After the experience I'm now calling "Crossword Beat Down," I was needing a break. Between the blogging and the trying new things, the week was getting exhausting. I could feel myself getting burnt out, and it was only the fifth day of this project.
Because I am probably one of the least picky eaters out there, I thought a food challenge would be a breeze. The list of foods I do not like has one entry: sweet potatoes. Bring on the foods I haven't tried! That's a challenge I can tackle. So, when my friend Julie mentioned in her blog http://julieversusvegetables.wordpress.com/ that it was "beet week," it was only natural that Day #5 thing I haven't done before should be to eat beets.
Before I dive right into the beets, I'd like to clear up some confusion about the woman I had previously called my "new friend" Julie. When my dad called to tell me that he had read the blog, he was under the impression that Julie was just some random blogger that told me she was following my updates. Perhaps this is why the only thing he said about the blog was, "well, dear, you really did put yourself out there." He probably thinks I'm just meeting strangers on the internet, agreeing to eat beets, or tackle crosswords, with just anyone that says they're reading my blog. Not the case, Dad. I actually knew Julie before we began blogging. Our friendship has just grown deeper because of our respective blogs and because we hadn't ever eaten beets. Oh, and we're both super awesome and going to see Phish in Palm Springs for Halloween. Yahoooo!
I digress. Back to the beets.
I told Julie that if she had the beets, then I had the time. So, we planned a girls night at Watershed in Decatur, confident that if anyone could prepare a beet to our satisfaction, then these folks could.
Still, I wanted to embrace the full beet experience, so I decided to try regular old "no frills" beets off the salad bar at work. I should've known this idea was a bad one when I tried to lift a few beets out of their container with the salad bar tongs and ended up dropping them in the cheese on the way to my salad bowl. I was alarmed that this mistake was not going to be easy to cover up, as all of the cheese touched by the beet was now pink. Beets are slippery. And they stain, apparently.
Salad bar beets also taste like the ground. Or how I would imagine the ground tastes.
I was hoping that Watershed could "fancy up" the beets. Saute them in such a way that would make them not taste like the slippery red mud disc I had just tried. We asked the waiter to tell us about the beets and he said, "I don't even like beets, but these are good." Great, I thought! There's still a chance beet night will be a success. Perhaps it just takes the right person preparing the beets to make them tasty.
Turns out, it will take much more than the right person preparing the beets to make them taste good. It will take a miracle.
Beets, whether prepared by an Executive Chef at a fancy restaurant or dropped haphazardly into the salad bar at my office's diner, are gross.
Before I dive right into the beets, I'd like to clear up some confusion about the woman I had previously called my "new friend" Julie. When my dad called to tell me that he had read the blog, he was under the impression that Julie was just some random blogger that told me she was following my updates. Perhaps this is why the only thing he said about the blog was, "well, dear, you really did put yourself out there." He probably thinks I'm just meeting strangers on the internet, agreeing to eat beets, or tackle crosswords, with just anyone that says they're reading my blog. Not the case, Dad. I actually knew Julie before we began blogging. Our friendship has just grown deeper because of our respective blogs and because we hadn't ever eaten beets. Oh, and we're both super awesome and going to see Phish in Palm Springs for Halloween. Yahoooo!
I digress. Back to the beets.
I told Julie that if she had the beets, then I had the time. So, we planned a girls night at Watershed in Decatur, confident that if anyone could prepare a beet to our satisfaction, then these folks could.
Still, I wanted to embrace the full beet experience, so I decided to try regular old "no frills" beets off the salad bar at work. I should've known this idea was a bad one when I tried to lift a few beets out of their container with the salad bar tongs and ended up dropping them in the cheese on the way to my salad bowl. I was alarmed that this mistake was not going to be easy to cover up, as all of the cheese touched by the beet was now pink. Beets are slippery. And they stain, apparently.Salad bar beets also taste like the ground. Or how I would imagine the ground tastes.
I was hoping that Watershed could "fancy up" the beets. Saute them in such a way that would make them not taste like the slippery red mud disc I had just tried. We asked the waiter to tell us about the beets and he said, "I don't even like beets, but these are good." Great, I thought! There's still a chance beet night will be a success. Perhaps it just takes the right person preparing the beets to make them tasty.
Turns out, it will take much more than the right person preparing the beets to make them taste good. It will take a miracle.
Beets, whether prepared by an Executive Chef at a fancy restaurant or dropped haphazardly into the salad bar at my office's diner, are gross.
Julie immediately spit hers out and nearly gagged. I struggled to swallow the beet I was chewing, when Christa, another new friend at dinner hits me with, "yeah, eating them will make your piss change colors."I'm sorry, what? Beets taste like soil, there is a high-likelihood that if you drop the beet on your clothes they will be stained and ruined forever, AND eating them makes your pee turn red. Tell me, again, why anyone should ever eat a beet?
My friend Lauren claims she knows how to prepare beets in such a way that I would like them and when she comes to Atlanta for a visit she will make me add "Liking Beets" to my list of things I've never done before.Her plan: beets with goat cheese and walnuts.
Well, duh, Lauren. If you put enough cheese and walnuts on anything, I'd probably like it. Just like I'd like pretty much like anything that was deep-fried and/or covered in chocolate.
Hey, maybe we should deep-fry the beet?! Julie, are you listening? Deep-fried vegetables are STILL vegetables! Next week? You, me, a fry-daddy and some beets? I'm down to try again.
But for now, thanks to day #5, I've added beets as #2 on the list of foods I do not like.
Well, duh, Lauren. If you put enough cheese and walnuts on anything, I'd probably like it. Just like I'd like pretty much like anything that was deep-fried and/or covered in chocolate.
Hey, maybe we should deep-fry the beet?! Julie, are you listening? Deep-fried vegetables are STILL vegetables! Next week? You, me, a fry-daddy and some beets? I'm down to try again.
But for now, thanks to day #5, I've added beets as #2 on the list of foods I do not like.
I am hooked. And what do you have against a sweet potato? Let me know if babysitting is on your list! haha I have added you to my list on my blog, so I am trying to help build your following! www.nicholsfamilytree.blogspot.com Welcome to the blogging world. you are much more interesting to read about then my posts. Good luck and really, let meknow if Emmie needs to be part of the project... haha
ReplyDeleteGiven my history and success with deep frying vegetables and the fact that I would probably like a deep fried old shoe, this is obviously the way to go. Wednesday night at my place; let's do it.
ReplyDelete