Leta hates ---

When I was a young teenager and had braces, Mom would forget when my appointments were, and when, therefore, my jaw would be very tender, and would often make something for dinner that: a) I loved and b) required chewing. (Roast beef, for example.) This made both of us sad, me because, in some kind of horrible foreshadowing of the whole Celiac Disease-based Deprivation, there was wonderful food that I couldn't have, and Mom because good roasts are expensive and she was a single parent, so not having me fall to with my usual enthusiasm sort of undermined the pleasure of making a special dinner.

I only began to regard the whole process as slightly vindictive when Mom fell totally in love with home-made vinaigrette (with, I swear, extra vinegar) because in addition to my jaw being tender, the insides of my cheeks were pretty torn up by the wires holding the braces in place. My pleas for something closer to cream than Hydrochloric acid fell on deaf ears. Largely because Mom worked something like 60 hours a week and, let's face it, I talk a lot so remembering any one of my specific teenage complaints of the dozens and dozens I dreamed up each day would have taken quite a lot.

So later in my teenage years (the handwriting seems to narrow it down to about my junior year), I wrote a list of foods not to serve me any more because we were both tired of the "but I thought you liked this" / "No, I hate it" back and forth.

Mom found the list as she was going through stuff and gave it to me. And I've updated it a bit. I think that the parens meant that I willing to consume them in small amounts if they were cooked. Black is then and now, red is then, blue is now.

Leta hates:
beets
black olives
liver
(onions)
(green peppers)
cooked cauliflower
cooked carrots
veal
fish
seafood
ricotta cheese
cottage cheese

So I only added one vegetable and I've removed the others. And, almost just in time to no longer be able to eat regular lasagna, I'd learned not to dislike ricotta cheese. For years and years every time I went to stay with friends of other friends such, dinner would be the hostess's special recipe lasagna. It was made special with the addition of extra ricotta. Hoo boy.

The list of foods that I love but should not eat, by the way, is:

wheat
barley
rye
spelt
triticale
kamut

Useful substitute grains are:

Amaranth
Arrowroot
Buckwheat
Cassava
Corn
Flax
Indian rice grass
Job’s tears
Legumes
Millet
Nuts
Potatoes
Quinoa
Rice
Sago
Seeds
Soy
Sorghum
Tapioca
Wild Rice
Yucca

And some of these? I have no idea what they are. I'm willing to try them, though.

My other big rule for food these days if I'm allowed to eat it, I do. At dinner at the 4 Provinces after the NVTA awards on Sunday I asked if I could substitute something for the exceedingly-yummy-looking-but-made-with-flour blue cheese potato cake. I was offered, and cheerfully accepted mashed potatoes. Mary, who was sitting to my left asked if I wanted them to put any blue cheese on my mashed potatoes and I said, oh no, I was going to have them as God intended - with about a half a stick of butter and some salt and pepper. And I did. Because the "Leta loves" list would look something like this:

Tea
Butter
Cheese
Bacon
Sausage
Garlic
Caramel
Spinach
Tomatoes
Salt
Steak
etc, etc, etc, etc.