As anyone who has ever had a meal with me can attest, I am a very picky eater. Not run of the mill picky, like I don’t eat this or that. No I mean picky like it is easier for me to tell you what I will eat rather than what I don’t like. My salads consist of lettuce and dressing (and maybe a cucumber if I’m in the mood and it is cut up small enough), I don’t eat cereal because I don’t drink milk, I don’t like peanut butter, caramel or nugget (whatever the hell that is), I’m allergic to chocolate (though if I weren’t I wouldn’t eat it anyway because I don’t like it), I hate most vegetables and steak is about the only thing I will consider eating that is not well done (and that is a relatively new development). I don’t eat any white condiments, not mayo, ranch dressing, cream cheese, nothing. Basically, if I cannot readily identify all ingredients in something, it is not getting anywhere close to my face.
It really comes down to two issues: smell and texture. If I don’t like the smell of something, I can’t pry my lips open to even try it. And I have serious texture issues. Pudding, cottage cheese and so many others just LOOK like they have a weird texture so they are not on my menu. I realize that this makes me a terribly difficult person to cook for, and I feel badly about that. But I have a very picky pallet, what can I say?
Given my pickiness and my hesitance bordering on refusal to try anything new, I thought a food challenge should definitely make my list of 35. I have, in the past few years, ventured out and tried food other than burgers and fries…I love sushi and Thai food (yes, only certain things). But I wanted to try some other type of ethnic food. There are not an abundance of choices in Cincinnati, so I decided on Mediterranean food. There were a couple of different places to choose from but I finally settled on Andy’s Mediterranean grille. The website had a menu with pictures….I tried to ignore the pictures because they were making my blood pressure rise. If I am going to do this, I may as well go all out. I am going to try a food that I never had any intention of trying. I am fairly certain I won’t have a problem with this. I can’t really pronounce anything on the menu, but thankfully there are descriptions under each dish. I decided to have an appetizer and entrée. I go down the list of appetizers and my eyes stop on something that looks familiar: baba ghannouj. That word has always made me giggle, and I’ve never known what it is. The menu tells me it is made of eggplant and tahini. Not sure what tahini is but eggplant definitely fits the requirement of food I never had any intention of trying. Baba ghannouj it is. For my entrée, I decided to be a little safer so I chose the shish tawook. According to the menu, it was the winner of the best entrée award at the Taste of Cincinnati, so I figured a whole city can’t be wrong, right?I call to place my order and butcher the names of the foods. I can hear the guy on the other end trying not to laugh at my rendition of shish tawook, and I am not amused. Hey buddy, I’m stepping out of my comfort zone here, give me a break!
Anthony’s Mediterranean Grille is a cute little restaurant at the bottom of a hill. It is much bigger than I had pictured it, and it is about half full. The air is filled with so many different smells, very different than any restaurant I have ever dined in. I retrieve my food from the car and head home. About halfway home I realize that the smell of my dinner has overtaken my car. This is making me very nervous. Not that it is a bad smell, just different. And I freely admit that when it comes to food, I don’t do different.
I arrive home and sit the pungent dinner on the table. I’m not ready yet, so I fix Sammi a quick dinner to stall for time. Maybe if I take is out of the plastic take-out containers it will taste better. I get a plate from the kitchen and place one of the skewers of chicken and some of the rice on it. This part of the meal actually looks pretty harmless. The chicken is seasoned with something that my nose doesn’t recognize and can’t really decide if it is likes or not, but it IS chicken, how bad can it be. The baba ghannouj, on the other hand…..
I can barely look at it and when I take the top off of its container the smell hits me like a brick. It stinks. There is no other way to say it. Given my smell issues, I am not sure if I am going to be able to go through with this. I have my Pepsi chaser in front of me, ready to go, but still I am hesitant. Maybe Charlene will give me a pep talk.After she stops her two minute laugh-fest, she says, “Oh just do it. It won’t be that bad. Just eat a little, you don’t have to eat it all. But it better be enough to taste. Not like you usually do!” She is referring to my “tasting” new foods by putting an immeasurable amount on the tip of my tongue then declaring how much I hate it. Okay, okay!
I break off a piece of the bread realizing if I don’t eat this RIGHT NOW I’m not going to eat it at all. I bravely scoop a good amount onto the bread, hold my breath and cram it into my mouth. I chew it only enough so I won’t choke and gulp it down. The taste is lingering in my mouth.
“Well? How is it?”
It’s not bad…but why does it have to look like that???? The taste really isn’t bad at all. It is spicy and flavored like nothing I had ever eaten before. But I seriously can’t look at it. I want to try a little more, to really see if I like it but I would have to be blindfolded to do it. Okay, on to the chicken. I try the rice first, and it tastes like….rice. I’m just stalling…the smell of the chicken is starting to make me nervous. I take a deep breath and just dive in. The first bite is okay, a little dry but not bad. But with each successive bite it tastes worse and worse. I don’t like it. I mean, I could eat it if I had to so I wouldn’t hurt someone’s feelings but it is NOT good. I will not be eating anymore.
Good thing I only spent $19 because about $18.75 is heading right to the garbage. Hey, I tried.
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