Today I got an appreciation of how much I’ve learned thelast 6 years of being a nutritarian. Aco-worker was curious about my squash and I said “it’s squash mixed in with alittle veggie bean soup.” I gave her ataste and she said, “You must have added lots of spices.” I said, no that’s actually the taste of thesquash. It’s very flavorful. She said, I have no idea how to cook that. I said, I just threw it in the oven for anhour. Someone else chimed in saying youneed olive oil to keep it from drying out, and I said, no, just put it in wholeand the moisture stays in. I think whenthe conversation ended, my friend still felt that squash was beyond her skilllevel (despite her Ph.D. in astrophysics). I suspect she thought you had to do something fancy to make it tastethat good. That was me too 6 years ago. I didn’t realize how good fresh high qualityproduce could taste. I thought you hadto know a lot and put a lot of effort into making food taste good. I relied on restaurants to supply me with thereally good food. I figured, they were the professionals. Now I realize whole foodshold fantastic flavors. Processed andrestaurant foods can’t compete.
It’s good to realize this because I sometimes get the sillynotion that I am deprived because I don’t get to enjoy the same foods aseveryone else. Sure, my food can’tcompete with ice cream for pure stimulation. But pretty much everything else I make tastes a lot, and I mean, a lot,better than what I used to eat.