June 3, 2002

Picky Eaters NonAnonymous

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a fairly picky eater. I don't like tomatoes (but tomato sauce is ok if it's not chunky), onions, most peppers, or sour cream. I think American cheese is revolting, and I don't want to eat anything that has been tainted by mayonaise. Those are the only foods I can think of that are absolute no-no's in my menu. Unfortunately they are used in lots of ethnic cooking and compositions, so they are difficult to avoid. But it's not that hard. I've never been to a restaurant that didn't have something I liked. I like just about every kind of ethnic food, within the above guidelines, and burgers are much better with cheddar or swiss cheese and mustard anyway.

However, I have some coworkers who are so picky they have considerably narrowed down our list of acceptable restaurants from which to eat lunch. Anything "ese" is out (Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and so on). This includes those that are "ese" in spirit, like Thai. Seafood is out, which is bizarre since I've never been to a seafood restaurant that didn't have some chicken or beef items on the menu. They don't eat "green stuff" so no salad bars. What it all boils down to is that we can go to fast food places or nationwide chains (Chili's, Friday's), and Mexican and Italian places. I've tried to point out to my coworkers that they have no idea what's in the Italian pasta they're eating, but they don't care I guess.

This is just a little irritating. I have other coworkers who aren't so picky, but they aren't as much fun, so here we are. It's so crazy that a few weeks ago we had a little office party with cheesecake, and one guy refused to touch it because it has cheese in it, and he doesn't like cheese. Explanations that cheesecake doesn't exactly taste like cheese went unheeded, but in this case I didn't care cause I got an extra piece.

Published: June 3, 2002
Editor: stacy