I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, what one would call a “foodie”.

For one thing, there are a whole slew of foods that I have no interest in every tasting.

To add to this natural predilection, I grew up in Michigan in a household where salt was an exotic spice.

I pretty much like my food plain and simple.

And I pretty much don’t mind having the same thing day after day.

For example, I start every weekday with a ½ cup of either cream of wheat or oatmeal.

Right now, my lunch of choice is a ham sandwich – 2 slices of bread, some ham and some yellow mustard.

The yellow mustard is a culinary adventure for me.

Usually, I would eat the sandwich plain (sans mustard); but this is my current hankering.

I never, ever want butter on my sandwiches (well, except grilled cheese, and that’s just to facilitate the cooking).

I am proud that I have found certain foods that I used to eschew to my liking – food that I never got to know in Michigan.

I like a lot of different kinds of Mexican food – as long as it’s not too spicy.

And I love a lot of kinds of Chinese food (again hold the spicy, please).

Not a fan of Indian food – too many sauces.

I am not a sauce (or gravy) fan.

Nope, nope, nope.

I used to be pretty persnickety about food touching.

(Yes, I know it all ends up in the same place.  Don’t care.)

Which is why my forays into Mexican and Chinese food kind of amazes me.

But you can’t live in Los Angeles for 20 years and not eat Mexican and Chinese food.

And in Los Angeles, there are some seriously good Mexican and Chinese restaurants.

My (older) sister also lived in the Los Angeles area for many years.

I was so disappointed in her when I was visiting Michigan (after she had moved back there) and she took me to the “best” Chinese place for lunch.

They used canned mushrooms.

WTF?

Perhaps this was the best available Chinese food in the area, but it wasn’t good Chinese food – and my sister should have known better.

My poor husband is very adventurous when it comes to food.

Because of me, he has had put up with a marked lack of diversity in the home-cooked food he gets.

But I’ve gotten better.

When we first got married, I was the Hamburger Helper queen.

Then I moved on to being the Bisquick queen.

Now, I have a big-ass data base of recipes that I choose from each week; and a lot of the food I cook calls for things like salsa, black beans, onions, peppers, diced tomatoes, enchilada sauce, etc.

Who’d have thunk it?