Lettuce and Butter Sandwiches

I am a fairly adventurous eater. I love foreign cuisine and I will enthusiastically agree to try just about anything once. I have eaten fried alligator and I have tried jellyfish salad. I have bowed to a number of food-related dares and, as a result, I have sampled things ranging from a day-old breakfast sandwich that was meant for display only (I won a dollar for that one) to a fish eyeball.

I've come a long way.

It would be an understatement to say simply that I was a picky eater as a child. I was bizarrely, irrationally and stubbornly picky. The list of foods I was willing to eat was so exclusive that it rivaled the guest lists of the most fashionable private clubs on earth. The staples of my diet included the following:

- Jell-O
- Applesauce
- Instant Cream of Wheat
- Celery
- Carrot sticks
- Lettuce and butter sandwiches

Yes. Lettuce and butter sandwiches. My favorite nourishment consisted of thinly spread butter and a few leaves of iceberg lettuce between two slices of white bread. It boasted the perfect texture - a combination of creamy, crunchy and soft - and avoided troublesome distractions such as flavor and nutritional value.

Yum.

My mom was a pretty good sport about the whole thing. I'm sure it embarassed her to send me to grade school every day with those sandwiches - she must have imagined my teachers whispering about that poor Hensel girl whose family could only afford to feed her lettuce and butter. The fact that I snacked on carrots and celery, had rabbit teeth, and rejected walking in favor of hopping everywhere did not improve my image, I'm sure.

Lettuce and butter: the stuff that dreams are made of.