Familiarity Breeds Comfort, Not Contempt

I have, it has been noticed, a small problem with trying new things. This, however, is one of the many things that I intend of rectifying about my personal situation this year (amongst the others are attempting to get myself back down to a healthy weight - hence the Weigh-In Wednesdays - and take lessons for my cello.) To this end I have made it my goal to expose myself to things that I have never before experienced - primarily, at this stage anyway, this involves eating new foods.

Now, eating new foods may not be something that you would personally consider that much of a challenge. For me, on the other hand, it can be exceedingly difficult - if there is even the slightest amount of doubt in my mind that what I'm about to eat will be nothing other than extremely delicious I kind of interally 'wig out', if you will. It has been difficult for me to actually get my hand to my mouth, at times.

This incapacitation when faced with different foodstuffs has, admittedly, been the prompt for a couple of quite amusing escapades (well, amusing to me, anyway) including the first time I can remember eating olives. Last year I was visiting my friend Marija with Andy, and we were making little pizzas when I was asked if I wanted olives on mine. I politely declined, stating that I'd never had them before, and I didn't think I'd like them. I was then prompted (I say prompted, but it turned, after a couple of minutes, into amusing badgering, and then into someone trying to stick an olive up my nose...) for a while to just try the olive. In the end my hands were held so I couldn't retaliate, and the olive was placed in my mouth by another party. It was, admittedly, delicious, and I now have them at every opportunity (which reminds me, I need to buy some more today, to have with lunch tomorrow...)

Ever since the new year, however, when I got into my whole "healthy eating, no more take-out unless it's a special occasion" regime, I have been cooking my own lunches (dinner and breakfast are taken care of differently, but that is another post for another time...) It was not long before I realised that cooking myself a simple variation on the same meal every day was...well...boring...This is when I went into what I shall term my 'bento-phase', which soon proved both too time-consuming and funds-consuming to remain sustainable (although it was delicious...Oh goodness yes...)

This, then, has led me to where I am now. Sitting here, with my lunchbox staring at me...challenging me to eat its contents...knowing that, come 1pm, I will have no choice but to consume its innards or suffer the pangs of low blood-sugar. Over the past two weeks I have led myself up to the point where I am more than comfortable to eat capsicum (which I now really enjoy), cabbage, avocado, olives, and various spice agents (mustard seed, paprika, etc.) - but none of this was really very adventurous. I mean, I've always like avocado, and cabbage is basically lettuce. Capsicum is a special situation...I mean, if Chairman Takeshi Kaga can bite into a raw bell-pepper as though it was an apple, I don't see what's stopping me from eating it raw in little cubes.

Today, on the other hand, marks a real change for me. Today I am going to eat something that I prepared using chilli. This, for me, is pretty cool - mostly because I don't really like spicy things (mouth-pain is a particularly woeful nemesis of mine...) but I have endeavoured to build up a tolerance, and really get into it. This is not only because of the health benefits that chillis are supposed to have, but also because I would like to be able to go out and enjoy something like Thai, Indian, or Mexican food with Andy, Lydia, Spud, et al.

The moral of this story is that there are a couple of new TV series that I've watched recently that I really think I can get into. I may, come to think of it, do a couple of micro-reviews in a couple of posts time. As a quick...mini-preview...I suppose, I shall divulge to you the names of a few shows that (I believe) you should be watching: No Ordinary Family, Jimmy's Food Factory, & Tower Prep - they are really quite cool, each in their own way. A show that, alternatively, you should avoid like the plague is Todd & The Book Of Pure Evil. It was poorly written, the acting was worse than a D-Grade horror film, and it held more cliche than what is behind this link.