got milk?

growing up, i loved things like kraft singles cheese sandwiches with mayo, mustard, and margarine—my mom was raised on margarine, and not butter, so too then were we. i loved cheeseburgers and chicken fingers and strawberry shakes from in-n-out. and most of all, i loved my mom's mashed potatoes. but when it came to things like peas and green beans, i found ways to avoid the vial foods from ever entering my mouth. there was the usual suspects like the napkin—precisely executed when one parent left the table and the other wasn't looking—or even, though it was one heck of a sacrifice, the subtle shovel of the food beneath a just-enough-eaten mound of mashed potatoes. and then, and i don't think i ever was caught pulling this one off, there was the innocent request for a glass of milk with dinner—milk one of the few non transparent beverages that kept those disgusting vegetables perfectly hidden.

i didn't eat salads until i was sixteen. no joke. and things like fish and pork, forget about it. my parents still deny it to this day, but one night my mom made veal cutlets, and when mikey and i asked what veal was, and its identity was eventually revealed, we both shut down in trauma, refusing to even look at the stuff. you can imagine the scene that stirred.

that's why, though for the longest time his diet consisted of seventy-five percent chicken fingers, i'm so proud of my little brother. in the picture above, which was taken at hungry mother in cambridge last summer, tommy is about to dig in on braised cow tongue. and the crispy stuff in the foreground? fried oysters. at eastern standard the night before, he ordered frog legs. who is this kid, right?

my point is, we shouldn't be afraid of our foods. people have been eating things, that on the whole, this country has classified as disgusting for centuries. what it was that removed the grotesque factor from my twelve year old brother's palette i don't know, but as his oldest—and it goes without saying, natuarally wise—sibling, i couldn't be more proud.