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Broke
Wife, Big City
Veggie Tales
of Horror
By Aprill
Brandon
I
blame ice
cream. You ever have ice cream? Of course you have. You're not dead. Or
stupid.
So
you can
probably understand where I'm coming from when I blame ice cream for my
hatred
of vegetables. You feed my 3-year-old mouth that magical creamy
substance made
from unicorn laughter and puppy dreams and then a few hours later
expect me to
be happy when you shove some green beans in there?
Yeah.
Nice
try, Mom.
Yes,
my
relationship with vegetables was tumultuous starting at a very young
age. There
was the Great Tomato Stand-Off when I was 6, where my mom and I sat
staring at
each other from across the table for hours, a lone tomato slice sitting
in
between us. After what felt like a lifetime, the tomato slice was gone
but I
had vowed to never eat another tomato as long as I lived. A vow I took
with my
hand resting on "The Children's Illustrated Bible" so my mom knew
just how serious I was about it.
There
was the
Epic Onion Picking Out Adventure of 1993, where I methodically
deconstructed my
Taco Bell burrito and then hunted down every single tiny chopped onion
there
within when the cruel, uncaring teenage workers messed up my order.
And
then there
was the Legendary Mushroom Vomit Incident in high school, which for
your sake,
dear reader, I'll leave the details up to your imagination. (HINT: It
was
gross).
Of
course, as
I've gotten older, it's gotten a little bit better. For example, my
husband
finally convinced me to try guacamole, a major feat considering my
inherent
suspicion of any and all things green. I actually ended up loving it,
so much
so that my husband hasn't had so much as a bite of the stuff since then
because
I grab it out of the waiter's hand every time we go to a Mexican
restaurant and
guard it with my body like Gollum protecting his precious.
I
also now
like hummus, once I found out that hummus is not the same thing as
haggis (Google
"haggis," kids, if you never want to sleep again).
I
even will
voluntarily eat a salad from time to time, as long as the main feature
of said
salad is meat of some sort.
But
despite
these advancements in my palate, I am still at heart a carnivore. Meat
is my
first love and is the main staple of all my meals. The rest of the
stuff on the
plate? Garnish, pretty much. For example, here's a typical conversation
between
my husband and I:
Him:
"What do you want for dinner?"
Me:
"Steak."
Him:
"OK,
what else?"
Me:
"I
don't understand the question."
Which
is why
when my friend DeDe came to visit a few weeks ago and informed me she
was now a
vegetarian, I entered full-on freak out mode. Not because she was a
vegetarian.
I had plenty of friends who were vegetarians. And some vegans. And even
for
awhile some who were hardcore raw foodists.
No,
I was
freaking out because I had never had to feed a vegetarian for a week. I
kept
trying to think of meals I could make for her but my limited knowlege
of the food
in the produce aisle hindered my attempts significantly.
"Is
corn
a meal? Can I just make her corn? Or...um...salad? But what else goes
on salad
besides meat? Is chicken considered meat? I guess I could do something
with a
potato. But do people actually eat potatoes without bacon bits? Oh god,
she's
going to starve to death!"
Luckily,
I
eventually figured it out.
Kind
of.
I
did make her
a lovely eggplant parmesan (or at least I think it was lovely...I have
no idea
how it was actually supposed to taste), where I discovered that
eggplants are
not that pretty purple color all the way through much to my
disappointment. We
also ate out a lot. And ordered a lot of delivery cheese pizza.
And
the girl
probably ate more fruit than is healthy for a human since the other
options in
my fridge were less than desirable ("Hey, here's some cottage cheese.
It
expired three years ago but it's probably fine").
But
the point
is, she survived. And I survived. And thanks to this experience, my
horizons
regarding food have been widened even further. I mean, who knows where
it could
go from here? Maybe now I'll even figure out how you're supposed to eat
that
zucchini that's been hanging out in the back of my fridge.
Or
is it a
cucumber?
Oh,
nope. You
know what? I bet it's that leftover corn on the cob from last summer.
Can’t
get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until
next week?
Check
out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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