Get Your Mac & Cheese Away From Me, Lady!

This morning Erik & I were watching Food Network and they happened to be making homemade pudding.  One of the gals started saying how she loved the skin that forms on top of pudding and basically that's the only part she likes.  She "lives for it."  I was immediately taken back to my Grandma Nana's house in New Jersey and being served her homemade pudding.  And there was only one thing separating me from that delicious treat: the atrocious, disgusting skin (like HELLO, it's called "skin" as if that isn't gross enough).  

I started telling Erik about these traumatic experiences at Nana's house, where she'd serve me pudding & even at the tender age of 7, I felt very obligated to eat it, skin and all.  This got me thinking about all the other homemade foods people served me throughout my childhood, that they considered their specialties and bestowed upon me, that I absolutely hated but was too nice (& too scared, in all honesty) to say "HELL NO!" to.  Besides the pudding, I thought of 3 other foods (which ironically happen to be my three favorite foods) I was served over & over again as a kid and still haunt me to this day. 

Disclaimer: Both my Grandmas are mentioned in this post for serving me horrific food, but I swear everything else they ever made me was absolutely divine. Sorry, Grams!!!

My neighbor's homemade macaroni & cheese.  We lived in a townhouse in New Jersey, so we had one extended backyard where all the neighbor kids would play outside until it was dark. And every so often, our next door neighbor (whose daughter was my BFF at the time) would come outside with styrofoam cups filled with her homemade mac & cheese and hand them out to all us kids. WHYYYYY I never just said, "No thanks, I'm not hungry" or ran and hid in a bush when I saw her coming is so beyond me.  Like how do you even do mac & cheese such a disservice?!

My Grandma Grace's grilled cheese sandwiches.  Here I am sitting at my Grandma's house waiting for her to make me lunch and "OH NO! It's a grilled cheese" -said no kid ever, except me.  This lady could make theeeeee best chocolate chip cookies but when I saw that grilled cheese comin' I wanted to head for the hills.  She put margarine inside the sandwich, which kinda sounds good, but somehow, someway destroyed every grilled cheese she ever made me.

My other neighbor's homemade ice cream.  After we moved to AZ, I thought I would be free & clear of all neighbors serving me their homemade concoctions, until my friend's dad got an ice cream maker & thought he was the shizz. I was quite excited the first time I was served homemade ice cream. I mean, I love ice cream & I was a sweaty kid running around in the Arizona sun.  I took one lick and all I tasted was salt, sooooooooo much salt.  Again, it is beyond me why I didn't just scream out, "I'M LACTOSE INTOLERANT!" (which is not entirely untrue) each time the ice cream machine was whipped out again.

Am I the only one who faced these food dilemmas as a kid?! Yes? No? Yes? Probably.