It was me, too, for a long time. Even a few years ago, when I went to dinner with Jessica and Ethan and Deb Grabien (and maybe a few others?), when I heard we were going to ... (Wow, I don't even remember. Afghani? Ethiopian? Something like that.) I was terrified. I grew up on Wonder Bread and canned vegetables and Dunkin Donuts, so anything really spicy or really *different* made me nervous.

And then it was delicious! Which was part of how I learned to stop worrying and love the new cuisines.

well, I know someone who literally did not like anything except beef and potatoes and macaroni and boiled vegetables.

My BFF's brother (who is 42) does not eat any vegetables, eats only unseasoned beef, chicken, or ham or a hot dog and eats potatoes or pasta (with only plain tomato sauce). He also likes snack foods, although he has stopped eating them to lose weight.

My grandpa was so anti - Italian (yes, I am half Italian) that the only pasta he would eat was macaroni, because of macaroni and cheese. Which was sad because my mom had learned to make all sorts of good Italian food from her friends in the neighborhood (she was one of the only students not African-American or of Italian descent).

Yeah, that's how I'd read it. If your position is "I don't like trying new things," then it doesn't matter how different Thai and Greek food are from each other, just that they're both different from the food you know.

When I was about 10, my family went on a trip to DC. One night, we were trying to decide what to have for dinner. Someone suggested Chinese food, and I said I didn't feel like Chinese food. Someone suggested Italian, and my sister didn't feel like Italian. This went on for a while, until my mother, getting frustrated with all of us, picked up a guidebook, looked through the restaurants, and found an Ethiopian restaurant. She told us that we were going there, and we couldn't say that we didn't feel like Ethiopian food, because none of us knew what Ethiopian food was and therefore it was impossible for us to reject it.

Afghan Kebab House!

Damnit, now I want pumpkin bulanee for lunch, and there is none nearby.

[edit: There are about eleventy-billion spellings of "bulanee" out there so I'm going with the one on that restaurant's menu. Wikipedia favors "bolani."]

Afghan Kebab House!

Ooh, I was right the first time! Go me and my failing memory.

We had Afghan Kebab House #4 in my hood in Queens. I miss it!

off to assistant's day lunch on the company. YAY!

It's a lot easier for me to eat gluten-free at, uh, ethnic restaurants (versus a burger joint or Panera or Applebee's). My dad refuses to try anything that isn't meat on bread with a side of potatoes, so when we go out to lunch, it's always to a burger place or something like Applebee's, where my only choices tend to be a salad (and, you know, some days salad is fine, but it sucks when that's your only "choice") or a burger without the bun. Well, and places like Applebee's tend to have a large hunk of grilled meat (a steak of some sort, maybe) that I can get with a side of veggies.

And servers *still* look at me funny when I order a burger without the bun. Like I just started speaking Farsi, or something. You can't tell me they don't get customers with all kinds of special requests, but asking for no bun throws them into a tizzy of confusion? ("No...BUN? You want the bun on the side? No? You want a burger WITHOUT a bun? Are you sure about that?") Did these people not live through the low-carb/South Beach/Atkins phase of diet crazes? Has Paleo not hit the Midwest yet?

But, hey, Indian! Thai! Chinese! Sushi! I actually have more than one choice when I go to those restaurants. Amazeballs. But Dad refuses to even consider it. I love him, but things like that frustrate the shit out of me.

My parents were pretty good about trying new types of food, as both had lived overseas for a while. (Getting a burger and fries in Italy, France, or Costa Rica in 1950 might have been doable, but also kinda tragic.) They raised us to at least try stuff, and Mom would make lasagna, spaghetti, tacos, paella, and kielbasa with sauerkraut. Which, in 1970s northern Michigan was not all that common. When we finally got a Chinese restaurant in our wee city, we ate there once or twice a month, too. One of the joys of moving to a larger city when I was a teenager was the chance to try Greek and Japanese food.

sumi, did your twitter account get hacked?

sumi, did your twitter account get hacked?

It did.