Today's menu:

Breakfast, coffee, 12 oz, 4 tsp. sugar, 1/2 oz half & half, 2 eggs, over easy in nonstick pan with 1/2 tsp. butter, two strips thick-cut lean bacon, well-drained, half-slice whole grain toast, no butter.

12 oz. tap water, filtered, chilled.

Lunch, baked, well-drained ham = 6 1-inch cubes, half a banana

Snack, 1 strip fruit leather, 1 inch x 3 inches x 1/4 inch

8 oz. tap water, filtered, chilled.

Supper, three slices very thin crust pizza, with pesto sauce, white meat chicken, sliced garlic, black olives, artichoke and broccoli.

8 oz. club soda, 6 oz. orange-mango-peach juice, mixed.

24 oz. water

Snack, 2 Tbsp lemon sorbet, six walnut halves.

This is a typical day for me. You see the only veg are on the 'za. Artificical sweeteners give me gastric problems so I have actual sugar, just a minimum amount.

I will have a cupcake, or two bites of a fancy dessert, but I "pay for it" with raw zucchini coins or a bowl of steamed broc for lunch the next day. My texture issues being what they are, I tolerate lightly steamed and herbed or raw veg best. I really don't like complicated complex flavors in any dish--white food is ever my default, even when it's ohsobad for me. So recipes are sort of wasted on me.

I really am trying to cultivate a friendlier attitude toward veg. "Vegetables are friends, not food." No--wait.

For people who don't like vegetables, I'd suggest trying some from a farmers' market, if you can afford it. Pretty much everything I've ever tried has been better from the farmers' market than from the grocery store -- the grocery store vegetables are bred for shelf life and ability to be shipped without getting bruised, and not so much for taste.

I agree, Hil. I grew up eating vegetables from the farm next door, and I loved them! I can barely stand grocery store veggies, and when I was doing my huge veg eating, I had a huge garden. Even my most hated food, cantelope, was sweet and juicy from the garden!

Good advice, Hil. Now tell me how to develop an actual appreciation for the way vegetables taste?

I hate going on about this, and I'm going to stop after I say this.

I appreciate and understand the many benefits and positive qualities of vegetables. I comprehend and acknowledge the need for them in the human diet. The fact remains, dress them up, put a hat on 'em, make 'em look like somebody you know, at best they are unobjectionable. I have never in my entire life stuck a fork in a vegetable dish and said, "OMG, this is GOOD!" and I eye with suspicion anybody who does. There's just this vast disconnect between what I know, and my own experience.

Okay, done now. Thanks for speaking up, all of you who love and share the love for veg. I keep hoping it will rub off on me.

Now, can anyone direct me to an almond meal cookie recipe that is not 1) macaroons (I don't want that egg white airiness) or 2) full of other low-carb, "primal", or "healthy" ingredients I am not likely to have in my house? My goal is to recreate cookies I ate in the village of Aidone in Sicily called Pasta di Mandorle, which were a almond-tasting cookie with the basic texture of American sugar cookies (i.e. not biscotti or macaroons.) But improvisational baking is the fastest route to disaster I know. Could I just make sugar cookies and sub in 50% almond meal?

Flea, one of my mom's Christmas cookie recipies is very much like this. Unfortunately, she is out of town at the moment, but when I talk to her tomorrow, I'll ask about a little sanctioned home invasion to dig through her recipes.

Bev, feel free to e me at any time. Because I wasn't kidding - I have never in my life been a veg eater until this past year. I don't know that I know how I did it, or that I can actually help, but I'm more than happy to talk it back and forth if that's something you want.

I doubt this is what Brenda had, but sometimes heartburn has referred pain in the back -- when I diet my heartburn always goes away.

but sometimes heartburn has referred pain in the back

Really? Huh. Man I love when I learn things from us.

I know when I'm having ick from too much beef or other stuff that's gotten harder for me to digest, it sometimes feels like lower back pressure.

Good advice, Hil. Now tell me how to develop an actual appreciation for the way vegetables taste?

I think the best suggestion I've got for that would be to try some recipes from a good vegan cookbook -- something that treats vegetables as the main event and not as a side. There's a huge difference between the way that vegetables are prepared when they're meant to complement meat and when they're meant to stand on their own. Also, try stuff you've never tried before -- my rule for myself when I go to the farmer's market is that each time I go, I've got to buy at least one thing that I've never eaten before, if at all possible. I've discovered all kinds of things with tastes that I never knew existed.