On Thanksgiving...

and food trickery:

I dislike maybe three foods: olives, baked beans, and beets. When I was a kid, I disliked tomatoes, too, and every kind of bean, anything at all with a bean-y taste. My mom, when she would make chili, used to make me a bean-less batch. But eventually she got tired of making two pots of chili, so she began to puree the beans before she added them, and then she would say, "I made it special for you, Chad. No beans."

I would get all excited, because I liked bean-less chili, and then I would try it and I would taste beans. "This has beans in it, Mom," I would say. "I can taste them. Just because you put them in a blender doesn't mean they don't taste like beans anymore."

"No," she would say. "That's just the chili you're tasting."

I would eat a little, slowly, and fill myself up with slices of white bread.

I'm having Thanksgiving dinner tonight at my parents' place. When I asked my mom what she wanted me to bring, she told me deviled eggs and a salad. "A salad?" I asked.

"A fruit salad. A lettuce salad. Whatever."

I relayed this information to J.C. and we decided to to take a warm salad made with chopped Brussels sprouts and bacon. My mom hates Brussels sprouts, so I'm planning on telling her it's only cabbage. "It's like cole slaw," I'm going to tell her. "But warm. And with bacon and red-wine vinegar and olive oil instead of sliced carrots and mayonnaise."

"Oh," she will say. "That sounds interesting."

"Yeah, Mom," I will say. "And you do love cole slaw."