On Food

Last week's Ten on Tuesday topic was Ten Foods You Hate. I put it off because I was in the middle of a pre-Passover love affair with food and I assumed that the holiday would inspire my thoughts on the subject. Living on a restricted diet for 8 days - it goes way beyond no bread - gets old really fast and makes you start to hate the few things that you can eat.


This year has been a bit different though. After so many years of celebrating this holiday as an adult I think I may finally have gotten it right. The proof is in the fact that on this 6th day of the holiday I'm not hating it yet. Sure there are things that I'd love to eat right now that I can't. I would really love to step across the street and grab a treat in a venti cup with a nifty green logo on it. But I won't.

The secret to our success this year is that I've been exploring a few of my cookbooks and stepping out odf the box a bit. We are still enjoying the old favorites like apple fritters (dinner tonight) and sweet & sour meatballs but we also added more yummy stuff. Homemade macaroons from this recipe are divine and disappear in a flash. These are not the squishy macaroons from a can. These are crispy and fabulous.

Above is strawberry glazed chicken with strawberry salsa from a new favorite book, Passover By Design by Susie Fishbein. That's also where I found the recipe for brownies so moist and delish that you'd never know they're for Passover. Seriously!

While the family and I are handling passover much better this year we're still looking forward to the end of the 8 days when we can return to our usual favorites. There are a few things that I won't eat at any time of year though. Here are the 10 foods I hate:

1. Cilantro - this tastes so foul in my mouth and it spoils anything it touches.
2. Seafood - aside from tuna and the occasional salmon (both very infrequently) I stay away from just about everything that comes from the sea. I just don't like it.
3. Pork - it's not really a religious thing exactly. I do like a sprinkle of bacon on a baked potato. I just think that because it was a taboo growing up that my aversion to ham and all things pork is ingrained.
4. Fresh tomatoes - I love tomato paste, sauce, juice, and sun-dried tomatoes (YUM!!!) I just don't like tomatoes fresh. I think it's the seeds and squishy stuff.
5. Bananas - I know I ate them as a kid but as an adult I can't even stand the smell of them.
6. Watermelon - I think it's a texture thing
7. Mushrooms - I've tried to like them and I just don't. No good reason.
8. Gouda Cheese - I love cheese. It's a real weakness of mine but I do not like smoked cheeses at all.
9. Lima beans - Ick.
10. Iceburg lettuce - this just bores me. Give me Romaine! Give me Green or Red Leaf Lettuce! Give me Mesculun or Spring mix. Just keep the Iceburg please.