Nick might have had scurvy when we first met. No, there weren’t any physical symptoms. However, he was living on campus, subsisting on cafeteria food, Kraft dinner, and hamburger helper. A few mealtime interactions quickly established that he was a meat and potatoes loving, chocolate milk drinking, vegetable hating, and add-cheese-to-everything kind of guy.
I gifted Nick a juicer our first Christmas together.
By the way, it’s not only fruits and vegetables that have lackluster appeal to him. The list also includes chickpeas, soy products, and seafood. Apparently, he blacklisted salmon, and all seafood by association, because a distressing incident had happened right after I made him salmon for dinner one time. Seafood has been irrationally written off ever since.
Now sometimes, I do think that he has come a long way since his hot dog eating days. I’ve been rotating a variety of vegetables into our diet that were previously foreign to Nick, including broccoli, lettuce, celery, and cucumber. Other vegetables such as tomatoes, onions, and brussel sprouts still get the cold shoulder. But I’ll take what I can get. Recently, Nick even admitted that green beans might be a vegetable that he not only tolerates, but also might actually like.
Is it possible that Nick has turned a new leaf?
A few weeks ago, the first cherries of the season went on sale at Metro. Under the assumption that I was buying for two people, I brought home a 2 lb bag. I worked through my share of the cherries, but alas, a significant portion still languished in the fridge. When I confronted Nick about his lack of fruit intake, Nick responded with something to the effect of, “Margaret, I’m open to the idea of eating cherries, but actually eating cherries… well that’s never crossed my mind.”