Beets - the worst vegetable ever

Quinn and I are quite different in someways, I'm extroverted and like Facebook; she's introverted and likes Twitter, but there's one way in which we are soulmates.

I despise beets in any form. Canned, baked, precious little heirloom ones on a fancy salad, they all taste like iron filings to me. I’d sooner lick a handrail; same flavor and you’re done faster. But beets are very good for you and I’ve always felt badly that I hadn’t given them more of a chance, when I wasn’t shooing them off to the corner of my plate. I’d eat a jar-egg and it would taste in some way of beets and even if I never did another brave thing in my life, I’d have that. If Daughter flinches at the sight of a Brussels sprout, I can lean over to her and say knowingly, “At least it’s not marinated in beets.”

A few years ago when some friends and I participated in CSA*, Stacey and I had half share each**. When the food arrived each week, Stace and I would divvy up our share and try to figure out what we had. Our general fall-back was that if we didn't recognize a vegetable, it couldn't hurt to roast it. This is a very good rule. Well, for everything except lettuce. Just don't even roast lettuce.

Anyway, for a while there we were getting ourselves some beets. We tried all kinds of ways to prepare them and no matter what we did, they remained beets. Roasted beets? They are beets with a slightly less horrible than usual exterior.

So if Quinn is willing to eat a beet-marinated jar-egg in order to set a good example for her daughter (or at least not lose too much of the moral high ground), I can but admire her. Would that I had the same strength of character. Because while I would get up at dawn if I had to in order to provide a good example, I am not eating anything marinated in beets.


*Community Supported Agriculture, or Tree Hugger Food.

**There are four people at Stacey's house. My house is me and the not-very-vegetable-eating cat. Even a half share resulted in much soup being made from the left-overs of each week's bounty.

***Don't know what a jar-egg is? Read her post. But not, perhaps, over lunch.