Childhood foods, all grown up

Yogurt. White creamy foods used to really freak me out. Now I live on the stuff.

I was a pretty good eater as kids go. I remember really enjoying salad bars and vegetables, even when I was very young. My siblings weren't so easy, though.

You know what I didn't like? My mother's bastardized versions of  ethnic foods, Asian foods, and California type cuisine. Her attempts probably scarred my young tongue and left me a bit less open minded for a while. I love my mom, and I learned how to cook by watching her. I don't blame her - I blame her inability to escape the cooking culture and recipes of the 1970s.

See, New England traditions (especially 20 years ago) require that all dinners involve meat, potato or rice, and some canned or frozen vegetable. Unless it was hamburger day or Wednesday (aka Prince Spaghetti Day). Most moms around here seem to have been on a two-week cycle: pork chops, chicken, spaghetti, meat loaf, fish, Saturday out for Pizza, baked ham, tacos, burgers, stew, etc.

But from time to time, Mom would jazz up that schedule with "a great recipe I just found." It might be chop suey, or baked enchiladas, or shepherd's pie, or some kind of Hungarian goulash. And the result would be a soulless, bland version of whatever she was trying to make. So I grew up thinking that I didn't care for all sorts of foods, but really I was just put off by my mother's good intentions and fair execution.

Also: as a kid I never understood the big deal with mint chocolate chip ice cream. Now I think it's like the best thing evar.