I am embarrassed to admit I hated olives, onion, mushrooms, and sun-dried tomatoes, I was an extremely fussy eater, sitting in an Italian restaurant with a group of friends, every pasta I considered ordering seemed to have something I wouldn’t eat! Seriously what a pain in the butt I was! How did the hot guy sitting next to me even consider asking me out on a date after that night? He must have been crazy, or perhaps had a few too many drinks? Maybe I was just so irresistible in my boob tube (hey it was the fashion at the time), he couldn’t resist asking me out!
Truth is, I think I led a fairly sheltered childhood when it came to food, my father came from England, my mother grew up on a farm, so we were pretty much a meat and 3 veg kind of family, with the occasional chip butty. I grew up in a very multicultural community, I have wonderful, colourful memories of walking through markets, men out the front of stalls, calling out that they had the best, freshest fruit, yet still we never stopped to try any olives, or those interesting looking meats.
So when it comes to food I was a late bloomer, but once I dared to really try an olive I realised how much I actually loved them, grilled eggplant yum, feta cheese, sushi, Indian, Mexican, Hungarian food, yep I love them all! So I asked my mum, why did she never expose us to these glorious cultural meals? Her response was that she did! What? Well apparently whenever she cooked up some new dish, her four children would screw up their noses in disgust, we wanted our plain boring meals night after night. What were we thinking?
Well I wasn’t going to take that from my kids, no way, mine were going to be eating wacky cheeses and snacking on carrots dipped in hummus! That is until they started screwing their noses up at it. I wrongly thought that if their father and I set the example they would follow suit, well not my children. Most nights we cook up some fabulous dish full of flavour, but before we add that flavour we are separating vegetables out of one dish into another. My children’s plates looks like this, a few pieces of broccoli, a generous scattering of peas, beans and some carrots, if we are lucky they may have a little capsicum. There may also be some Salmon or plain chicken on the side. Yep that’s it, no flavouring, just plain and boring. How did my world come to this? I had such great intentions!
April, my eight year old is probably the most experimental, she will enjoy a little taste of dip, and try a variety of cheeses. They are getting better, but I must admit I feel a twinge of jealousy when I see some children stuffing their faces with olives! Does it count that April has a Cabbage Patch baby doll called Olive?!
Before I entered the restaurant that night I had no idea how much my life (and the life of my taste buds), were about to change, I was chatting to my friends waiting for the others to arrive, when one of my friends rocked up with his work colleague that the rest of us hadn’t met before. I ended up sitting next to him (accidentally on purpose, well he was hot), and we hit it off despite my lack of a sophisticated palate, (he says it was my good looks and sense of humour that won him over, but I’m still sure it was the boob tube), whatever it was he ended up asking me to marry him 7 months later, this year we celebrated 15 years since we met, and today we celebrate 13 years of marriage, oh and plenty of shared olives!
Thanks for joining me, love Mackenzie xx
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2 comments
I also used to be the fussiest child but not anymore. I can’t get over the texture of mushrooms and the taste of olives but I think I’ve made huge progress. My step dad is British so growing up with a lot of meat and potatoes and bland!!
Never be afraid to try new things, in the kitchen and in LIFE. You might end up surprising yourself and learning or liking something new!
Xo
So right Lindsay!
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