As time has progressed, my tastes have changed.

My food tastes, that is.

As a kid I was a picky eater-in a flagrant act of rebellion against my father I would avoid his Asian food like the plague. The family would have sukiyaki, I'd have clam chowder. That, and considering the fact that every fucking meal was served with rice, I nurtured a deep, passionate relationship with potatoes that continues to this day. Once I left home I didn't have rice for many, many years.

But that has changed, and these days I love a good hot bowl of sticky Asian rice (Uncle Ben's is not rice. I am sure of this. And Uncle Ben's in a packet you whack in the microwave is some kind of hideous sacrilege, much like most San Franciscans must feel about Rice-a-Roni.) I don't have it with every meal, but Angus' Asian sister-in-law and I get together and worship around the rice cooker from time to time (how REAL sticky rice is made!)

Things change, really.

As a kid, I thought that the word "spices" consisted of salt and pepper. And to that end, I really didn't gel with the pepper. I was a salt girl-salt went on everything, and in mass quantities. When I was younger I suffered from rockingly severe migraines, so I was on a permanent diet of foods that didn't trigger migraines, which included:

No cheese
No sausage/bacon
No red wine (so hard when you're 8 years old)
No chocolate or caffeine of any kind
No MSG (commonly used in Chinese food)
No onions or garlic

and more, which I've now forgotten. In order to skip the migraines, I did avoid these foods. I was also on medication to help, which doubles as an anti-depressant. I was on max doses as a kid (and once passed out from the levels of it in my blood), but it goes a long way to explain why, when I was taken off it as a teen, I crashed so fucking hard.

I ate only American cheese or cheddar. The vegetable good group consisted of corn and French cut green beans only (and they had to be French cut. No porky looking beans for me.) I wasn't a big meat eater then-meat just never tasted very nice to me-but I loved fried chicken (I am now completely squicked out by fried chicken due to the fact that A) no fried foods allowed in my diet as hello? One way ticket to Heart Attack Land? and B) I don't eat chicken.) My favorite food was Italian food. Italian food, and pretty much nothing else.

I remember my stepmother telling me that I should cook for my husband. My stepmother was new to the family and I was an 18 year-old new to marriage (the lessons we learn, eh?). I remember rubbishing her idea-if he wanted food he better learn how to goddamn cook. Cooking was old-fashioned. I was a feminist, I didn't cook for any man! The meals I prepared had three steps:

1) Remove box from freezer
2) Insert goods into oven
3) Remove whatever unrecognizable thing it was I stuck in there and serve

I was good.

And I was never big on alcohol or coffee. I just didn't drink them. I can count on one hand the number of times I drank both of those before I was 25 or so.

But then over time, my tastes started changing. It had nothing to do with Angus, really (although he introduced me to the wide and beautiful world of Indian curry, a meeting of which I will forever be grateful.) I just...changed.

The biggest change was going vegetarian about 5 years ago (although for protein reasons, I have started eating fish again.) I do still get migraines sometimes, but that migraine diet is gone (except the sausage and bacon part. See: vegetarian).

And cheese? Cheese is my best friend in the whole world, ever. Cheese and I get along brilliantly. The only cheese I don't like is St. Agur, but other than that I've yet to meet a cheese I couldn't sit down with and discuss Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I've made up for lots of lost time in the red wine department, too. White wine, champagne, and port are included in that category. I've never been big on hard liquor (unless it's in a margarita) and after overdoing it once on vodka, I can't even stand the smell of the stuff.

Vegetables are among my favorite foods (except for kidney beans, which I still loathe) -my top two favorite meals (in an order which reverses back and forth, depending on mood) are artichokes and homemade mac and cheese. I'm a simple girl, really. Simple tastes. While I still like Italian food, my favorite food is Middle Eastern food (specifically Lebanese food but I'll scoff down Moroccan or Egyptian just as happily).

Spices are something that get used religiously in our house. Ironically I now can't stand salt and I almost never use the stuff. But spices-especially Indian spices, when cooking on a hot pan and cracking and popping-make my mouth water.

We have a lot of spices.

We are surprisingly unorganized about our spices.

And another big change in me is that I love to cook. Love it. But I really only feel I can cook when I'm not stressed, when I'm in a good mood and looking forward to rocking with the plasma TV and the doggie. I find cookbooks to be wonderful, incredible treasure chests.

We have a lot of cookbooks.

Some we use more than others, but we'll often just flip through a book and have our fancy taken by something, and make it that night. We've had many successes, but also many failures (note to self: Greek spinach stuffed filo is not for the home cooking.)

And we cook a lot. This is me stirring Angus' trout pasta recipe. It sounds awful, but it's absolutely fabulous.

(The wet braided hair and glasses just add to the hotness.)

This is the finished product:

I guess that we all change as we grow up, our tastes convert from something we never imagined-I'd never have guessed someday I'd love bleu cheese, and that someday I'd refuse to eat fried chicken. I never guess sticky Asian rice would come back into my diet. Most of all, I never would have imagined that cooking for a man would be viewed not as subservience, but as something I loved doing.

Who knew?

-H

Trout pasta recipe in the extended version, if you're interested. Trout pasta:

It's really simple and very inexact. You cook up some pasta (we used fresh garlic and herb tagliatelle here, but any pasta ok).

Chop up some walnuts-about a cup.
Chop up two fillets of trout.
Add some salt and pepper to the cooked pasta, along with the trout and walnut, and then add half a tub of Light Boursin.

Finished

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 11:11 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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