If you can judge how someone loves you based on whether or not they know how you like your eggs, then I say the same goes for fruit and vegetable consumption habits. For a certain someone, I am willing to go to any lengths to prepare a fruit or veggie so that it satisfies even the most particular eaters.
To me, the bundles of cream colored seeds that sprinkle themselves everywhere when you cut open a bell pepper are pretty harmless. I run the pepper under the tap, filling it like a cup and then pouring it out (I have yet to attempt drinking the pepper water), washing most of the seeds down the drain. The ones that cling to the striated walls inside don’t bother me. But my mom will rinse each individual slice of pepper clean of seeds before she’ll eat it.
And it was as if the boys I took care of last Spring had never seen a whole apple in a dining context. They recognized the traditional contents of a Thanksgiving cornucopia. The teacher’s desk on the first day of school motif was also familiar. But they liked their apples sliced as thin as crackers and left untouched any pieces without a smooth crescent whittled away from the core.
Strawberries, too, were inedible in their natural state. Though Brian was always impressed by abnormally large or mutant specimens, it was off with their heads before he would indulge. It seemed a little sad to cut away every tuft of leaves, nature’s version of a popsicle stick.
I don’t think I’m picky, but a banana is that much more appetizing when the bitter strings are pulled away, and I’ve never met a carrot I was crazy about. As for my eggs, I prefer french toast.
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