While grocery shopping today to make pasta for dinner tonight, I was struck by the lack of vegetables in the recipe. (It’s a taco-inspired pasta dish, so there’s lots of cheese and, of course, taco sauce/seasonings.) My local grocery store can be a little limited at times in terms of vegetable offerings, so I browsed the selection half-heartedly, debating if I wanted to sully the cheesy, carb-y goodness with vegetables. (For those who don’t know, my mother tried in vain for years to get me to eat vegetables. It wasn’t until I met my boyfriend that I began eating – and even enjoying to eat! – them.)
In the end I decided on mushrooms. Yes, mushrooms. The very food I recoiled in horror from as a child, thanks to the unique texture and the fact that it is technically a fungus. Tonight, while making my deliciously cheesy and taco-y pasta, I am going to willingly add mushrooms to the mix to try and sneak in a little nutrition in the dish.
And no one, not even my mother or my boyfriend, had to prompt me to do so.
I guarantee that ten, fifteen years ago, my mother never thought this day would come.
) We also drove by my old house, which was incredibly nostalgic. We drove up the road where I kept tumbling down on when I learned how to ride a bicycle, and all I could think of were the times I had in the neighborhood as a little kid. The house has changed, now – my beloved daffodils (which my dad planted) have been replaced by other flowers, the white front door has been replaced by a snazzy-looking red one. It sounds silly, but despite all the changes and not having lived there in over ten years, it still feels like my house. I wonder what my room looks like, now.
