From the Archives- Introducing The Picky Eater

Note from the Picky Eater: My mom is working hard (or maybe hardly working) on "The Picky Eater's Guide to PaRiS, and decided to use this old article she ghost wrote for me  when I was thirteen. This entry is the introduction, and she will post the rest later. Looking back on my younger years, I have to admit that I used to be much more of a pain about eating then, when I mainly ate white food, and wouldn't even try tomatoes or mushrooms.

So, onward, dear reader-


My parents say that I’m a picky eater. I like to think of myself as a “particular” eater – I’m particular about what I like to eat, and I only like to eat particular things, like pasta with garlic sauce, and there are particular things, like hamburgers, that I would never eat! (I’ve been a vegetarian since birth.)

Although I’m just thirteen, stories about my picky-ness are already part of the family mythology. Like the time, when I was six, that I ate the best French fries of my life at the Auberge d’Ill, a Michelin three star restaurant, in Alsace. Or when, in Tours, France, my mom couldn’t figure out how to tell the waiter that I wanted the pasta with butter that was on the menu, but to hold the salmon that came on top. After he brought it twice with the salmon still there, my dad just ate it, and I ate the pasta underneath. Or the way I have, for the last six years, eaten two Brown Cow full fat chocolate yogurts and two Luna Nutz –Over-Chocolate bars every day of my life.

Which looks most palatable- cheese, spinach or corn? NOT!!

Every once in a while my parents try to get me to eat something new. My dad thinks that I will be more receptive if he makes it into a game, and so he likes to stage "taste-offs." Here's a photo of a souffle "taste-off" that they tried a few years back- a homemade cheese souffle vs. Stauffer's frozen spinach and corn souffles. Needless to say, I haven't tasted any of them since.

My parents like to travel, mostly to France or the Southwestern United States. I like to travel too, except I can’t help but feel nervous about the food. Like lots of people who travel, my parents like to try interesting restaurants in the places they visit. The question is always whether or not these “interesting” restaurants will have anything for ME to eat. During the day, while we’re walking around, we always stop to look at the menus posted outside the restaurants that we pass. We try to keep track of the ones I might be willing to try. Restaurants that I will be willing to try have to serve one of these things: pasta with butter, French fries, crepes, mashed potatoes, Mexican rice, or plain udon noodles, and if they don't I just prefer to starve. Then my parents are REALLY SORRY!!

Recently we went to Santa Fe and Taos in New Mexico for a vacation. In the next post I will give you the low down on some reasonable restaurant choices (nothing hot & spicy) for picky eaters in New Mexico.