Monday, March 16, 2009

Picky, Picky, Picky

I'm a picky eater. I am. My big problem is dairy products. I'm fine with milk for cereal, and can drink it with cookies or pancakes, but I don't typically choose it (unless some super hot celebrity with a milk mustache reminds me that it does a body good--that I can't resist). I like mild cheeses, like cheddar and mozzarella. Too much cheese on a grilled cheese is loony and in my opinion, you must either be starving to death or out of your mind to eat American cheese, cream cheese, cottage cheese or that feta stuff that smells like garbage water. (So which are you, nuts, or starving?)



Yogurt=nastsy, but the biggest offense in the dairy section is sour cream. You all love that crazy stuff that is SOURed milk all clumped together and put in a little white and purple tub. I've tried to warn some of you before about this, but amazingly, I haven't seemed to change any minds.

But see, here I am admitting to my picky-ness. Now Jed, who will eat most things besides beets (which--holy cow--Y-U-M), is super finicky about when he'll eat everything (except beets). Take for example, the hard rolls I buy at the store. He will eat them for two days. After that, he'll insist there's nothing to make a sandwich on. Or, I'll notice he's into some particular food and I'll buy plenty of it for him. Just at that moment, he'll decide he's out of that phase and into something new (hello expensive Vitamin Water). Leftovers are very risky. The chicken-broccoli-rice casserole will most certainly get eaten the next day, but you can bet the leftover lasagna (which he happily ate the night before) will be shunned like the latest virus. Also, when the cottage cheese says "best by -----date" and it is the day after that, he agrees. It was best by yesterday, and therefore not good today. Now this point he hates me to make, claiming I don't even like cottage cheese (true), so how can I get after him for not wanting to eat it. Understood. I would never have eaten it. But since he does (even after all my mocking) and it's still good, why the change of heart? My point is this: Jed refuses to call himself a picky eater. Agreed, we are not the same kind of picky. He tried to say he was "selective" which made him seem all food-critic like--and I refused to accept. He also tried to pass "careful" through, but I'm still not willing to buy that. I still think "particular", "fussy", or "persnickety" fit a little better, but he vetoed those swiftly.

Won't you help me (don't you dare go all easy on him) put Jed in an appropriately named picky food eating category?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jayniemoon, you MUST be my long lost sister, from another mother of course. I am the EXACT same way with dairy. We have a love hate relationship too.

Jed, sorry to break this to you, you are 100% a picky eater.

I am a VERY picky eater. Examples, I will only eat chicken if I made it, or I TRUST the person who made it. I have to know that all the fat, nasty stuff was cut off. All veins chopped off and anything that touched the fat and vein has also been removed. Also, the date on the package is the "Best if sold by", not for me. It's the best if used on the day before the date stamped on it. See, that's picky. I am proud to say that I a "selective" eater. Love form Ohio!

Teachinfourth said...

Sorry Jaynie, he's right...there are some things which don't taste quite the same the next day.

Don't worry, some of us will keep drinking the milk for you.

sarah said...

Wow Scott & Jed sound like long lost brothers!

Anonymous said...

every man believes he is not a picky eater. to call a man a picky eater is to say he is a child who won't eat his applesauce. and this is the the same child who complains about every haircut, every shirt you buy for him, and the car he did not get to pick out. men are boys who want to be 'men' but deep down can't lose that inner child. and that's OK. tell Jed he is a man! tell him he is not a picky eater. build that boy up so he can grow up to be anything he wants to be. happy husband, happy life.

Hannah :) said...

I laughed SO HARD at the milk mustache quote. Oh goodness that's funny!

Hannah
www.allaboutnonsense.blogspot.com

{Erica} said...

I don't know which category he fits in but it is a form of picky.

I am just now okay with sour cream and cream cheese and by okay I mean cooked in something or a light Schmear on my bagel. I didn't know what mustard tasted like until BYU-Hawaii where a friend insisted I try it. I like salsa but never have tasted a raw tomato. I could go on...

Your description of your eating habits and of Jed's made me laugh because try as I may to not be I AM BOTH!

em kawasaki said...

First of all Jayne, a better word for you is crazy. Cheese is one of the most fantastic things on earth be it mild, medium, or sharp.

Jed, I am with you on the whole when-in-doubt-throw-it-out. However, since I have had kids I have learned to become flexible on this. I give the product a good sniff and then wonder is it rancid enough to get me to pack up the kids and take them, fighting and screaming, to the grocery store or can we make do. It's tricky.

And by the way, I am not picky.

em kawasaki said...

I thought I should add that though I am not picky I AM indeed snobby.

Anonymous said...

ok, here's the thing.

it seems to me (and i know i'm just some dude, so whatever it 'seems' to me probably doesn't weigh much) that to be 'picky' in eating means you have picked some things that you won't eat: various cheeses, raw tomatoes, indian food, bread crusts, whatever. that makes one 'picky' because it's a matter of preference. when preference governs what you will and will not eat, that makes you picky.

when, however, you will eat just about anything when the opportunity is presented, that is the opposite of picky (and i have eaten horse meat and cow brains, mind you, and i did it just to see what it was like-- by the way, don't try the brains). and when select circumstances govern consumption, i.e., expired food, stale rolls, or left-over lasagna-- anyone notice what happens to the taste of ground beef after just ONE night in the fridge?-- there needs to be a different term for that kind of eater. something other than picky.

another thing: i have a pretty healthy sense of my own manhood, even though i'm not all that macho. there are a handful of activities i'd participate in rather than watch a sporting event or go rough it in the woods. i suppose subconsciously there may be some merit to the theory that being choosy about food and shirts makes me feel like a man, but i'm going to file that under dubious. but i'm not going to refuse jayne telling me i'm a man, so thanks, anonymous, for that tip. and by golly, i AM going to grow up to be whatever i want to be. just you watch.

Lindsey said...

I agree...I think Jayne is the real picky eater. Jayne who, as a child, wouldn't eat her toast if she saw remnants of "unmelted" butter on it. Feta cheese? Deeelish!

And I figure, they put those dates on there for a reason and I have always, usually, been law-abiding.

I love Jayne.

ali said...

thanks a lot. now you've given me a picky complex. I never thought of myself as picky until reading this, but I think I now fall into Jed's category. I eat anything. Buuuut....what I eat really depends on my mood and if we had it the night before for dinner, then sometimes I just CAN'T do it two nights in a row. Maybe you just call that wasteful?

Unknown said...

I'm going to have to agree with Jed on this one. Dairy is my FAVORITE food ever (if eaten before it's due date)! Whole milk, whipped cream, creamy-style yogurt, pudding, sweetened condensed milk, smoked cheddar, the list goes on!! I just can't call Jed crazy when you won't eat the best tasting food group on earth!

jayne wells said...

Ok,
I concede.
Jed isn't as picky as I bother him about being.

But thanks to you all who made me the fool for it.

Just kidding. But, there still should be a word I can use in describing him. Don't worry, I'll come up with one.

And for the record, I do love ice cream and whipped cream. But should they not be considered part of the sugar/fat part of the pyramid (I love that top tiny triangle).

Linds, I can't believe you remember that about me and my toast! I love you! I have changed my ways and am fine if not all of the butter has melted.

Janssen said...

I can't say anything about Jed because I'm too busy gaping at the fact that you don't like cream cheese when it is, in fact, the food of the gods. And no. . .no. . .no sour cream? My mind boggles.

Anonymous said...

I'm with Jed. Expired leftovers = bad. Cream cheese, sour cream and most of all, feta = yummy!