Bountiful Basket

This morning I picked up my first ever Bountiful Basket! I had to be at the main entrance of one of our malls at 8:30. Since my MIL is in town, I brought Troy with me and she watched the boys. Here's the thing about these baskets. You don't get to choose what's in them. It's like a surprise grab bag of produce. I find this somewhat exciting. It doesn't speak to me at all as a focused, planner, type A personality but it does speak to me in terms of possibly introducing my family to new things.

Our children are just flat out not allowed to turn their noses up at things. (This doesn't always stop them, of course, but despite the fit they throw, they will eat what is put in front of them.) Certainly there are things they don't like. Garrett hates mashed potatoes. This doesn't mean he doesn't have to eat them. It just means that when I make them, he only has to eat a very small portion. More than the fact that we want them to have broad taste buds, we want them to eat what is put in front of them at other people's houses. I was taught, from a very early age, that we were expected to eat whatever someone else served us. And guess what? We didn't die. Of course, if we'd had a food allergy that would have been different. But, in the same way, I want my children to eat what is served to them. This develops food tolerance and, more often than not, over time, the individual actually comes to acquire a taste for foods they previously hated. Sometimes, it takes a lot of time. Take, for example, my distaste for onions. While I still have a hard time eating crunchy onions, I find myself cooking with the smelly beasts more and more and more. As a kid I hated Chinese food. Now I could probably eat it morning, noon and night. My mom used to make a meatloaf that made me want to hurl. Whenever I had to endure the entree, I chewed without breathing and drank copious amounts of water in between bites. Suddenly, one day, I realized that I wasn't dreading the dish. And *gulp* that it actually tasted good.

So this Bountiful Basket surprise produce situation had me pretty excited in terms of teaching my kids about new things.

Here is what I got for 15 dollars.

10 apples. 1 cantaloupe. 1 head of romaine lettuce. 3 green bell peppers. 10 Roma tomatoes. 1 package of blackberries. 6 ears of corn. 2 cucumbers. 1 pineapple. 3 mangoes. 10 onions. 4 artichokes.

And here is where I tell you about how I loathe and despise artichokes. Yeah. That whole thing about trying new things. Oops. Artichokes are nasty. I mean, they have the word "choke" in their name for crying out loud. What, on earth, am I going to do with four of them? The last time I had an artichoke (outside of dip form, that is) I was maybe nine years old and it almost made me cry it was so disgusting. I pondered this as we drove home. And then it dawned on me. The last time I had an artichoke I was maybe nine. Maybe, just maybe, my tastes have changed in twenty years.

So what am I going to do with those artichokes? We're going to cook one. And then we're going to try it. I owe it to my boys to introduce them to it. Maybe they'll like it. Heck, maybe I'll like it.

I'm very excited about the rest of our basket. It may have been a little heavy on the onions but you know what they say, "When life gives you onions, make onion rings." Wait. Maybe that's just what I say.

Now, if only I had a food scale. Then I could check my savings. I think it was probably substantial.