curious4. When I'm having a bad day and want comfort food, I go home and curl up with a big bowl of frozen peas that have been heated in the microwave. All I put on them is a) salt, and b) pepper. This stems from a childhood misinterpretation of what chickpeas were, when the characters in a book I loved ate "fresh hot buttered chickpeas."
3. My family was very, very poor when I was younger. As a consequence, I think that butter tastes horrible, because we always got a brick of government butter in our "please don't starve to death" box. Margarine, on the other hand, is the taste of luxury. I had a bad margarine habit for a while after getting my first job, and bought a tub every time I went to the store.
2. I am very superstitious, and very picky about my superstitions. I count crows, pick up pennies, and occasionally look for auguries in bags of M&Ms. I do not, however, freak out when I see a funeral procession, or insist on touching my collar and asking magpies how their wives are. This helps me strike a good balance. Just never get between me and a street penny.
1. I have a paralyzing phobia of pudding, which extends to all "pudding-type" substances, including custard and overly-warm milkshakes. Suddenly biting into an unexpected cream filling has been known to make me throw up on the spot. Luckily, this does not extend to the unnatural white goo inside Twinkies.
So that's five things you may or may not know about me. What do you think I may or may not know about you?
December 27 2010, 21:08:30 UTC 6 years ago
5)I rebelled against liking country music because I grew up in Gualala - a small town on the north coast of California, and that was the popular music up there. Then, my senior year in High School, I was giving a friend rides to work and let her choose the radio station, and came to terms with the fact that I actually enjoyed that sort of music. A couple of years later, I ended up in the square dance club at UC Davis until it folded for lack of new members. Now I have vague hopes of someday being able to play the fiddle part of "Devil went down to Georgia." :)
4) That sounds really good, actually. The closest I think I have to a comfort food is Tuna Noodle Casserole - it's one of the recipes I made sure to get from my mom when setting out on my own. Also Tacos. I had to teach myself to make tortillas when I spent a year in New Zealand as I couldn't find a source for decent ones over there.
3) My family used margarine primarily, as it was cheaper than butter, so I only used to get butter when we went to visit my grandparents. I'm pretty sure that this is why I'm convinced that butter tastes better. It's amazing how associations shape likes and dislikes of food.
Relatedly (or maybe only so in my head), because my grandmother has a navel orange tree, and both my grandfathers grew tomatoes in their gardens, I strongly dislike most store-bought varieties of either. I'm very glad that I now live somewhere that I can grow both of these, though our orange tree isn't yet old enough for fruit.
2) I used to be very superstitions about stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. I can't pinpoint when this went away, but it persisted into my adult years. And I still pick up pennies, though it's a much "Oooh Shiny!" as due to superstition. The childhood me would recognize much of what ends up in my jacket pockets. In a couple of cases literally so - I still have a couple of the rocks I picked up off the ground in grade school.
December 28 2010, 15:44:52 UTC 6 years ago