Tomatoes...........

My Daddy would always tell me not to say I don't like something before I try it.  Since they were the only one of their friends with a child I would always go with them to the restaurants and parties.  Always surrounded by grown ups, but always knowing my place.  I remember going to a Japanese restaurant and trying octopus for the first time and REALLY liking it, I think I was about 9 or 10.  I think that's what started my discerning taste in food and everything else.
My mother wasn't really a picky eater.  She would eat things like neck bones, oxtails and *ugh* chitterlings.  I have never and will never try those.  I remember one Thanksgiving when we were all here in Gary for the holiday, I told my Daddy, "If you want me to try those I don't want to eat ANYTHING."  He just laughed and said I didn't have to because he wouldn't even put anything that smells like that in his mouth. lol
My Mama cooked all kinds of things but her favorite food was chicken.  Which I don't care for really.  If she were frying chicken for herself and the girls, she would always fix something else for me to eat.  She always made sure I wouldn't be hungry when I got home. :)  A lady that goes to our church always tells the story about when she was at my Mama's house for one of our meeting and Mama was cooking dinner for everyone, how my Mama made spaghetti and wouldn't let anyone touch the sauce without sausage because that was for me because I don't eat pork.  I didn't think anything of it because that was just what she would do, it was natural to me.
Just like when I would take her grocery shopping.  That has always been a tedious task to me, I don't like it so I would just take her and wait in the car until she called me to tell me to come help her bag.....Every once in a while I would come in and walk around the store with her and pick up little things I would be craving.  Most of the time the first thing I would pick up was green tomatoes from the produce section......I LOVE FRIED GREEN TOMATOES....I don't know when I was first introduced to them, but give me some grits, hot sauce and those fried green tomatoes and I'm in heaven.
Whenever I would get them, my Mama would say, "Now who is gonna cook those?"  I would look at her, smile and say, "You."  She always protested, but I knew the next morning she was gonna cook them for me and her (she liked them too).............
I decided when I went grocery shopping the other day to pick some up and make them myself.  I wasn't apprehensive about it, because I knew how to make them (not like I messed up her macaroni and cheese).  Now, if you read my blog regularly, you're probably expecting to hear me say that making the tomatoes made me cry....Actually, no they didn't.  I made them, just like she would have, they were good and they made me smile thinking about how she would say, "You ate ALL of them." =)...........

I thank and appreciate all who will read.  Peace.