"sf" wrote
> "cshenk" wrote:

>>For 30 years I've been doing this although I don't 'always' find
something
>>new that appeals on every trip. At least once a month though, we do
>>still.

> I think it's odd that for 30 years you've been *conscientiously*
> trying new things.

It got to be a habit and one the family likes.

> Was your culinary upbringing so confined that you
> really have eat something new every month? I think my personal
> experience was fairly limited (except for special occasions), but I
> don't feel like I have to rebel and eat durian.

Grin, it was that limited. We used to pray for TV dinners and school
lunches. To give an idea, Mom never made a pizza the whole time I was
growing up. Pizza is too 'fancy' (even boxed frozen). I remember she got
celery once. Thanksgiving was cool because thats when you saw Gravy (from a
packet, add water and heat), Stuffing (from a bag, nothing added but what
the bag's basic directions called for), and sweet potatoes (from a can).

Every meal was a balanced meat (hamburger, baked steak well done, baked
chicken, on rare times - baked fish sticks), a vegetable (green beans, peas,
pea and carrots, on rare times - lima beans), and a starch (boiled potates
or baked, on rare times- rice-a-roni). Once every 3-4 months she'd get wild
and make macaroni and cheese or she'd stuff a green pepper.

There were occasional forays into other things but they were very 'standard'
and she didnt have a spice cabinet, just a jar of cinnimon, and some salt
and there was a rarely seen black pepper shaker. Imagine lasagna made with
no spices (grin).

Although I was aware there were cereals other than Corn Flakes, I never saw
them at home except once she got a box of shredded wheat (her version of try
something new). It was Corn Flakes or Oatmeal. Once a month, she'd get ice
cream (Vanilla, chocolate or Strawberry only).

Grin, Mom was always delighted to have our friends join for dinner but for
some odd reason, they tended to do it only once.

Now, before you think Mom was a bad one, nope! She's just not much of a
cook. It's her *only* failing. She raised 3 highly successful kids on her
own by doing what today is called 'flipping houses'. Extremely unusual in
those days to see a woman with 3 kids doing that alone (strange even today
come to think of it!).

I was raised by a woman who believed and _lived_ that 'people, even women
people, could do anything if they just studied the problem up and then got
to work on it'. It's people who don't study up or just don't start the work
who have problems.

So, I learned to lay wood floors from raw planks with standard hand tools
over slab cement by age 11 (I was tiling floors by age 8). I learned to do
wallpapering (and was the only one of us 4 with that skill) by age 10. My
sister (biggest one of us all, ended up a hair under 6ft) did plummer work
and wall framing. All of us do drywall and painting. I do custom
woodworking (including raw wood to replacement window frame parts that have
rotted out) and have even done a whole kitchen cabinet set starting with raw
lumber (had the formica tops cut for us to measure I admit). My brother
does anything electrical short of replacing the master panels but Mom always
arranged a professional to come check before anything was actually wired to
the house. By the time he was 12, they never found an error. When I was 13
and my brother 14, Mom set us to finishing off 1,600 feet of basement (She
and Sis were primary on upstairs, Bro and me on basement). Took us 2
summers to finish that house but it was really *nice*. Mom made 92,000$
profit off that house in 1975 after 2 years living there with us all (we
always lived in the ones we were fixing). Anyways, nuff about that but you
get the picture.

So Mom can't cook fancy? Thats not really true. See, she just wasnt
*interested* in learning how. She did teach me how to make hamburger helper
though! I think I was 16 or so?

To come back to topic, new purchase this month: Artichoke heart. It's just
a little thing in a glass jar but have never tried it. I bet I'll like it!
I assume 'heat and serve with butter at the side?'