Picky Eating Runs In The Family

I watch as the waitress brings the menus and dread the conversation that will ensue.  I know there will be explanations and requests, dietary and also just preferential.  I look at my sweet boy and try not to judge him too harshly, after all his is a legacy of food challenged eaters.

In my family we don’t call it being picky, we call it enjoying our options.  As a child I would watch as my mother would order her sandwich just so and hold the mayo, please.  She shuddered if we had to go to an all you could eat place, the sheer combinations frightened her.  And my sister has been putting her order with every food on a different plate since I can remember.  She likes ordering from the sides portion of the menu, it’s just easier that way.  Our table often looks like a sampler platter or maybe one of us is a food critic and has to try everything on the menu, yes, let’s go with that.

We like foods that show what they’re made of, literally.  If we can’t see what’s inside, then we’re probably only going to poke it around our plates for a while.  Don’t watch too closely, it’s not pretty.  We love foods where we get to make it ourselves, you know, build your own, anything really.  Then we have total control over what goes in it.  Try not to read too much into that, we don’t.

We haven’t been to a potluck dinner since, well, who can remember.  Casseroles need not apply in our house.  My sister and I start looking at each other, wondering what could be in there.  And the minute someone mentions cottage cheese out loud, there is no way a spoonful of that is going anywhere near any of our plates.

I only stopped being embarrassed a few years before my children were born.  It’s a good thing too because they are shaping up to be slices off the same wedge of cheddar cheese, only cheddar cheese will do, thank you.

The thing is, I love food, always have.  So, I tend not to be as picky, I mean, option conscious as the rest of my family.  It pains me to have to order my son’s sandwich just so, hear him remind me, in front of the waitress, of all the things he doesn’t like and doesn’t want on his plate.  And when his order comes out on three separate plates I know that we are following in a long tradition of, let’s not say picky, but definitely food alert people.