"How Would You Like That Cooked?"

By now, most people are at least aware of the concept of "Love Languages." It's the idea that each person values something as the most important component of a relationship, so they will try to provide it for their partner. People who value financial security and/or gift giving will work extra hours in order to give expensive gifts. But, if their partner values time spent together, they will be disappointed that their partner chooses to stay longer than necessary at work instead of come home to them, and they will view gifts as a failed attempt to "buy" their affection.

I was truly unaware that there are so many other instances in which the idea people think they're presenting is not what others see or hear - ordinary instances of everyday words or actions. I'm still often taken by surprise - when someone tells me that my definition of the word "evolution" is the "wrong" definition, for instance. (I mean, I always figured that the dictionary had the final say on what words mean. Now, people tell me that "popular usage" is the most important thing, but that changes extremely frequently, by location, etc. That's almost like having no definition at all.)

It makes living with other humans, even in a community, much less in a shared home, difficult.

Allow me to demonstrate with an argument about: steak. Sincerely; bear with me.

I've mentioned before that when I was a newlywed, my husband had a really hard time with the way I prepared food.

"I was now having flashbacks to instance after instance in which my husband and I had been on completely separate pages. When we first got married, for instance, how I ate and/or cooked my food could send him into a tailspin. I remembered him insisting, completely distraught, "You cannot go on eating your sandwiches that way!" What? It was my sandwich, and I liked it. When I would tell him that, he would huff and roll his eyes, or worse, tell me, "That's irrelevant." How could the way I liked my sandwiches be irrelevant to me? I wasn't making his sandwiches that way and asking him to eat them, I was just feeding myself. Does not compute!

(His beef with my sandwiches, in case you wondered, is that I put only butter and cheese on my grilled cheese. "They have no taste!")" "The Right Way," July 2013)
I found it bizarre and unfathomable. If I'd insisted on making his food the way I liked it, I'd understand, but this was my own food.

My husband loves steak. If he could have only one meal, for the rest of his life, it would be steak and eggs, medium rare, over easy, with wheat toast.

Quite often, the way he cooks his steak looks, to me, like there's nothing "medium" about it, and it's straight up rare. I do not like rare meat, even medium rare meat. I don't need it to be all the way to "well done," but I can't stand it raw looking or tasting. This really disturbed my husband. Not puzzled, but sincerely upset him.

He kept trying to get me to "just try it" his way, and I kept repeating that I had tried it, and that's how I know that I don't like it. Then one day he said, "You just haven't ever had a really good cut of meat, properly prepared." Well, OK, maybe there was something to that. Money was tight when I was growing up; expensive cuts of meat were not on the menu. So, my husband went shopping, bought (ridiculously expensive) steaks, and cooked them, and proudly served me dinner. "You'll see," he said.

He was so delighted with his dinner. "Isn't this great?" he kept saying. "So tender! Doesn't it just melt in your mouth?"

NO. It did not "melt" in my mouth. It was not "tender." It was like chewing rubber bands - the chewing did not actually change the size, shape, or texture of the meat. My teeth just kind of bounced off of it. And the longer I chewed, the more it seemed that the meat actually absorbed my saliva, and got larger and larger. This might be OK if I just loved the taste, but I didn't. It tasted bloody, like when you've just had dental work, or accidentally bite yourself. It was barely edible. I knew this from previous experience, but this was particularly bad, as he'd left it so rare that I expected it to still moo.

I tried to respond without hurting his feelings, but finally said, "I just can't eat this. It's barely even cooked." I got up and tossed it back on the pan. When it was done, I happily ate the whole thing, and complimented his seasoning and choice of steak. "That was really good."

"Yes, it was good - and then you ruined it."

Well, I expected a bit of a huff, since he felt that I'd criticized his cooking.

I also expected that to be the final word. We were done now, I was sure. We'd tested every hypothesis, and I just do not like rare meat. Now we could quit discussing it.

But we, apparently, could not. If anything, he wanted more discussion, and he got more and more agitated.

I'd order my meat medium well at restaurants, and he'd say, "You're offending the chef. They don't like it when people want the meat well done."

I resisted the urge to say, "Oh, now you're psychic?" but said, "He's getting paid the same, no matter how I want it. He doesn't care. Besides, I didn't ask for well done. I asked for medium well."

"The chefs hate that. And they don't give you the good cuts then. They give you the old stuff or the tough stuff that other people won't eat."

"So, they'll be happy I'm using up their surplus, and paying the same as you are. And I'll be happy, too." I could not imagine that there could be a down side to this.

He did not see it this way. He was sure that I was being "rude" by ordering my food the way that I liked it; I could not imagine how that was possible.

I took to ordering chicken; I was informed that this, too, was "offensive." "You should always order the specialty of the house. The chef hates it when people come to a steakhouse and order chicken."

Me: "So, the chef will be angry if you order literally half of what's on the menu? Why does he work here? And how do you psychically know what he's thinking?"

Him: "Because that's what most people think."

Me: "WHAT?" Now he can read the mind of not only the chef, but "most" of the population? And I still didn't know, even if he could, why they got to choose my meals. I wasn't choosing theirs!

At home, I took care to cook his steak the way he liked it. Mine, of course, I cooked the way I like it. I was sure that my husband would be happy that I was being considerate enough to remember what he liked, and make it for him. I felt like a very attentive wife. I was therefore very puzzled when he was not happy, and did not consider this behavior to be considerate, but instead insisted that I was being self centered. "How can giving you what you like possibly self centered?" I wanted to know.

"Because you know how to do it right, and insist on doing it wrong."

"'Right' is however a person likes it!"

"Most people like their beef on the rare side."

"I am not cooking for 'most people!' I am cooking for specific individuals, not random passers by! And I am making sure that each person gets what they like, not what strangers might want!"

It made no sense at all to me.

I also could not understand why this was a big deal. Statistically, we were supposed to be arguing about money, sex, in-laws, chores, child rearing - and we're stuck on food. FOOD.

After literally years of this, I finally discovered a few things that finally shed some light.

One, my husband did not see this as a disagreement or a misunderstanding. He was positive that I knew exactly what he meant, and why, and my insistence on making my own food outside of what he considered to be the norm was a posturing attempt to dominate, control, and assert that I was the Alpha in the relationship. Holy cow. I never would have gotten that interpretation, not in a million years. I did, however, think that his behavior was controlling. (I mean, who tells people how they should like their food? Also, I think that if you have an Alpha in the relationship, it's unhealthy.)

Two, he was sure that if you disagreed with someone (about anything, really), you thought, and were saying, that they were stupid. ("If you thought they were smart, you'd agree with them.") He therefore felt criticized and judged - ironically, exactly how I felt.

Three, he was sure that there was only one best way to do anything, and that people should be concerned with doing anything "right," so individual tastes were irrelevant. Saying, "Bob likes it this way, but Susie likes it that way" was the same as saying, "We're doing a really mediocre job, and encouraging chaos and selfishness." It didn't matter how you liked it, it mattered what was right. And if you liked things the wrong way, you should be embarrassed, and should stop doing it wrong, no matter how you felt. Who wants to be wrong? And if you point out to someone that they're wrong, you're being helpful.

Wow. This was not how I was raised:

"I grew up hearing, "There's more than one way to skin a cat," and, "All roads lead to Rome," being told over and over that there was always more than one way to accomplish any goal... The idea that there was only one "right" way to do anything was not part of my daily reality." ("The Right Way")

This was not a matter of morals or physics, and therefore, to my mind, there was no possible way to be "wrong."

Four, the fact that I kept using the word "I" confirmed to him that I thought my opinion was the only thing that mattered, and I was therefore, by definition, being selfish and self centered. When I said, "I like it this way," he heard, "I do not ever need to consider anyone but myself."

On the other hand, I had studied communication in school. Plus, I'd approached marriage the same way I approached anything, by reading voluminous amounts. I knew that making "I" statements is what psychologists and relationship experts advise. It tells your partner what you're thinking and what you need, and avoids inflammatory, blame placing statements like, "You make me so mad."

Five, he thought that he was being a considerate partner by looking beyond what I was saying to try to figure out what I "really meant." He also thought that being vague avoided putting people on the spot, or hurting feelings. I thought that I was being a considerate partner, and avoiding misunderstanding, by being clear and literal, and taking what he said at face value. I thought that he'd appreciate my lack of game playing, and avoiding infuriating behaviors like, "If you loved me, you'd know why I'm upset." I find vagueness infuriating and unhelpful.

And you can be sure, all of this affected far more than our discussions about steak.

Holy. Cow.

So, now knowing these things, are we living in perfect harmony? HA HA! You're so cute! No. But understanding is indeed the first step.

What we try to do is consider our partner's style. It's not a case of, "I'm right, you're wrong." Intent is important.

He has to try to remember take what I say at face value, without looking for ulterior motives. I have to try to remember that he may not actually be saying everything that he wants me to know.

Of course, he still thinks that the way I like my steak is weird. I think it's weird that the way I like my steak concerns him. But we've learned how to avoid arguing about it.

You know when you hear that someone's getting a divorce, and one partner says, "I was completely blindsided. I had no idea my spouse was unhappy," and the other says, "My spouse knows perfectly well why we're divorcing! S/he knows that I'm unhappy, and that I've been this way for a long time! This cannot be a surprise!" I understand now how that happens.

What you think you're saying may not be what other people are hearing.

Feeding Yourself

It's always hard to know what balance to strike between doing things for your children, and having them do them for themselves. Sometimes, I think I get it right. Sometimes, I'm not so sure.

When my kids were little, I made breakfast for them every day. We only had the whole family at breakfast - at family meals, really, meals including all of us - when their dad had days off. He was working a rotating schedule of day shift, swing shift, graveyard shift, then back to day shift again. Weekends could be a day and a half, two days or four days (the rotation from graveyard back to days). When they were older, he worked steady hours, 3 am to 3 pm, which meant family dinner at about 5, but there was no way we were getting up at 2 am to have breakfast together.

I don't make elaborate meals. One of their favorite breakfasts was microwaved scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast. Another was sliced fruit, usually bananas and apples, in yogurt, topped with granola. We went through our fair share of cold cereal, oatmeal and Cream of Wheat, as well.

Once the kids were in school, I insisted that they be dressed before they came to breakfast. If we were running late, they could eat in the car on the way to school, but they couldn't get dressed or brush teeth in the car. This plan went pretty smoothly until they got a bit older. Then, obsessions with the "right" outfit, requests for fancy hairstyles and general dawdling meant that there was less and less time for breakfast. I resorted to toast, muffins or Pop Tarts in the car, until it became clear that I'd spend my days fishing untouched food out from under my seats. When I insisted that food be eaten at the table, even if it meant no fancy hair, there was much howling. I found myself thinking, "Are you kidding? You're upset because you're being fed? How is that even possible?" I even caved to them - and their dad - and bought cereals that were little more than spun sugar. They still griped.

By the time they hit middle school, in seventh grade, griping about "having to eat" was a pretty firmly established routine. It still astonished me. (Years later, I'm still astonished.) When they were asked to skip a meal for fasting with the church, or when meals were late on weekends or while traveling, they wailed about being "starving," yet they howled about being "not hungry" on school mornings. It had nothing to do with hunger, and everything to do with a power play. I even let them drench their oatmeal in syrup, or otherwise make sugar the main course, and they griped. Griping was a reflex action.

When the oldest kids were 12 and 11, and the third child was almost 4, we had Baby #4. One Saturday morning, when we were still measuring her age in days, the big kids were just waking up and coming down the stairs while the baby had just finished eating, and I was hoping to head back to bed. I resigned myself to more exhaustion when I suddenly realized, hey, I can put the big kids in charge! I mean, they can handle breakfast and Saturday morning cartoons, right?

My oldest was deeply scandalized by this request. "You want me to feed everyone so that you can go sleep?" It should be noted here that my Firstborn has always considered sleep to be a weakness. Even as an infant, she slept less than the other children. Sometimes, her dad would come home from work and go straight to bed, and this also scandalized her. She'd demand, "Why is Dad asleep?" and she did not understand why the answer was, "Because he's tired." This made no sense to her.

"Yes. I'm tired. This is the fourth time I've been up to feed the baby since I went to bed. I'd appreciate it if you could feed the rest of you." Surely, this request made sense.

"Can't you make breakfast first?"

"I could, but I'm exhausted. By the time you're done with breakfast, the baby might be awake and hungry again." (The baby was breastfed; Mommy was the only possible feeder.)

"I can't believe that you want me to make breakfast!" Really, Kid? In actuality, I shouldn't have been surprised. Asking the kids to do anything resembling work elicited wailing, and complaints that all household jobs belonged to me, and I was just farming out the work because I was lazy and mean. Still, I was taken by surprise at the level of outrage she was showing over a simple task.

After a few more moments of back-and-forth, I snapped at her.

"It's cereal! If the three year old could reach the cupboards, he could do it himself!"

This stopped the complaining for just a moment, while it occurred to her that this was not a sentence of hard labor. Still, in her mind, it was clearly the mother's job.

Eventually, the 11 year old started looking through the cereal cupboard. The baby and I went upstairs to sleep.

The oldest still recounted the story to her friends in horror - "Mom slept, and I had to make breakfast," as though this demonstrated clear hardship.

It occurred to me that I wasn't asking them to help out nearly often enough if a simple pouring of cereal brought on such a ruckus.

As an adult, my Secondborn insisted that part of her getting ready for school routine was spoonfeeding the babies. "No," I corrected, "you and your sister sometimes fed them on weekends, but never on school mornings." School mornings were short enough on time without trying to get the big kids to do anything besides get dressed and feed themselves. But yes, I did ask them to help feed the siblings once the babies could eat in high chairs. Being part of a family means pitching in. Kids learn to be responsible by being given responsibility. Taking care of siblings also brings the siblings themselves closer.

She still isn't sure that I'm right about this. In her mind, it was so burdensome a task that it had to be every day.

"But sometimes, I was late to school."

"I know! That's because you dragged, and I had to cattle prod you through the mornings. That's exactly why you only fed the babies on weekends." (It's also why we had a "no TV in the mornings" rule; turn on the TV, and everybody ground to a halt.) She doesn't remember it that way.

At least, by the time she was in high school, she got ready in 15 minutes. Foodless minutes, but progress is progress.

Once they hit high school, I stopped making their breakfasts, in another attempt to teach responsibility and time management before they moved out of my house. I didn't want to send them away to college without them having done the basics for themselves. I still fought the "eat something!" battle. Many days, a glass of milk was all I'd get a child to consume before leaving, but it was something. I bought granola bars, string cheese, applesauce cups - all kinds of convenience food, but they rarely ate it. I said, out loud, that Oreos and milk would be acceptable, but nobody took me up on it. They were determined to skip breakfast, which makes me crazy. I'm hypoglycemic, so skipped meals are BAD. Plus, I'm a mom; I need to feed. Study after study shows weight gain, lower productivity, reduced concentration and lower job performance for breakfast skippers. It was maddening. In a nation brimming with both food and actual deprivation, and in a house full of food, should it be this hard to get people to eat?

Secondborn is in her late 20s, and after seeing something recently on TV about moms making breakfast, said, "You never made us breakfast."

"Not in high school," I said, sure that she was ignoring the actual meaning of the word "never."

"I don't remember you ever making breakfast."

"I did it for the first 14 years of your life, and I often had to fight to get you to eat it."

"Yeah, I hate breakfast. But I don't remember that." Wow. So glad that I spent all that time slicing, sprinkling, and buying stuff like Dinosaur Egg Instant Oatmeal.

When the Firstborn graduated from high school, she went to Hawaii with her two best friends. After we'd gotten the call saying that they'd landed safely, the Secondborn started to worry. "How will they eat?"

"You remember Honolulu. There's tons of places to eat."

"But how will they eat? What will they do when it's dinnertime?"

"They'll go to a restaurant, order food, pay for it and eat it." That seemed pretty obvious to me. I wondered if she was concerned that restaurants might not serve them, so I added, "They are legal adults, you know."

"But how will they know where to eat or what to eat?"

"They'll say, 'Hey, what do you want to eat?' and choose."

This conversation was sounding more and more bizarre to me. I'm sure that she was actually anxious because her sister, who'd been right next to her for her entire life, was now thousands of miles away, and after she came home,  she would be preparing to move hundreds of miles away, so the anxiety wasn't actually about food, but food still seemed an odd thing for the anxiety to attach itself to. She wasn't worried that they'd be mugged, or get lost, or lose their luggage, or be assaulted, or miss their flight, or be on a plane that crashed, or miss their connecting flight home and be stuck in an airport in California, or anything else that was a much higher probability than starvation. No; she worried that three eighteen year olds with honors diplomas couldn't figure out how to feed themselves.

"They might get some stuff, especially for breakfasts, at a grocery store, too. That's cheaper than breakfast out." We've traveled a lot; I thought that how one fed one's self away from home would be familiar.

"What if they don't have enough money?"

Wow. "They'll have to figure out how much they can spend every day. But if something goes wrong, they have the credit card for emergencies."

"How will they know how much they can spend? How will they know if they can afford something?"

More wow. "If they can handle honors calculus, honors trigonometry and honors statistics, I think they can figure out how to make their cash last for a week. They can divide by seven."

"What if they can't?"

"Then they use the credit card."

"What if they lose the credit card?"

OK, this conversation would have made sense to me if I was having it with the seven year old, but this was the seventeen year old. "If they have reached the age of 18, and graduated from high school, without being able to feed themselves, we as parents have done a terrible job, and they'd better start catching up so they can be functional adults."

"I can't believe you're not even worried."

"Not about them feeding themselves!"

Then it occurred to me; this child usually worries based on things that she thinks might happen to her. "Do you think that you could feed yourself if we weren't there?"

"Me, yeah. I just don't know if she can."

Sisterly love.

As it turned out, by day seven, one girl had run out of cash, and the rice cakes she'd packed. The other two pooled their money and covered the third for those last meals. For instance, they bought 99 cent fruit and yogurt parfaits for breakfast, and ate them on Waikiki Beach. Go, girls!

The next year, when Secondborn went to Florida with her best friend on their graduation trip, everyone was fed, without much angst.

I still find myself having to cattle prod people to EAT at home. (Not literally - don't bother the authorities.) My household seems determined to skip meals. The Thirdborn averages two meals a day - he's an adult now - and the teenaged Fourthborn will go until midafternoon without eating, and then graze for the rest of the day, if I let her. My husband will be up for hours before he thinks about breakfast.

Is it me?

Is it them?

Should I have had the kids making breakfast, and dinner, for the whole family regularly, from an early age? Probably.

Food Bank Donations

Today my family volunteered at the Food Bank. We do this every three months or so, with my Rotary Club.

Today we sorted food from a recent food drive. I've seen this same thing happen before, and I feel the need to address it.

IF YOU DONATE FOOD: Thank you! You rock.

Please keep in mind, though - watch the expiration dates. I am far from a nut about these things. I happily eat food that is literally years past its date - how "bad" can dried pasta get? It makes my kids crazy, but I'm much older than they are, and have never had a problem. You're probably thinking that any food is better than no food, and you're right. Here's the problem, though: the Food Bank is not allowed to pass out food that's any more than 6 months past its "sell by" date. Let me repeat that in case someone missed it. The rules do not allow the Food Bank to distribute food that is years past its "sell by" date. There's a 6 month window, and that's it.

They can't put it out with a sign saying "expired; use at your own risk." They can't let volunteers take it home. They are not allowed.

Is this ridiculous? I think so. As I said, I regularly eat canned and boxed stuff that is far past its date. I worry about the date only on perishables, and even then, I'll buy the "bargain bin" meat that's past its date, and throw it in my freezer. (Again, I'm still alive. I've had food poisoning ONCE in my almost 50 years, and it came from bad handling, not from age.)

Today, there were entire bags of food with dates three, four, and five years out of date. One package expired in 1998. The "winner" was one that expired in 1993. We had to throw ALL of it out. There was probably a dumpster full by the time all was sorted. It took time, gas, money and effort for your donation to end in the trash. This is not a chance to clean your cupboards and unload what you don't want to eat.

Also, they have to throw out any individual packages - say, applesauce cups - that do not have a date stamped. If it was part of a larger pack, you can't donate it. Well, OK, you can, but it'll get thrown away. Complete packages only, thanks.

IF YOU RECEIVE HELP: Thank you for allowing others to serve you, especially if you are feeding children, the elderly or the sick. There is no shame in receiving needed help! Do not feel bad about yourself.

BUT: please keep in mind that you should be gracious about the generosity of others. I have, in the past, heard others complain about their donated food. "There's nothing good or high quality in here. It's all store brand. It's mostly canned, with all that sodium and processed sugar. They think that, just because we're down on our luck, we don't deserve anything good."

NO. That is NOT what it means. I donate store brand food because I EAT store brand food. I'll pick up one for me and one for you. You get EXACTLY what I feed my family, as far as canned, boxed or jarred foods go.

Also, many people donate because they know what it's like to be in need. I remember Christmas the first year I lived on my own. I was working for minimum wage, and my idea of "a varied diet" meant chicken ramen for lunch, and beef ramen for dinner. I donated two (store brand) cans of green beans and corn. I thought that, if someone managed to buy some chicken, maybe a package of drumsticks, that my veggies would make a complete dinner. I was really proud that I could help.

For many years now, I've been able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted; I could eat out daily if I felt like it. I still donate because I know what it's like to worry about not having enough food. Plus, I'm a mother; we feed.

Would it be nice if you could get donated fresh, organic food, or food that met your restrictions due to, say, allergies? Sure. But, it's very, very hard to gather and distribute fresh food, because it spoils so quickly. When you're dealing with large numbers, or a wide geographic area (and our Food Bank covers one of the nation's largest geographic areas, including rural areas), you need cans, jars and boxes, because they store and travel well.

That's also why, if your boxes of macaroni look crushed, or your canned peas have a ding in the rim, you need to relax. I've heard people have fits about that, too. "They don't even care! These are all crushed!" If there's large amounts of food involved - and there is - or lots of handling and travel involved - and there is - some things will look worse for wear. If someone donated Cheerios and they were in the bottom of a bin, and someone donated canned chili, and the chili went in on top, the box might get crushed. Maybe some Cheerios themselves might break. They're still safe to eat. It is NOT a sign of disrespect or of the food being unsafe.

Sometimes, a jar of jelly or pasta sauce might break. In that case, the food it was near might get leakage all over. The choice might be made to wash off those cans and jars, again because the food in them is still good. If your labels look as if they've been wet, stained or torn, leakage is likely why. It would be a shame to throw away your peanut butter instead of washing off the leaked jelly. I washed off a jar today. The label looks awful, but the food inside is fine.

Keep in mind - we're asked, while we're making those sorting decisions, "Would you feed it to your family?" I would.

We're all in this together!

Are You Going to Eat That?

So, I went to the pricey, trendy grocery store that features organic, free range, gluten free and just generally higher quality stuff than my normal supermarket. I don't do it very often, because it is significantly more expensive, but we do enjoy a lot of their offerings. Plus, I know people who raise this sort of food, and how hard they work, and I'd like to see them make some serious money doing so.

I bought a bunch of organic carrots of assorted colors - red, orange, purple and yellow - to roast with a chicken for Sunday dinner. I was feeling pretty proud of myself; they're good for me, my money goes to a small, organic farm, and they'll look gorgeous on my table. A win all the way around, right?

My eighteen year old was in the kitchen with me when I took them out of the refrigerator. He made a sound of significant alarm - "AAAAHHHHH!" Coming closer, he poked and pinched them. "Why are they weird colors?" As I started to trim them, he was even more distressed. The cores of the purple carrots were yellowish with a green tint. "They're green! Purple and green carrots are just wrong!"

For crying out loud!

This is a child who has eaten snails and kangaroo. He has actually plucked green ants off of a tree in Australia and eaten them. "They're OK - they taste kinda like limes."

I have no worries that he'll starve next year at college. He routinely cooks at home - actual cooking,  not boiling water for ramen noodles. He'll make himself a bacon cheeseburger for breakfast, or a grilled turkey and cheddar sandwich on sourdough for dinner. One of the family favorites he made sure he knew how to make himself is a chicken and rice bake.

Yet brightly colored carrots alarm him? Really?

He also dislikes pasta, of any kind. He can't stand all beef hot dogs. While I love homemade chili, he will nibble it and say, "Can't we just get the good stuff, in cans?"

I shouldn't be surprised. He is my third child.

When my oldest was about 13, I picked some apples from the tree in the back yard and brought them in to make a pie. This, again, is a best case scenario for me. They're free, I know there have been no pesticides used on or near them, and they're the freshest of the fresh, going from tree to oven in minutes. It's one of my favorite fall rituals. Again, an all around win, yes?

No.

She literally squirmed with distaste. "You're going to eat those? After they've been (tone of horror) outside in the yard? With all the bugs and dirt and things?"

Sigh. "I washed them."

"Did you disinfect them?"

"No! I did not disinfect them! One of the best parts about eating them is that there are no chemicals on them!"

(Tone of horror again:) "And you expect us to eat them?"

My mother grew up on a farm. It was her job to pluck and clean the chickens before her mother cooked them. It was her brother's job to catch and behead them, but he was incompetent at it, so nine times out of ten, Mom caught it, killed it, drained it, then had to pluck and gut it. As a kid, I routinely snacked on raspberries, strawberries, carrots and plums from our yard, rather than go into the house and ask my mother to make me something. I would simply wipe a carrot on my pants before eating it. Now, I found myself standing in my kitchen having this surreal conversation with my daughter. My mind boggled.

"Where do you think the apples in the grocery store come from?"

She's very bright; I could see her engage the gears in her brain to come up with the correct answer. Still, she put on a hopeful grin and said, "A big, sterile warehouse somewhere?"

I can be gentle and tactful, really I can. I frequently choose not to. "You know how, on the way to Aunt Lynne's house, we drive by all those orchards alongside the highway?"

Wariness: "Yeah?"

"That's where most of our apples come from. Outside, with the bugs and dirt, not far from the California smog, right next to the relentless freeway exhaust. Plus, they're sprayed with pesticides several times a year." There. Mock my apples, and I will make you lose your appetite, so that I can eat your share of the pie. Reality check.

My kids, all of them, also have food preferences that are hard to understand. Take, for instance, their universal hatred of onions. They are all convinced that onions are the spawn of the devil. As children, they would scrape their McDonald's burgers to within an inch of their lives, to avoid any chance of getting a sliver of onion. They can find the tiniest, minced bit of onion in any dish, and would hold it up, speared on a fork, to proclaim, "You put onions in this!" I took to using only granulated onion or onion powder, but something like jarred pasta sauce would produce outrage. They hate peppers, all peppers, too, but not with the passion reserved for onions.

When my second born went away to culinary school, she came home on breaks, and began to make observations like, "Why don't you put any onions or peppers in that? Most people put onions and peppers in."

(Have you lived in your body for your entire life, child?) "Because you hate onions and peppers. All of you hate them. You would refuse to eat it if I added any."

"Oh. Well, I like it that way now. It's pretty good."

Moral of the story: we should, apparently, not feed our own children, but everyone else's. That way, they'll eat, and like, things.

Well, that and I set up my Sunday dinner so that I could have seconds on carrots.