Because Wes is my child he has (without prodding!) begun to pull the green things out of whatever I serve him.
This is a bit surprising because he did actually take quite well to a number of vegetable baby foods. But then perhaps maybe not quite so surprising since while in utero he received a steady diet of melted cheese and chicken fingers with nary a piece of fresh produce in sight. So it was bound to be kind of a toss-up anyway.
If you know me in person or have been around awhile then you are very much aware of my dislike of vegetables. I do really like fruit, but that's not surprising seeing as fruit is practically dessert and I kind of really like and would sell my soul for dessert. I remember refusing vegetables one night and my mom saying something to the effect of, "what are you going to do when you go out to eat with your friends and all your girl friends order a salad and you order a cheeseburger?" and my 9 year old self kind of worried about that for a while and eventually came to the conclusion that I'd just have to suck it up and order a salad as well. But then, as it turns out, the boys of my generation like a girl who eats so that situation never occurred and I never forced myself to eat veggies. Plus I was friends with
Shawna Cozens. If you know her then you know what that means.
But I would like to state for the record that I AM trying. We've (
bravely, I might add, seeing as we're profoundly carnivorous) started getting a
Bountiful Basket every week which has greatly increased the amount and diversity of our produce consumption.
The concept behind the Bountiful Baskets co-op is that you make a donation of $15 and show up on Saturday morning with a laundry basket which is then filled with an assortment of fruits and vegetables. Meaning you have no clue what you're going to get. Which is why I think we're so brave. I mean, I've come home 3 weeks in a row with
bananas in my basket. Gag. Bleh. Death. Etc.
Over the past few weeks we've eaten a lot of really lovely fruit (ah, summer) and managed to squeeze in the majority of the vegetables as well. Broccoli can get chopped small and cooked into casseroles. I actually like spinach and carrots, so those are easy. Onions go into pretty much everything. I made spaghetti sauce from the tomatoes. Mostly I've been very proud of my ability to use up our produce.
And then this week we got iceberg lettuce and cucumbers.
There's really not a whole lot you can do with iceberg lettuce and cucumbers. You eat them. Raw. That's about it.
So today for lunch I boldly went where I have never ventured before.
I made myself a salad. For lunch. Like, as
the entire meal.
This is where my mom squints at the screen and goes, "what? seriously?" and then glances around for the hidden camera because surely I must be pulling a fast one on her. But no! Really! I had a salad!
My salad did have chicken in it because, hi, I can't eat ONLY vegetables. That's just crazy.
The verdict: I don't care for cucumbers. And it's a shame the spinach went bad before I could use it in my salad because iceberg lettuce is kind of blah. The carrots were good though. And I liked the chicken.
So basically I learned nothing and did not discover that I liked something I had previously turned my nose up at.
Let that be a lesson to us all.
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