Rant #1,490: Other Foods

Yes, I have been on a food kick this week, and I think this will be my final Rant on this subject because after this, there really isn't anything more to write on the subject, at least from my viewpoint.

I love to eat, have the stomach to show it, and I can eat anything ... well, almost anything.

I am a very picky eater, have been since birth, and I honestly don't eat that many different things.

I am not into other cuisines, like Indian, or Greek, so I really can't talk about either one of them like I did about Chinese, pizza, kosher deli, and the like.

So I won't talk at any great length about them.

But I will talk about my food experience during the past 58 years of my life.

I don't remember how I was as a baby, but I know that as a young kid, I was very, very picky.

I hate chicken. I really do. I won't eat it in any way, shape or form if I can help it.

I don't like lamb chops. Never did and never will.

I remember that one time, my mother tried to masquerade lamb chops as steak.

I don't remember how old I was, certainly in the low single digits, but when she wasn't looking, I took the faux steak and threw it in the garbage.

Other times, I would take what we were eating and if we had mashed potatoes, I hid them under the mashed potatoes so that on a quick glance, my mother thought I ate whatever she served.

I do like vegetables, and I was probably the only kid I knew who ate their spinach. Yes, I was a Popeye fan, but I don't think it had anything to do with it--I just liked, and still like, spinach.

To this day, as when I was a kid, my favorite foods are very simple ones.

I just love hot dogs and hamburgers. To me, they are the ultimate comfort foods.

And I don't like them buried in toppings.

For me, the perfect food is a kosher hot dog--Hebrew National, but if that is not available, Nathan's is pretty good--wrapped in a nice bun, with mustard and sauerkraut on top, maybe occasionally relish, or even, if I am being bold that day, a piece of cheese wrapped around the frank.

That's it. None of these fancy, engulfed-with-toppings hot dogs for me.

On a hamburger, just give me a nice, well done burger with ketchup and cheese on it, maybe some kosher pickle and/or onion on it, and I am fine.

I have always loved these foods, and always will.

I also like meat loaf. My wife makes a really good meat loaf, and by doing so, she gets me hook, line and sinker every time she makes it.

It is that good.

And I like salad, always have.

I remember that during the 1960s, I used to get a salad when my family would go out, maybe at a diner, and it was very unusual to do so at that time, but I found that I liked it.

And today, years later, salad is almost a staple of everyone's diet.

On the other hand, I hate yogurt, I don't care what flavor it is.

I have had it, and it always tastes sour to me, not the good sour like a sour pickle, but an off sour, like milk that has spoiled.

But I do love fish, but it is only certain fishes, like flounder and shrimp and yes, tuna fish--the canned kind--and sardines--in water or oil only.

I don't really care for any other fish at all, including salmon, although I do occasionally crave white fish, which is not as easy to find as it once was.

Back to salmon ... I know it is good for you, but ...

My mother, and for that matter, my grandmother, tried countless times to pass salmon over as tuna fish, but I never took the bait, so to speak, and in the garbage it went.

So there you have it.

I am as picky an eater as there is around today, but like everyone, I do have my preferences.

Yesterday evening, my wife worked late, so I had a Boboli pizza with cut up pieces of steak on it.

It was really good.

Tonight, I have to go to the dentist again, to fill a new cavity and to check the one that I had filled last week, which I think cracked again, so I won't be eating anything too exotic tonight.

But whatever it is, it will be something I like.

Maybe tuna fish, whatever I can chew after this fiasco I am awaiting at the dentist.

Wish me well.

Bon appetit.