kevin said I would be free to partake of his chili and I said thank you, politely refraining from telling him that had he offered to serve his chili to me on used toilet paper, my reluctance to partake would not have been any stronger.

Anyway, if I had known that poor sick little me was a large part of his inspiration to make his chili in the first place, I might have been more forthcoming at that moment. But I simply blew my nose and turned back to Twilight, oblivious.

A half hour later Kevin gently knocked on my door. Ah, Jess...?

I looked up from Twilight, Uh-huh?

What don't you like in chili? he wanted to know.

And suddenly I realized that he was making it for me. Shoot. The jig's up. I gotta come clean...

Um...I stalled...Chili...I said with resignation.

Wait. You don't like chili?!?!? Poor Kevin exclaimed.

I hate it so much, I said. Like more than anything, I elaborated.

Okay, he relented, I guess I'll just make it the way I like it, then.

Yeah, probably for the best, I agreed.

Right. So I don't like chili. But, when I find something I do like, I sort of become obsessed with it. Or at least I am very loyal to it. Like, I have for as long as I can remember ordered a grilled cheese sandwich from Friendly's. From the time when I thought it was made specifically for me, a girl in a house full of boys at the time, and pronounced it girl cheese sandwich, to discovering that it is for both girls and even boys, just so long as it is grilled, I have loved them.

And would you like to know my latest food obsession?

Edamame.

I could eat it all day, everyday. It is my very own green eggs and ham and I challenge you to show me a box or a fox with whom I would not enjoy some edamame.

This stuff is sooooooo good.

It's the very best thing to come out of sushi houses, as far as I am concerned.