Thursday, March 22, 2007

Because today is like Wednesday...sorta...

Do you own a wall calendar?
Yes, I do. In fact, I own several. I have several Star Wars themed calendars, a Beatles calendar, and probably several others. I doubt I've taken any of them out of their shrink-wrap. I just like to have them for some reason. I also have several daily calendars (of the tear-off variety). I don't use any of those either. I'm rapidly approaching the point where I have a calendar for all 14 "types" of year. (One where January 1st is on Sunday, Monday, etc. - and then one each of those that's a leap year). It's doubtful that I'll ever actually use any of them.

Is there a cuisine that you have not tried, but want to?
I don't think so. I'm not one who actively seeks variety. If there's something I haven't tried (cuisine-wise especially), then odds are that I'm going to be quite happy letting it pass me by if the opportunity arises to sample it.

Weirdest thing you enjoy eating (what most people you know do not eat or enjoy)?
Well, this one's a bit weird. Eh, I guess that's no surprise to anybody reading this. It's also related to my previous answer. Every week after service, my church back home gets together at a house (usually my parents' house because we've got all kinds of room for stuff and kids and things) and has a potluck lunch. Something that my father and I just noticed recently is that my mother has about...15? 20? Some reasonably small number of dishes that she makes for our meals and very very rarely do any get added to that number. For this, my father and I are very thankful. (Eating at my aunt's house can be an adventure because she just...invents foods out of the ether and that's just weird.) Anyway, because of this, I'm used to a reasonably small number of "safe" foods. When potluck happens every week, I'm exposed to this table full of all sorts of things from people that (I'm assured) are quite good cooks. However, their food doesn't look particularly safe to me most of the time - so I tend to go for the safer foods. This leads to a trend where I eat things that are:
  1. white or yellow (for some reason, white foods are almost always safe. Mashed potatoes, corn chips, corn, cornbread, burritos, dumplings, rice, macaroni & cheese, etc.)
  2. simply composed of meat (like a slice of ham or a Salisbury steak patty - not a casserole or a stew)
Because most people tend to ignore the meat (or because I usually eat it first), I get tagged as always eating white/yellow foods. This is because people don't see me eating the (usually) safe foods that we have at family meals where a broader spectrum is utilized.

Anyway, one year somebody decided to really play up this joke for all it was worth...so my school hosted a lunch for my 17th birthday party. The theme was white & yellow. All foods, decorations, and most people's clothing was following that color scheme.

I've gotta say - it was one of the safest meals I've ever eaten.

4 comments:

JadeGordon said...

But most casseroles ARE white and yellow!

SO, what *are* the usual meals your mom makes?

What's the worst things that has ever happened when you tried a new food?

TurboNed said...

My mother's list of meals: non-comprehensive and in no particular order.

Salisbury steak
Swiss steak
Chicken & Dumplings (homemade from scratch)
Macaroni & Cheese (homemade from scratch - and baked - a fantastic meal)
Meatloaf (excellent stuff, not at all the stereotypical nasty chunk of meat)
Hamburgers
Tacos
Tuna Casserole
Taco Casserole (I'm not so fond of this one)
Baked Chicken

I'm sure there are others, but none are any more culturally adventurous than what you see here.

TurboNed said...

Oh, and what is the worst thing that ever happened to me when I tried new food? I don't know, I can't remember the last time I tried a truly new food. I guess it was probably when I had calamari with Uthalinus at Red Lobster one time about 6 years ago...(ok, that's probably not the last time I tried a new food, but it's the last one that comes to mind, my school cafeteria notwithstanding *shudder*) - my opinion of calamari was "Meh. It's not bad. I'd never order it for myself and I wouldn't feel the urge to mooch off of anyone's plate."

Karya said...

When Diana was born, our Sunday School class took turns bringing us meals for about 2 weeks afterward. It was ... an adventure. Never knowing what was going to show up at your front door.
Anyway, some of it was quite good, of course, so I asked for those recipes. That was the single biggest bump my recipe repertoire has ever had.