Missing the lack of foodies in my life

[DampCharcoal]

Over the years I have noticed that all the unique and wonderful restaurants have slowly disappeared and have been replaced with steak houses. There seems to be a steak house on every corner, and if there isn't it's most likely fast food or an Applebee's. I've heard that Columbus is the #1 test market in the U.S. If that's the case, we're all in trouble! :?

 

[Psiguyy]

I have a friend who grew up eating weiners, meat, potatoes, and Kraft Mac & Cheese Dinners. I can't imagine a whole town full of people like that. It would drive me nuts.

 

[Ishbel]

Psiguyy - What's a Kraft Mac & Cheese dinner?

 

[Andy M.]

I have somehow missed this thread and just read it.

I have a sister who loves Italian food but hates basil and oregano! Everytime she goes out to eat she orders either baked stuffed shrimp, shrimp scampi or eggplant parmesan

I have a daughter who prefers packaged foods to home cooked - Oodles of Noodles Soup and supermarket brand tomato sauce. She has found her soulmate - he hates onions, mushrooms, olives and who knows what else.

A friend of mine tells me he's not interested in eating anything unless it moos.

My SO dislikes two of my favorites - duck and lamb and tells me not to tell her what's in the food I'm cooking, just put it on the table. (She was especially grossed out by my dirty rice made with chicken giblets.)

Her dislikes come from a lack of exposure to different foods and the resulting hesitance to try anything new and different.

I tell he I'm making beef bourguignon and she makes a face. I then tell her it's beef stew and she relaxes and enjoys it.

BTW, none of these people are interested in discussing the latest episode of Good Eats or Mario Batali's show and have never heard of Emeril.

I guess it's because of friends like these that we hang around websites like this.

 

[Psiguyy]

Psiguyy - What's a Kraft Mac & Cheese dinner?

It's macaroni noodles and cheese. The noodles are dry. The cheese sauce is dry too. You add milk, if I recall correctly. I think you boil the noodles, then add the orange cheese powder to the cooked noodles along with the milk.

It comes in a blue cardboard box. Probably costs about a dollar. It's cheap. Filling. Unnaturally colored orange. Salty. Kids love it.

Lots of people simply call it Kraft Dinner.

I've had it twice in my life.

 

[Ishbel]

Powdered CHEESE? Well, whoda thunk it possible?! 8)

Twice in your life? That's twice more than I'd be willing to attempt!

Thanks for the info. Some Kraft foods are available here - including an unnaturally 'orangey' coloured stuff in a jar which they tell me is instant cheese spread... But I haven't seen the Macaroni Cheese stuff... however, that doesn't mean it isn't available - we seem to import a lot of US stuff that is ready made.


Macaroni cheese is so simple and quick to make, why on EARTH would anyone buy powdered cheese stuff?

 

[Haggis]

Heh Ishbel, I would commit murder for a bottle or a bar of Irn-Bru, or a massive piece of Rhubarb Rock...but most definitely not a deep-fried pizza, that was truly horrible. Deep-fried Mars bar however...

I used to be a really picky eater, and still kinda was even when I started to become obsessed about cooking. Staple things I wouldn't eat included almost every kind of vegetable apart from potato...actually it pretty much was only vegetables I had a problem with, but that is alot of what food is.

Now I'm pretty much keen for everything apart from shellfish (excepting prawns/crab), celery, zucchini/cucumber and eggplant/aubergine (sp?). It is funny how things have changed.

My girlfriend was a very sheltered eater being from a rural area and having a instant-packaged mom for a cook, but I exposed her to real and varied food from all over the world...and turned her against her mom's cooking....muahahah my work is complete.

 

[Ishbel]

Haggis
Barr's Irn Bru - made in Scotland fae Guuuurderrrrs!

I fully admit that Scotland has 'issues' with high fat food - but luckily my family has never succumbed to that style of eating!

My husband will eat nothing too stodgy - very little fried food in this hoose!

But we are lucky in Scotland (as you know) we have some of the world's best meat (Aberdeen Angus), fish - river, loch and sea - soft fruits in season, tomatoes from Ayrshire... Ayrshire bacon and potatoes... lamb and so on...

The upsurge in good Scottish cookery has been amazing in the past 20 years. Chefs like Gordon Rankin, Nick Nairn, Sue Lawrence to name a few - amazing restaurants in Glasgow and Edinburgh and the Borders area make eating out a pleasure.

 

[htc]

Claire, I'm in a similar boat. I have a only about 2 people (other than DH) that actually TRY when I have a themed pot luck (or any pot luck, for that matter). Over time it gets frustrating to work so hard on a dish and see that other people just went to the grocery store and picked up some chips last minute or something.

Now I don't oppose store bought for my pot lucks, but would like some kind of thought put into it. I'm envious when I talk to my sister, cuz even though her potlucks are all Asian themed (which can get boring), but at least HER friends bring good stuff: papya salad, fried noodles, salad rolls, egg rolls, etc.

When I do potlucks now, I am a bit of a control freak and try to have specific people bring specific things. This has been a LITTLE better...I won't get into the details, but it's definitely a work in progress!

 

[GB]

I have to say that I am very lucky when it comes to stuff like this. My friends, family, and even co-workers all enjoy food and like to experience new cuisine. Most are not afraid to try new and unusual things. My wife and I joke around that we are perfect for each other because of how much we love to eat. When we plan vacations one of the first things we consider is the food. Lets go to Italy so we have have some real Italian food. Lets go visit our friend in NY so we can go to Katz's Deli. Lets take a cruise so we can just pig out for 7 days straight. My wife did not grow up eating much variety, but thankfully she loves my cooking and will try just about anything I make. she will also try almost any type of food when we go out. I tried to introduce her to sushi, but she just can't enjoy it. To her credit she has tried it at least 3 times when I have gotten the urge. Most people would taste it once, not like it, and never try it again. She tried a few times. She did the same thing with Indian. She tried it twice even though the first time she really hated it. I have to give her a lot of credit for always keeping an open mind. Those are the only two types of food she won't eat though. The rest seems to be fair game.

 

[Claire]

Haven't checked in here for awhile. My husband's taste in food, cooking, and restaurants was definitely a factor ... and a large one .... in our marrying (and I assume vice-versa). I'm sure there are those who would find that odd, but I assure you, a sentence to a lifetime of Burger King and Ponderosa Steak Houses as a "fancy night out", a preferance for bologna or PB&J sandwiches over virtually anything I might cook, the only topping for pizza--extra rubber-toned mozzerella, etc, would have been a death knell for any relationship. Oh, dear, I've just described my first marriage!!! Something you do three times a day, day in and day out, for all eternity? And some (no one here obviously) think I'm crazy for finding common ground important?!?!

Luckily freinds from my military past visit just often enough to keep me sane, and as I said, hubby is always happy for a feast of something we've never tried before.

 

[Claire]

I will say that I did one disservice to the locals around here, and that is that they do love cheese, even the stinkiest ones I can't get past my nose (well, they make them here, so guess they're bound to love them). It is one place where I can put out the strongest blue, most aged cheddar or swiss, and some real exotics and have them disappear. We can go to local cheese outlet shops and find great aged, strong, salty, whatever cheeses. For us it is a great ride out in the country to get in the truck and hit the two favorite butchers and the cheese outlet stores in small towns around here.

 

[tootstl]

Claire, I feel your pain on a daily basis! I am a very progressive cook, the mother of four boys and my husband is Opie...not the real opie but that is my nickname for him because he likes pbj anything safe...NOT WHAT i COOK! NONE OF MY NEIGHBORS are willing to participate in a progressive (each house cooks a course of the meal,) so if I want to have an ethnic extravaganzaa then I have to prepare the whole meal! Not a recurring theme in my neighborhood when I have four boys to feed every nite as it is! I keep trying to talk my husband into moving to Oregon, where I know more people are into organic gardening and healthy lifestyles...but I will keep struggling here while I can!

 

[DigitalAether]

I too have found myself without anyone that *really* enjoys food. Watching my gf cook is so hard. If you ask her what she is making, its 'stuff'. Its not bad tastewise, its just not good either, but there isn't usually any rhyme or reason to the ingredients in anything she makes other than she had them all on hand. . She also rarely seasons anything while cooking. Her kids much prefer for me to cook (and I love doing it) but if I try and cook something 'ethnic' or just different than what you can find everywhere (spaghetti, burgers, pizza, fried chicken) it rarely goes over even as well as her 'stuff' because they convince themselves before dinner even gets to the table that they don't like it. Every once in awhile I can get one or 2 of them to experiment, but mostly, if I make something really nice or different to eat, its for me and my gf. She will eat anything I make, and also prefers my food over her own but she is not a *foodie* by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Claire]

My mom always added milk & butter to Kraft m&c, so it tasted pretty good. But then I bought it recently (kind of trying to reproduce that kid feeling) and it was pretty bad. Either the stuff has gone downhill in the 40 years since I loved it (not impossible) or my taste has gone uphill (also possible). We were a cheese loving family, grew up partially in Europe, so I suspect that the stuff actually is NOT as good as it was when I was a kid.

 

[Claire]

Wish me luck. We have a "bunch for brunch" -- two couples and a couple of singles -- and brunch has creeped up in time to more like lunch time. Given that and our weather (the high temp yesterday was ONE, today I think they've predicted TWO as our high, and during the week the high temp should be in the minuses), I've decided to do what I call "three courses of soup". I did this once as a sort of joke. A freind who visited us arrived a little under the weather from overindulgence the night before. I knew about this in advance, and changed my menu to nothing but soup. It worked very well -- one soup very thick and stew-like, one very simply and broth-y, one a little more exotic. It was such a hit that I'm doing it again. Hubby makes a great French onion soup (oh, dear, just about got carried away and told you how to do it, not appro for here), the thick soup I haven't decided on yet, and hubby wants to make a Thai style shrimp coconut soup. The latter will be the test. Will they eat it?

 

[buckytom]

good luck claire!!!!! i'm sure they'll eat it. the 3 soups on a cold day sounds fun. sometimes you just have to introduce something to people the right way to get them to like it.
recently, i had been wanting to make roasted fennel but my wife kept saying she didn't like it and wouldn't eat it. i made it (with herbed potatoes and onions, cut up to look like onions) one night, and then "neglected" to mention that there was fennel in with the spuds and onions. she ate it, and then asked what did i do differently with the potatoes to make them so tasty.
now she is a fan of fennel.

 

[jkath]

I do have a couple of foodie friends, but my problem is at home. I was the product of Ward and June Cleaver (really!), where mom made homemade everything, and it always tasted/looked perfect. Occasionally we'd go to their friends' house and eat exotic foods. (The couple travelled a lot, and cooked regional foods from their travels. Then, the couple foster-parented 3 teens from Vietnam, so we ate that food too...which was kinda weird, but I ate it)
Anyway, my husband was raised with "nothing sweet on the plate unless it's dessert (no cranberry w/turkey, no apple with ham,....) NO cream sauces (* *), NO cream soups ("real soups to him are those you can see to the bottom"), and casseroles were never an option.
OH, and hot sauce must be used BEFORE trying the food!

It's kind of hard for me, as I try to cook to please him (after all, he's the one who works hard every day), but it's sad when I want to cook something out of the ordinary, and I get "maybe you don't want to make this one again".
Fortunately my kids like some of my growing-up stuff. The little one will eat sweets any time you offer it, and the bigger one thinks my creamy chicken pie is to die for.

That's why this board is so wonderful! It's like a freedom from the mundaine!

PS - as for Kraft mac 'n cheese...
Neither of my kids will touch it, but I remember being about 10, with my friend, who was 8. We'd make it in mom's kitchen, and while the noodles were boiling, we'd "cook" hot dogs on top of a big coffee can (5lb size) that had the bottom cut out and holes in the top and had some burning material beneath. With that always came the overly chocolatey chocolate milk. When we ate it, it was a meal for a king in our eyes

 

[Bangbang]

I have been lucky. My family loves to eat and try new things.However when I make middle eastern food(my wife is half lebanese) we get into conflicts because I try different spices,herbs,ingrdients,and methods. I think this is silly because the ingrsients and methods change from one mideastern family to the next and change in different regions also. You can make stuffed grapeleaves as many different ways as our meat loafs. I have spent a lot of time reading about mideastern food and am able to cook many more dishes than my wife and inlaws. For example.....I made Taboulee using balsamic vinegar. It was great but you would think I killed someone.

 

[Paint]

Luckily, my husband is as adventurous as I am when it comes to food - however, our friends are hard to invite round for dinner as one couple has multiple food allergies between them (no fruit, no soy, no peppers (i.e. chilli, cayenne, paprika), no nuts), and the other couple are on that dumb Atkins diet. Our kids are very fussy eaters - the youngest will try new stuff sometimes, but the eldest just sits there, pushes food around her plate, tries it if forced, then makes out that she feels sick, so it's easier to cook separate meals for them, or serve them the veggies with a different protein source, like hot dogs or chicken nuggets!

We've had other people over for dinner - but knowing that so many people are funny about trying new things, I've always played safe and produced a simple roast lamb or home-made lasagne with soup for starters and a fairly safe dessert, like Pavlova.

I've written about this before, but isn't it strange how people will doggedly stick to their diets even when they are dinner guests? Allergies are one thing, but pushing food around on your plate and refusing to even try the dessert because you 'Are on a diet' when your host/hostess has gone to a lot of trouble creating it, in my opinion, is just plain bad manners.

Paint.