Major success with the Picky People!!!

[Jenise]

So last night's menu, for the couple who are easily scared by unfamiliar food/won't eat onions, tomatoes, peppers, spicy food, duck, lamb/any green that isn't "regular lettuce"/where the male half won't eat any vegetable "spelled with more than four letters" meaning he only eats green beans and corn/and the female half claims to be allergic to champagne, contained: open-faced lobster and fennel 'sandwiches', caesar salad, and stuffed porcelet shoulder with asparagus.

The lobster toasts and caesars were fine. I didn't point out the fennel in the lobster toasts and the caesar was totally safe. When I served the main course, I put Dave's plate in front of him and said "I know you don't like asparagus, but it looks pretty so just brush it aside." To which he said, "I'm gonna try it. Jenise knows my palate better than I do, and so far she's always been right so I trust her. Maybe I would like it now."

And he did.

Brava, brava! And congratulations on the new son!

Woo hoo, well done! I tell ya, I think some people don't like certain foods through sheer inertia. They tried a badly cooked example when they were 7, and for the next 7 decades they assumed all examples were like them. Great job chiselling away his culinary blockage, if even only for that night!

[Jenise]

Thanks! It's really amazing. Picky eaters have a strong trust issue, and I understand that due to my weirdness about white/creamy+cold stuff. What I'm willing to try or not has everything to do with who made it. So I really appreciate that Dave has achieved, and can articulate, this new open-mindedness. They'll both eat anything beef or cheese (make that 'regular cheese') but beyond that, there's almost no clear path. I mean, turkey and chicken? Neither will eat dark meat! Too gamey.

...I understand that due to my weirdness about white/creamy+cold stuff.

So...I have to eat that coeur à la crème all by myself, then?

Dammit. I knew I should have asked first....

I have a pretty well developed sense of ethics when it comes to guests.

If they really don't like something, fine, everyone has their own tastes and I'll give them something else. Some friends are averse to organ meats, and one is unaccountably hates olives (!?!).

If they think they don't like it because they have heard that it isn't good or it came from a cute animal, or they just think it must be icky so refuse to try it, they are idiots and my personal ethical sense does not extend to suffering idiots. I have served many things that people would never eat if fully informed or if they saw it raw, and in most cases they liked it.

A good example was when I served sweetbreads but put it down on the menu as ris de veau as I knew that one guest wouldn't eat it if it was 'yucky'. She thought the dish was just dandy - but I never told her what it was - I think I allowed as how it was veal....which was at least literally true.

[Jenise]

I hear you.

And at a large dinner party, some guests may have to deal with something that's outside of their usual comfort zone. But when it's just dinner for four (as was this meal) one in fact has an obligation to make sure that the food suits the guests' tastes, and that's not really hard to do for a creative cook. I adore this couple and am happy to cook for them. It's just in this particular instance I'd forgotten that Dave didn't like asparagus until I got ready to serve it--it's artichokes, the other long 'a' word and sometimes difficult food for picky eaters, that is the four-letter exception he actually loves.

True story, I invited them to a large dinner party for NY Eve 2018. To tickle (I thought) the guests, I published my playful five course menu with no elaborations as to actual content in advance. It included such things as Rocket Shots (a shot glass full of black eyed pea salad with a side of creamed onion and espresso soup), Guy Lombardo's Elbow (roasted bone marrow in a puddle of saffron risotto), and Hangover Sliders (lobster and pork belly on miso-buttered bun). Poor Margot immediately went on the internet to search out what these things were and was panic-stricken to find no info available, somehow missing the fact that I'd made all these up. She was terrified, or at least seriously concerned, of what she might have to eat. Like most picky eaters, she sticks to the things she knows and waves everything else away because "I didn't grow up on it".

That's like the people you see that spent thousands of dollars to vacation in Paris....and then eat at McDonalds because it is familiar to them (I have actually seen a couple of - sorry- Americans, but it could have been anyone, taking a fine dining restaurant in France to task because they didn't offer hamburgers on the menu.

[Jenise]

Americans can be terrible travellers; I've shrivelled in embarrassment at many such. I fondly remember the Yangtze River cruise (with German crew) we took in 2006. We and the other couples we travelled with immediately wiped out the boat's entire supply of good champagne, and then brought high-end bottles we'd plucked out of the Shanghai Westin to dinner that the Food and Bev manager thankfully recognized. We were never charged corkage. Meanwhile, many of our fellow travellers, who tended to only order American food (hamburgers were an alternative at all meals), got off the boat at Wuhan and another stop to load up on low-end $3 California plonk at the local Walmarts--and you bet they paid corkage.

[Jenise]

Oh btw, the lady half of the picky couple? She's Canadian. Americans don't have a lock on 'picky'.

That's like the people you see that spent thousands of dollars to vacation in Paris....and then eat at McDonalds because it is familiar to them (I have actually seen a couple of - sorry- Americans, but it could have been anyone, taking a fine dining restaurant in France to task because they didn't offer hamburgers on the menu.

This is the same reason that Jim and I prefer short-stay apartments and, nowadays, AirBnB because hotels are full of tourists! I didn't go all the way to Paris to hang out with Americans.