I Like What I Like

I'm not exactly what you'd call an adventurous eater. I grew up in a household where....well, I've told this part of the story before. Anywho, it's very hard to get me to try different things. I tend to go back to the foods that I am positive that I will enjoy. It is a near-constant source of frustration for The Wiff who is much more apt to try a new dish and/or food combination. Basically, I'm a culinary chicken-shit. With that in mind here is a short list of things that you should avoid putting into a meal that you want me to try.

Water Chestnuts - God I hate these things. My aversion to them is three-fold: 1) Texture. That wimpy crunch they have is bad enough but I cannot abide that slightly squeaky sound they make in my head when one makes it past my filter and gets into my gob. 2) Taste. People say that the water chestnut has a subtle taste and absorbs the flavoring of sauces easily and readily like a little crunchy diplomat. I say they taste like someone dropped a chunk of drywall into whatever it is they were cooking and said, "Meh, no one will notice". 3) They are sneaky. As I alluded to earlier, I can spend a good 5 minutes clearing what I expect to be a chestnut-free path in whatever I am eating and invariably one of these tiny, edible terrorists will infiltrate my defenses and blow up my mouth with it's shitty, fake foodness. They mostly appear in Asian food but I have run across them in surprising places before (a salad for instance and once in a chicken wrap). They are banned from my plate. Take them away.

Cilantro - As garnishes go I don't mind large leafy bits of cilantro because I can usually pick 'em off quite easily (same goes for parsley with which some chefs go completely overboard). I'm not a complete dunderhead. I can appreciate presentation when it comes to food. It's when cilantro is incorporated into the actual recipe where I object. I'll be enjoying a lovely burrito and suddenly I'll hit a patch of what tastes like Ivory soap. Except it isn't soap, it's motherfucking cilantro ruining everything for everyone. I used to complain about a certain local restaurant's tomatoes tasting like they had freezer burn on them. This was not the case after all. Turns out their salsa was infested with cilantro and that was making the tomatoes taste evil. Stop using it. For the record, I'm not a huge fan of coriander either. This whole plant can just go fuck itself.

Caraway Seeds - What is the best way to ruin a perfectly lovely sausage? Stuff it full of caraway seeds, that's how. Rye bread is sometimes infested with these evil fuckers. Recently I bought a helping of potato gnocchi here at work (at the lovely Cafe Fail) and much to my chagrin some twisted bastard had dumped caraway seeds into the sauce. Why? So unnecessary. I spent the bulk of my lunch time liberating my little dumpling friends from the unpleasant influence of those pungent bastards. Some of them had of course overwhelmed the lovely blandness of the potato and ruined the poor buggers. I probably still ate all them though.

Peas - Nasty, nasty peas. By far these have the worst texture of all vegetables (I don't care if they are technically a fruit according to my Wikipedia research). That mushiness is what appeals to some people (the Brits love 'em) but I cannot stand that texture. I'm very texture-sensitive it would seem. The Wiff has tried several times to get me to try different variations of peas, "OMG, these are SOOooOOooO fresh! You'll LOVE them!!" No. No I won't. I have never, ever, ever liked them. As a kid I used to put them under my plate thinking that would trick my mom into thinking I had eaten them (that didn't work by the by. All it did was create a plate-sized pea pancake that, if left to cure for 15 minutes, would adhere the plate to the kitchen table with the tensile strength of a low-grade wood glue. Nasty). Quit trying to slip them into other foods that I enjoy. Get them the hell out of my shepard's pie. I don't care if the recipe calls for them. Don't use them please please please. A thousand times please. She doesn't listen to me though. So I must separate the diminutive green fuckers from the stuff I want to eat. Damn you, Wiff.

Corn (off the cob) - Ok, this is a weird one, I'll admit. If you are serving some wonderful corn on the cob count me in as interested. I'm not saying I'm a super enthusiast but I'll gladly get slightly messy munching on a nicely buttered corn on the cob (cob of corn? That sounds wrong somehow...slightly sexual perhaps). But if you were to take that very same cob and slice off the corn kernels, well then count me the fuck out. I want nothing to do with free-agent corn. I like my corn in cob form only. I have no further explanation and I don't believe that one is needed. Keep 'em on the cob or I'm gonna pick 'em out. Simple as that.

Why yes! Of course I'd love some!

Holy shit get that away from me! What's wrong with you?

Now if you'll excuse me I have to go see if there is anything I can complain about that doesn't really matter to anyone else.