Cyn’s Food Rules to Live By
(updated 1/3/07)

1. Never eat at a place named “Joe’s”, “Mom’s” or any kin-type names, inc. “Grandma” etc. OR a restaurant that advertises “Home Cooking”.

2. Always make friends with the produce manager and meat manager in your local
grocery stores…GOOD friends…REALLY good friends…

3. Ignore the stories about your favorite Chinese/Japanese/Mongolian/Vietnamese/Cambodian/Thai restaurant - everybody’s heard the story about the dog and/or cat carcasses in the freezer “recently found by the Board of Health”…t’aint true. Honest. At least, not here in the States.

4. In the long run, it pays to use quality ingredients.

5. Cook for your family as you would cook for company.

6. The best ingredient in any dish is the love the cook puts into it.

7. It is better to live to cook and eat, than to cook and eat to live.

8. Never, ever tell your child to clean their plate because children in another country are starving. They just might ask you to name a few of the ones you know.

9. It is a given that the day you really put yourself out in the kitchen making
a fantabulous dinner for your significant other, he/she will have had the same thing for lunch.

10. Vegetables - if it’s green, kids hate it. If it’s yellow, kids hate it.
If it’s orange, they REALLY hate it. Make them taste it anyhow - you might shock them when they find out it really is good!

11. Please, please, please - when making a meal at home, remember to think about color. Nothing is worse than a filled plate that is all blah colors…like pork chops, mashed potatoes and corn or cauliflower, for example.

12. Please do not boil a vegetable to death. Nothing is worse than spinach or other great vegetables that are limp, tasteless or turned to mush. Hah! and people wonder why kids do not like vegetables. Also, speaking of vegetables, can we please ban the word “veggies”? And folks wonder why adults don’t like “veggies”…ick!

13. If you make it a house rule that the kids have to TASTE everything, rather
than EAT everything, they will learn that Hey! Mom/Dad’s right - this isn’t
half bad. You won’t raise a bunch of picky eaters this way.

14. Picky Adults are Spoiled Kids who never grew up. (Trust me on this one also, I know several of them there PA’s.)

15. Always be polite, especially at someone else’s dinner table. Nobody ever
died from having good manners. Besides, it sets a good example for the kids.

16. Never cut up someone else’s meat when you are out to dinner with adults.

17. If you are at someone else’s house and you don’t care for something on your plate, finish it - and don’t take seconds. You can tell them you are cutting back or have your stomach stapled, or be honest and say you are full. Then compliment something you did like about the meal.

18. If the food on your plate is still moving, you should be also - right out the door.

19. If someone asks for a “doggy bag”, don’t worry - it’s now politically correct for those of us who do not own a dog to ask for a “kitty bag”. Or we could all be honest and say we couldn’t finish this great food and want to take the rest home to be enjoyed later.

20. Napkins were invented for a darn good reason. So please use them.

21. When going out to eat with other adults, resist the temptation to talk about certain things:

food poisoning
your latest diet
food you hate
the latest banned food by the government
the latest E-Coli outbreak
OR how you could make a dish better at home.

22. Finally, relax and Enjoy! the meal when eating out - you didn’t have to shop for it, put it away, take it out again, do the prep work, cook it, eat and then clean up and put everything away! Oh, and take the garbage out…

OrigCyn
(Cynthia Bowan)
1/3/07