Smooth

One of my all-time favorite Santana songs. Twelve years later, and it still gives me goosebumps. [Was going to insert the YouTube here but after viewing, I decided it was too sensual; I don’t think I’d ever seen Rob Thomas before: the kid is gorgeous!]

This post is inspired by an exchange over on FB after church yesterday. It’s a challenge to come up with age-appropriate treats for my Primary class. At four and five, they know what they like, and they are not shy with their opinions. After the sharp cheese fiasco, I was reasonably sure that it would be a waste to give them edamame hummus and a slice or two of baguette. Let them get a few more miles on their individual and collective palates, and a job, and they can buy their own edamame hummus.

So I made pigs in blankets, to the enthusiastic devouring of three little girls and the near-meltdown of a fourth. The consensus is that graham crackers should be the treat du jour, next week. Preferably washed down with milk, but they all agreed that it would not be fun to drink it warm if I brought it in my bag, and reasoned that it might spill and get all over the lesson. (That ability to foresee cause and effect will stand them in good stead when they are old enough to date.)

I think many kids just naturally prefer bland food. I vaguely remember having read something about how taste buds develop or wake up, over a lifetime. When I was a kid, I liked my food smooth and predictable. Smooth peanut butter (still prefer it; had to work for a couple of years to be able to eat the old-fashioned kind that you have to stir, with any degree of enjoyment). Brownies without nuts.

Hated pizza the first few times I tried it: there was too much going on all at once. Took me a couple of decades of hard work to eat Chinese food the way it is intended, a bite of this and a bite of that. If you had given me a handful of wasabi peas as recently as ten years ago, there would have been weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I’m not one of those people whose peas can’t touch the carrots can’t touch the potatoes can’t touch the salad can’t touch the meat, but I totally *get* them.

[The comments, almost to a mom, averred that children who are exposed to non-bland foods at an early age and who are not allowed to be picky, develop a proper appreciation for flavorful foods. Perhaps, but none of those moms have five children. I was not allowed to be picky, and my mother was a gifted cook, and there was still stuff that made me gag.]

Still are. There is a whole raft of vegetables which induce social embarrassment of the ascending (cukes) or descending (onions, beans) sort. The brassicae (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage) are almost painful to eat.

I think it might be a matter of how one’s brain is organized, and where one’s talents lie, and I think it might be partly genetic. [Thankfully, at least two of my children are able to eat what they choose; one can barely eat tomatoes, another is allergic to nuts, and LittleBit’s hiatal hernia severely limits her intake.]

There are areas in my life that I like to keep separate from one another. When they stay in their boxes, life is good. And when they overlap, it can be crazy-making.

Here I am again, obsessing over food. The new guy has his CT scan today, when they will determine the stage of his cancer and the extent of his treatment. He had a pretty rough day yesterday but was elated that the Mavs won. I think the chances of my getting to meet his son’s fiancée before the wedding on Saturday are fairly slim, as there is only tonight or tomorrow night before his insane work schedule takes over.

I finished parts four and five of the wedding gift yesterday and am nearly half done with the sixth and final part.

Hee hee hee, somebody forgot to flip the switch back in the shower yesterday, so when I went to fill the tub (I alternate between a shower when I need to wash my hair, and a bath when I do not), one shoulder got a damp surprise. Thankfully, the spray missed my head. And just as I sat down here to type this, the shower rod fell into the tub, bearing my towel.

This Monday is getting off to an amusing and interesting start.