Adventures in Cuisine with Mom
Mom needed nutmeg and I needed cinnamon, so I placed a Penzey’s order. If you like to cook and you don’t know Penzey’s, you NEED to. They have the best, tastiest, freshest spices at really reasonable prices.
No, they are not paying me.
ANYWAY – Penzey’s sent me some free stuff in the order, including some salt-free spice mix. I gave it to Mom and she said it sounded delicious and that she could not WAIT to try it.
Cut to the next day.
Now is where I should perhaps mention that my mother is a terrible cook. I don’t know how she does it, but she has the culinary equivalent of tone deafness.
So. She says “Do you want to taste the carrots I cooked with the new spices?”
Sure, I say. I take a taste and LIKE TO DIE.
Mom didn’t use the salt-free spice blend. She used the cinnamon and nutmeg. She threw in some honey for good measure. What on earth, people.
“Gack!” I spewed.
“You don’t like it?” she said.
I don’t know how she does it. It’s horrible. It’s like me trying to sing or something. It just should not be done.
Photo from Flickr by Funadium (Marco Bernardini). Used under a Creative Commons license.
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Suebob's Red Stapler 
I love your mom but I’m so glad I don’t have to eat dinner at her house.
I usually offer to go get takeout.
when you said “LIKE TO DIE” I thought you loved it – as in the spices took your mom’s terrible cooking and suddenly made it better. ‘culinary equivalent of tone deafness’ – that’s a good one.
checking out Penzy’s immediately! Thanks
Ha, no. My friend Nancy says she likes sweetened carrots with those spices! I don’t understand treating veg like dessert. I like bitter things too much, I guess.
Yeah, but did she like it? That would be the scary part; if her taste buds had developed a love of the bad.
She loved it. OMG she likes the weirdest crap and she always tells me about it and grosses me out. “I put some tomato soup on top of cottage cheese with some slices of pineapple…” I mean seriously.
Hehehe!
Actually carrots have a “neutral” taste: it’s just a cultural fact which make us to eat them with salt, but they could be used like fruit, too, like many other vegetables.
And thanks for using my photo…
I think they’re too sweet to put honey on! I know culture shapes our food choices, and cinnamon for me usually signifies something sweet like pastry or dessert. I don’t mind cinnamon in savory food like tagines or curries as long as there are a lot of other spices to balance it out. One thing I DON’T like finding it in is falafel – there are a few places where that is common, and to that, I say NO! (Can you tell I have strong opinions on food? 🙂
This all sounds really familiar. I wrote a post once about how my mom microwaved smoked salmon. Gack! http://diaryofwhy.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-sometimes-i-wonder-if-im-adopted.html
We must be related.
Penzey’s is so awesome! We have one in town and a friend of mine works there, so I end up going there far too often.
Their French grey salt is my favorite. No, Vietnamese cinnamon. No, Aleppo pepper. No…