Don't Drink the Kool-Aid!

Well, I've done it...again. Drank the Kool-aid, I mean. I try very hard to avoid it, and I'm usually able to spot when I'm being sold something that I don't want and would never agree to buy, and yet, sometimes I just have to find out the hard way. For background, I'm pretty much a food purist. By that, I mean I like the way most food tastes all by itself. I'm one of those strange people who, as a child, liked liver. Really liked it. Just floured and fried in a pan with a little oil and served with salt and pepper. I like shrimp and I refuse to eat Shrimp Scampi. Why on earth would you overwhelm the sweet deliciousness of a shrimp with garlic? Meat loaf? Just the meat, TYVM, with a bit of onion, some bread crumbs and a little milk. No fancy additives. Given those few examples, you should be able to glean the fact that I'm satisfied with few frills when it comes to eating. And so it was, that I heard, read, and watched as people went all-out to convince me that roasting veggies brought out a "nutty, buttery" taste. So even though I like the taste of Brussels Sprouts steamed and dressed with a dab of butter, a kiss of salt and a soupcon of cracked black pepper, I succumbed to the cajoling and roasted ten ounces of the little beauties "drizzled with olive oil and salt until golden brown". Let me hasten to assure you that I went into this venture with a fully open mind. After 22 minutes, or so, I checked on my roasting sprouts and saw that they had turned a golden brown, thereupon, I removed them from the oven, blew on one to cool it off, and tasted. YUK. As I suspected, the whole "foodie" thing has us doing ridiculous things to foods that were perfectly fine for ages; in order to sell new products and new cookery channels and convince us that we have been doing it all wrong. Believe me when I tell you, that my steamed sprouts with a drizzle of butter, a sprinkle of salt (the plain old iodized, TYVM) and a grind of black pepper are far superior to my taste buds than the "golden brown" roasted lumps that are currently resting at the bottom of my kitchen garbage can. P.S. The only thing nutty about this whole thing was me for believing the hype.