well, I tried.

Some things are better than you remembered them as a child, like mustard. Or beer, not that I had extensive experience.

Some things are worse, like Nancy Drew books. Seriously, have you gone back and read any childhood favorites lately? It's a risky business. But that's another topic.

And some things are about the same. My biggest food hatred as a child was beets. I would sit at the table for hours, all alone in front of a fast-cooling plate of beets, rather than eat those accursed things. Hating beets is actually one of my earliest memories; I remember sitting at the table of a house we left when I was three, trying to work up the mental and gastronomic strength to take a few beet bites. Now I'm an adult, and I sometimes choose to eat various things I used to avoid: broccoli, for example. So when my CSA farm sent some beets this week, after the initial shudder I thought, sure, why not? I've hated and avoided beets for so long, maybe something has changed in the last 28 years or so. So on my sister's advice, I sauteed them in olive oil, salt and pepper along with some other fresh CSA goodies. And I ate them.

Verdict? Blech. Yuck yuck yuck. I declare my intense dislike of beets officially a lifelong trait. Sure, it's fun to pee magenta, but for me the thrill is not worth it.