I don't like broccoli...

...which stands greatly in the way of my pursuit for Better Life (vol. 317). And it's not just broccoli, it's majority of vegetables I don't like. I remember being insanely jealous of a vegetarian friend of mine in college, who managed an entire week's food shop for roughly around 10 or 15 euro. That left a hell of a lot of money to spend on drink and cigarettes. What was I thinking buying all that minced beef and ham for my sandwiches!? Well, I was thinking that I don't like vegetable so I'll just buy some processed crap instead, spend a lot more money on than my veggie loving friend and spend last four days of each month eating nothing but pasta with a drop of ketchup mixed in.

I would love to eat healthy. I know I probably should start now rather than five years down the line. But I don't like healthy food. If it really is so good for us, how come it doesn't taste better. Surely it is some kind of an evolutionary fuck up that the things that are good for our bodies, things that supposedly fight of diseases and generally make us live longer, aren't the things we crave in the wee hours after a hefty drinking sessions when our poor abused bodies are most in need of a health boost. Why don't the late night revellers flock to a steamed vegetable van instead of the one that sells deep fried meat from an undetermined animal source?

I'm sure broccoli would taste alright if you deep fried it, covered it in ketchup and stuffed it inside a burger bun. Our old head chef used to make me taste vegetables as a part of his little twisted ways to figure out whether or not your taste buds actually changed every 5 years or so. Problem was, he drowned the offending articles (in this case broccoli and it's nerdy little albino cousin, the cauliflower) in so much melted butter, the only thing I could taste was an impending arterial blockage.

With all this "food science" around, surely the boffins and Green Isle could manage to make the vegetable taste better. If they can make a deep fried potato shaving taste like a perennial 1970's dinner party starter or better yet, bacon, there must be a way to make lettuce taste like chips.

My sister-in-law has a talent for that, should she ever wish to give up her career as corporate banker, she could quite easily make a living showing notorious veggie-dodgers such as yours truly how to cook them in a way that makes them taste of things other than fertiliser. One of her famous successes must be The Aubergine. I never liked the look of them, all strange, shiny and purple like an alien egg. She slices them up, puts some red pepper slices and Parmesan on top and bakes them in the oven until crispy. My mouth is watering, yet we're talking about two types of vegetable and some cheese. Maybe it is the cheese. Everything is made better by the presence of cheese. Maybe the Americans have got it right after all. Would you like some cheese with that?