State of the Onion + 5 Things Meme

I've been feeling a bit under the weather this week, so there hasn't been much interesting cooking going on. However, remember the onion from a few weeks ago? Well, I popped it in a glass of water, and it's only been batted out of it and nibbled on 3247 times (give or take), and, well:


(Yes, yes, raw onion is bad for cats. I haven't noticed them actually eating it - mostly the Clown Cat only wants to get at the water.)

I got tagged for the Five Things You Didn't Know About Me meme not once but twice this week, so I guess I should comply. However, since I only just started this blog there's probably not much you do know about me, so I'm going to go fairly easy here and concentrate on food-related stuff.

1. My first food obsession was blue cheese (Aura, to be precise). I'd just learned to crawl, my parents had guests over, and some cheese crumbled to the floor. I think they expected me to spit it out, but no, it was yummy!

I still like blue cheese, but not enough to eat it off the floor. Or so I like to tell myself.

2. For a while in my mid-to-late teens I was a vegetarian. I seem to have repressed most of this time in my life because try as I might, I can't recall when or why I started, or even what made me give it up (laziness most probably). Needless to say, I enjoy food a lot more now, both when it has meat in it and when it doesn't.

3. I hate raisins. Also, cold-smoked fish and tortellini, although the latter is mostly about finding them utterly boring, not off-putting. Even so, I consider myself the least picky eater in my family, mostly because my father's one prejudice (pineapples) is so virulent and UNREASONABLE. (Mom's are, among other things: raisins; goat cheese; celery. My brother's are the worst though: beans and lentils; Brussels sprouts; fish; shrimp; zucchini and eggplant.)

Except if you count the whole I-don't-drink-because-the-taste-of-alcohol-is-awful thing. Actually, it probably makes me lose this game right off the bat. I don't drink coffee, either.

4. I'm a messy cook. In fact, I'm a messy anything. (Except computer user. My files are always impeccably organized, at least until I burn them on a CD and promptly lose track of it.) It's not a proper meal unless I've used every last bowl and A LOT of cooking utensils. Also, I'm not one of those people who cleans up after herself as she goes along - once I'm finished (and most often after I've eaten) the kitchen looms as a huge wasteland of dirty dishes, piles of vegetable peel and empty cartons of what-have-you. Sigh.

5. I like eating at home about 4376 times better than at restaurants. Moreover, I like my own cooking better than other people's. This is probably some huge character flaw type thing, because it's not like I'm the best cook I know or anything.