Let the Picky Eating Begin!

I was born a picky eater.
In my childhood being a picky eater meant a hatred of foods and a refusal to eat a long list of items, by age 4 I had my very own black list. This black list included my hatred of condiments, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise. Also on the black list of my childhood: cauliflower, canned vegetables, canned fruit, french fries, nuts, fish, potato chips and candy with the exception of Reese peanutbutter cups and Hershey’s with almonds.

In my teens I black listed foods like peanut butter, hamburger, tuna, wild meat, such as deer, elk and moose, and pudding. Items like mayonnaise, canned fruit and canned vegetables and potato chips remained on the black list.

Thankfully, my parents did not believe in force feeding. If I didn’t want to eat it I didn’t have to, so long as I tried it (this usually invoked a reenactment of the old Life Cereal commercial “try it Mikey, you’ll like it”). All in all this sampling process has proved to be a great thing, it provided just enough tolerance to try any food “just once” and the knowledge that if food isn’t worth eating, it isn’t considered a waste if you don’t eat it.

This sampling approach to food has created many food phases, including a love of brussel sprouts through most of my teen years…(which turned into a severe aversion in adulthood)

I still have my black list (which is much to long to share here), but my pickiness has become more of a discriminating taste. Now, instead of black listing tuna, I black list canned tuna, frozen tuna, tuna casserole, tuna salad and poorly prepared tuna of all sorts. My food philosophy? If it’s not good don’t eat it. The human body can go days without food, that’s what it was made to do. So why eat bad food? I’ll never understand…

My love – hate relationship with food has made me sort of a food snob, no not snob – critic – no not critic, aficionado? no more like a diva, yes, a dining diva. So here I begin my tales of dining in Denver, Diva Style.