Food

There aren't a lot of foods I dislike, the but the ones that I do dislike, I really, really hate. I'm weird about meats, but if it grows out of the ground (naturally, and not on top of something unsavory and/or radioactive), I will probably give it a fair chance.

I want to find a food blog someday titled, "Cooking Good Food on a Budget without Anything from the Squash Family." Squash is horrible. Squash is the worst. Squash is in every healthy budget recipe collection ever. I find a recipe site or blog that looks like it might be fun, and then as I read, every other recipe contains squash. What's wrong with diversity? Come on. Branch out. You're a food blog. Not a squash blog.

Spaghetti squash. I am looking at you. If I crushed up a pane of glass really fine and sprinkled it on my scones (if I made scones), would you look at me like I was a genius, or like I was trying to murder you? Slapping marinara sauce on something that is birthed from its rind looking vaguely pasta-ish does not give you the right to call that "spaghetti squash." I tried spaghetti squash once. I made a good-faith effort. I took a lot of time and care finding out how to prepare it so it doesn't taste like feet and my armpit. What did it taste like? Raw onions, feet, and my armpit.

Zucchini. You are almost as bad. I can tolerate you in very thin slices, or shredded up and baked into a delicious bread. But you are not a substitute for lasagna noodles. You taste like raw onions, feet, and what I think wet octopuses probably feel like when you try to chew them.

All other squashes. If you put brown sugar and butter all over a high school boy's gym sock, and then presented it fresh from the oven, do you think anyone would eat it? No. So do not tell me I have just not had it properly prepared. That is true of a lot of things, but it is not true of squash. Maybe I have a genetic defect which makes me incapable of tasting what squash really tastes like. Or maybe I have a genetic superpower which makes me the only person in the world who can see it for what it really is. But stop slathering random ingredients on it and telling me I will like it this way, for real this time.

I have changed my mind about some foods. Mushrooms. I couldn't even look at them four years ago, but then I got pregnant with Emmy, and I began to constantly crave the Papa Murphy's Veggie DeLite pizza (it's covered in mushrooms) that my brother and sister-and-law had brought us nine months earlier when Grace was born. One of those intense, weirdly specific cravings. If Jeremy had brought it home for me with tomato sauce instead of cream sauce, he would have been sent back to Papa Murphy's without his face. Ever since, I have loved mushrooms.

Cauliflower. It freaks me out because it looks like brains when it's whole, but I am now able to eat it if it's not recognizable as a brain or a mini-brain. I still have to try not to think about it. All I can see is Krang if I let myself go there. I know he's pink, but it doesn't matter.

Asparagus. No. I still hate this.

Rar

Winter is coming, and I am not a Stark.

In a totally unsurprising turn of events, I managed to get the flu a week and a half before I was planning on getting the shot. Well, I'm pretty sure it was the flu. Fever, sore EVERYTHING, coughing, coughing, and then some more coughing. I'm still coughing, even though I'm basically all better. Cold, dry air makes these things so much worse.

I have been so low on energy and willpower these last couple weeks that mealtime has been whatever is non-toxic and lying still. Between that and all the doing of absolutely nothing, I was really afraid to get on the scale yesterday. But I had to know the damage.

I gained just under a pound. A pound! Hah! I love being neurotic.

I had my first workout in two weeks today. It was about as expected. I ran for five minutes and gave up, but lifting was okay. In fact, all the coughing seems to have improved my core muscles. Yay for silver linings.

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Both children are in preschool. Emmy can kind of color in the lines now, and she has learned a couple of letters. By this age, I think Grace was drawing recognizable pictures and knew most of the letters. I love the differences between them. Emmy is a very smart kid; her brain just works so differently. She will be the creative, insane one. Grace will be the anal retentive engineer.

So, with both children in school for two and a half hours every other day, I can go out in the day by myself and... do things. Sometimes I run outside. Sometimes I go grocery shopping in under an hour. Sometimes I get a day's worth of housework done. Sometimes I just sit in the living room with a cup of coffee and do nothing. It feels weird and wonderful at the same time. I think I will miss them when they're in school full time, but this is perfect.

The bad part is that they will now bring home a whole new variety of diseases, other than the ones we get from the gym and church and all the found objects Emmy licks. I think that, "But at least it's good for the old immune system!" is just a chant that people recite when they're tired of cold and flu season. When I'm 80 and never get sick, I'll be happy that my kids brought home all these science projects, but for now it just makes me grouchy.