![\"Hostess](\"http:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/hostess.jpg\")
<\/a>Hostess cupcakes.<\/p><\/div>\n
My teenage diaries mention what delicious meals I ate every day, especially the ones at restaurants. And I lived on chocolate confections. For breakfast, daily<\/em>, I had some chocolate cake creation, (Ring Dings, Hostess cupcakes, bakery brownies, and when I was really little–Ebinger’s famous chocolate black-out cake,) and the same thing again as an after-school snack and before bed one, too. How was I not obese??? And how kind of my parents to allow it! (Or just crazy of them.) I didn’t like breakfast food, and still sort-of don’t, but I can’t eat just chocolate for breakfast anymore. (Although a small stack of chocolate chip pancakes and whipped cream is my perennial favorite. I actually had that very same dish here in Brooklyn yesterday, at a place named after my own little mother!)<\/p>\n And when I was really<\/em> young, like two to four years old, I wouldn’t eat anything other than hot dogs, watermelon, and cucumbers! What a diet, eh? For a real treat, I had chocolate milk and little round soup crackers. I can still taste that deliciousness as I write this. Mmm mmm mmm.<\/p>\n I even refused to eat pizza until I was close to twelve! And it was a rare occasion that I agreed to eat a cold sandwich. On school trips, when we were required to bring sandwiches for lunch, my mother had to invent one I would agree to: a “bread and butter sandwich.” The teachers must have thought I was poverty stricken because they had to conclude that my family couldn’t afford the filling! When one friend’s mother got me to eat a cheese sandwich, (to be polite mainly, but also because the white American cheese looked so exotic to me,) it was a source of pride for that family, and a source of amazement for mine!<\/p>\n When we went on family trips, (which was often; both my parents were teachers, so we all had the same time off from school,) my embarrassed ‘rents had to beg breakfast restaurants to fire-up the grill at the crack of dawn to make me a hot dog because I refused to eat anything else. (I wish my mother was still here to ask her what they were going through with me in those times. And that she was still here period<\/em>, but that’s another topic.)<\/p>\n I wouldn’t even eat steak, salad, shrimp, or cheesecake until I came out to LA as a late teenager, and had no money, so I had to force myself to eat what was offered.<\/p>\n And now, as a semi-grown-up, I still have what some consider weird tastes. And strong dislikes. So the following is my list of the top picks of both of those, even though I may have to give some up soon. The last list is of food dichotomies for me. I know you all have some of those, too, so please feel free to share in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n LOVES<\/strong><\/p>\n