Little Miss Picky

For years, my family worried about how I survived on meat and buns alone — okay, and Safeway-brand cheese slices. Not the ones wrapped in fancy plastic sleeves, but those stacked in slabs (my mom wouldn’t buy Kraft). By the time I was twelve and allowed to turn on the stove, I’d begun making my own grilled sandwiches. Mom supplied the gross brown bread with seeds, when I’d rather have had pure white loaves. But never mind. I’d swab the spongy matter with room-temperature margarine (she was inexplicably against butter too), slap a cheese slice in between, and fry both sides in her Teflon pan. I didn’t like much in the way of food, but I’d gorge on these. Maybe that’s how I stayed alive? Trace non-stick chemicals and the extra niacin and riboflavin in those supermarket loaves.

I’m told that even as a baby, I’d shake my head and refuse mashed fruits and veggies from those little jars. My dad, as stubborn as his pursed-lipped toddler, once squished the orange he had...