Have
you every seen something so vile and revolting that the thought of it
can instantly make you lose your appetite, cause severe nausea, and
make the hair on the back of your neck to stand up? A graphic scene
in a horror movie or a “World's Biggest Pimple” video blowing up
your Facebook news feed can cause this for most everybody. Why yes,
all of those things can make me cringe, but nothing is more revolting
to me than frozen peas. Those tiny hard little beads filled with
green mush feel like they pop and burst a blanket of ooze into your
mouth. Those seemingly innocent and tasteless green mush beads can
ruin a perfectly fine meal for me, and cause cold sweats. If I were
Clark Kent, frozen peas would be my kryptonite.
To
fully understand why peas can completely bring me to my knees, you
first have to understand the type of home-cooking motto my mom lived
by. It’s pretty simple: she did absolutely no cooking. Her version
of a home cooked meal was a rotisserie chicken she purchased at
Safeway, and put on a platter as if she prepared it herself. My mom
was a stay at home mom who occupied most of her day deep cleaning the
house. This is mostly why she didn’t like cooking. It made too much
of a mess of her sparkling kitchen. Nothing crippled my Mom more than
a mess.
Every
blue moon when my Dad got off of work early enough, and my sister and
I were home, my Mom would give her best attempts at a “home-cooked”
meal. Her signature meal was pasta. To fully understand why peas have
become a crippling poison for me you have to understand my feelings
towards pasta. Pasta is the food of the gods. All types of pasta,
spaghetti, fettuccine, lasagna, linguine: You name it, I love it.
Pasta will forever be my comfort food. When I saw that pot of boiling
water and the strainer in the sink, I cleared any plans for that
night so I could sprawl myself across the couch with my pants
unzipped, in a pasta food coma.
My
inner Augustus Gloop would be charging toward the kitchen at the
sight of alfredo being mixed in with some fettuccine. On this
particular occasion, my mom felt like adding a dash of creativity -
simple, effortless, mess-free, creativity to this pasta dish. She dug
around in the freezer and found a bag of peas. For her, this was a
perfect addition; as for me, I was a little hesitant. She had never
done this before, but I gave her credit for trying. The table was
set, and a line around the kitchen formed to dish your own meal. With
the first bite, I knew. I knew that this was the most insulting thing
to pasta anyone could do. I’m assuming she dumped the whole bag of
peas into the pasta, because I couldn’t escape them. With every
bite the peas popped and burst, concealing the buttery delicious
pasta flavor. I tried to sort them out and push them to the side of
my plate. But these peas were ruthless. I couldn’t allow such a
mistake to happen to my fettuccine alfredo again. It’s like
petitioning to repaint Starry
Night
because you feel Van Gogh should have used a Persian blue when
painting the sky. You can’t fix something that is already perfect,
and I had to let my Mom know.
My parents
were in the middle of a conversation when this comment was burning in
the back of my throat. “Mom I can’t eat this. These peas are
freaking awful,” I said. Now I’ll let you know that I didn’t
use the word “freaking.” I used a hard word that begins with “F”
and rhymes with “duck”. As a disclaimer, you should also know
that my family is classy and professional, but we are from New York
and the way you relax at home is by turning your brain's filter off.
Apparently my Dad thought this was hilarious. The uncontrollable
roaring laugh that came spewing from my Dad, who’s usually so
uptight, signified to me that he felt the same way. My Mom thought
this was hilarious, and like some inside joke with herself, she
continued to add peas into every home cooked meal she put together
from this point on. It has now come to the point that if an otherwise
perfectly fine meal, whether made for me, or purchased by me,
conceals these green mushy insults to fine cuisine, it will end up in
the trash before it comes anywhere near my mouth - fueling my
childish, passionate hatred towards peas for the rest of my adult
life.
