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Food for Thought: Couples' food fights

Nancy Leson
/
KNKX
"Looks like ice cream, tastes like heaven," but her husbnand won't eat it. Nancy's burrata with heirloom tomatoes, windowsill basil and extra virgin olive oil.

As a guy who excludes fruit from his diet, I have no business pointing a finger at anyone else's food phobias. But I will, anyway. 

How can my wife, the Lovely & Talented Cheryl DeGroot, a generally omnivorous woman, hate grits? And she'll have nothing to do with Pisum sativum, either, no matter how I beg her to give peas a chance. 

Nancy Leson's husband Mac won't eat the cheeses she finds so pleasing. This week, Nance and I commiserate on our spouses' food phobias and offer recipes for stuff that they won't eat, but you might love.

The other day I made a big batch of shrimp and grits. Well, not exactly grits. I had to use polenta instead because DeGroot refuses to even try the southern staple. Polenta's not really the same thing as hominy grits, but I had to compromise.

Here's Serious Eats' Daniel Gritzer's (really) Shrimp and Grits recipe. I did fool with it a bit, subbing diced peppers for the mushrooms. Bonus: That SE page features a sidebar on piranha soup. Cool.

Nancy Lesonsays it "really makes me nuts this time of year," that husband Mac won't eat soft cheeses such as brie, fresh mozzarella or its creamier cousin burrata

"Sliced with some fresh tomatoes, basil and a little salt – what a meal. He won't eat it," Nancy lamented. That burrata sounds out of this world to me, especially served Klaatu style on the nikto.

Another summertime cheese dish Nancy loves is "that famous Silver Palate recipe. Boil some pasta – I like linguine. Add diced tomatoes to the bottom of the bowl, and a big chunk of brie sliced up into little pieces.  Add the hot, drained pasta and just toss the whole thing.  It's easy as can be and it's delicious."

Sounds good to me, except for the tomatoes, but Mac will never know. Just as DeGroot will never experience the glory that is grits, and I will under no circumstances ever taste fruit. We like what we like, and we don't what we don't, and there's no talking us out of it. We simply have to put up with our spouses' crazy (unlike our own perfectly reasonable) food phobias.

Now, let's hear about the turned-up noses at your place.

"Taste cannot be controlled by law."   – Thomas Jefferson

Dick Stein joined KNKX in January 1992. He retired in 2020 after three decades on air. During his storied radio career, he hosted the morning jazz show, co-hosted and produced "Food for Thought" with Nancy Leson and wrote and directed the Jimmy Jazzoid live radio musical comedies and 100 episodes of Jazz Kitchen.