Before I begin revelling in my past and current food adventures, I should admit that I was one of those awful picky eaters as a child. According to my step-mom, who I actually like (!), I only ate spaghetti, raw veggies, and bread. Anything beyond carbs or carrots would inevitably sit on my plate as I tried to stare it out of existence. My poor mother once tried to force me to eat eggplant parmesan. The end result was that I sat alone at the dinner table swallowing down whole, unchewed bites with gulps of milk. I can offer no defense nor make any excuses for my younger self. I was a stubborn, spoiled kid with very black and white ideas of what was good or bad. Eggplant, obviously, was bad, maybe even evil.