It’s no wonder I make stuff up. When I was a wee, innocent little child, before there was arugula and other greens that look like something you’d pay good money to eradicate from your lawn, restaurants that wanted to fancy up a salad would include shreds of purple cabbage. I was the pickiest of eaters (shut up, yes, I’m making up for lost time, no, I don’t get out of the car and shovel up roadkill, I do have some standards), and I didn’t want any of that weird purple stuff. “Don’t see that color much in food,” was my opinion. The only other purple food I’d ever seen was beets, and you know what I think of beets.
So my mother said, “Don’t you know what those purple things are? They’re orchids. Some man climbed up to the top of a huge tree in a rainforest, with snakes and things all around him, to pick that orchid and carry it down to the ground, just so it could be cut up and put into a salad for you. Did he do all that for nothing?”
So I ate the damn cabbage. It was years before I saw a red cabbage in the grocery store and the truth came out.
I like red cabbage now, and see its beauty and have learned its coolness. For instance, did you know that the color of the cabbage depends on the pH level of the soil in which it grows? “Red” cabbage can be deep purple or greenish-yellow. When you boil red cabbage, it and the water turn blue. You can use that blue water to color Easter eggs, but it doesn’t make a permanent dye for fabric (washes out after a couple of launderings or, I’ll bet, sweatings).
And here’s another cool thing: You can make your own litmus paper with red cabbage water. Even cooler: You can make green eggs to eat with your ham.
Don’t you just love the interwebs? Me, too.
WRITING PROMPT: Make up a lie for a character’s mother to tell him or her to get him or her to do something.
MA
AlexJCavanaugh
July 27, 2011 at 12:55pmI used to hate mushrooms and would pick them out of everything. Still won’t eat brussels sprouts though!
Marian Allen
July 27, 2011 at 1:42pmI always loved mushrooms, which is weird for a picky eater! #4 Daughter is still particular about her mushrooms. Won’t eat any kind that cook up “squidgy”. I think I liked them because somebody took me out with her gathering field mushrooms. I thought it was so cool to be a part of soil-to-table, I ate ’em and loved ’em. That happened so early in my life, I only have the vaguest memories of it. And Brussels sprouts are LOVELY when they’re fresh and small and cooked till just done but not mush. š
Sylvia Dickey Smith
July 27, 2011 at 1:18pmSmart mom!!!!! And a story teller she was, too!
Marian Allen
July 27, 2011 at 1:49pmSylvia, she’s a pip! She comes up with the greatest story lines and hooks, but I can’t get her to write anything or even collaborate with me. š She can draw, too, but she doesn’t value her talent and laughs at me when I praise her. Silly lady! She’s well aware of her left brain strengths, but not of her right brain ones. Weird, eh?
Mary Montague Sikes
July 27, 2011 at 5:50pmI just love people with imaginations. Great story! I still don’t like cabbage.
Where is the plus to hit? I’ve looked all over and don’t see it.
Monti
NotesAlongTheWay
Marian Allen
July 27, 2011 at 6:21pmMonti, I can see a white rectangle with a blue +1 just below my initials MA. If it isn’t there for you, maybe you need a Google account to see it. If you want to set up a Google account, you don’t have to have Gmail or anything, you just set up an account. I had to get one in order to blog on Tuesdays on Fatal Foodies. I appreciate your looking for the button, anyway. I know you’d click it if you saw it! š
Helen Ginger
July 27, 2011 at 5:57pmYou are such a fabulous fountain of knowledge, Marian.
Marian Allen
July 27, 2011 at 6:21pmHelen, I’m a fabulous fountain of looking stuff up in search engines! lol!
Dani G.
July 27, 2011 at 11:10pmWhat a clever mother you have, Marian. Give her a pat on the back for me. LOL.
Marian Allen
July 28, 2011 at 7:38amWill do, Dani! And she taught me well. Our #4 daughter takes after me in shopping (when she’s not in the mood, SHE’S NOT IN THE MOOD) and we had to get her shoes. There was only one style that took her fancy, but she claimed they were too little (they were, if anything, just big enough to fit all season; I did all the Mommy tests). So I took them back to the rack, put them down, picked them back up and said, “Try these. If they fit, we’re done.” What do you know? They fit!
lisa brackmann
July 28, 2011 at 3:17amI now have a powerful craving for sauerkraut.
Marian Allen
July 28, 2011 at 7:39amLisa–sauerkraut! Oh, how I love that stuff! I have a friend whose husband makes sauerkraut every year. ONE year, he gave me a jar, and I’m spoiled for life. MAN, it was good! The only time I tried to make sauerkraut, I ended up with a basement full of decomposing cabbage. Not a happy memory.