I have a confession. I have trouble throwing food away. I blame my mother. When I was a kid my mother used to say, “It’s starting to go bad. You have to eat it.”
So I’d eat it.
It’s not like we were poor. My father is a pediatric cardiologist. We were “well-off” to borrow my mother’s colloquialism. So if a piece of fruit was bad or starting to go bad, you’d think we’d have the freedom to simply toss it.
My mother’s attitudes about food were most definitely passed down to me. Including this near paranoid fear I have of letting food go bad. Not just the food in my refrigerator, any food. Anywhere.
So all these years later I am living in an affluent part of the Hollywood Hills, oh heck, let’s just be honest, every part of the Hollywood Hills is affluent. I’m not saying we’re rich. In fact things are quite difficult financially at the moment. So we’re grateful for a beautiful home in a cool part of Hollywood.
I have probably mentioned that I like to take walks in the wild open spaces of the hills behind my house. I often forage for food in those hills. I have written about the mustard greens I collect every spring several times.
