The years spin by...

I just realized another big change from childhood: one's attitude towards food. It used to be that food was just something to be put in one's mouth, and all the interest was on previously established tasty foods (pizza with boring toppings, macaroni and cheese, pies, etc.) Now (or at least when I have some energy) food is something fun to shop for, enjoyable to prepare, fascinating to present to others, and an interesting factor of health or illness. I'm always on the lookout for dishes featuring meat and vegetables because of the good-health associations, and unless I'm very sick I'm much more interested in meaty spaghetti sauce with spinach than I am in macaroni and cheese. Processed foods are so seductively easy that they occupy a much larger part of my life than I would like, but as a child I would have been shocked at the idea that a surfeit of processed foods could result in anything other than bliss.