Laugh If You Must

 So, I'm an adult.

There are plenty of people who will read that sentence and will then need some time to pick themselves up off the floor from the gales of derisive laughter that followed as a reaction. I'll pause here while you all collect yourself. 

If I may continue: Today on my way to this place where I share my innermost thoughts, concerns and dreams, I skipped past a recipe for Cardamom Date Squares. Part of the confusion for me was the new interface that Yahoo has felt compelled to foist on me and the other eighteen people still using it as their home page. Upon setting up this new landing spot for me, the Yahooligans felt the need to include a full one sixth of my landing place on Al Gore's Internet with a compendium of recipes. Pretty savvy, based on my demographic, being a human over the age of fifteen. I'm going to need to eat, after all. And what better way to pursue that pastime than by using recipes? In the business, we call this "synergy." 

Cardamom and date squares? All the good will I was tempted to toss Yahoo's way evaporated instantly when they offered this option up to me. Cinnamon? Maybe. Raisins? Perhaps. Cardamom and Dates? I don't think they know me very well, do they? I'm the frozen pizza guy. My family has institutionalized Fridays as Cheeseburger Night. When it comes to dessert, I'm looking for as many permutations of "chocolate" as possible in the title. Triple Fudge Chocolate with Chocolate Brownie Chunk - and then it can just sort of trail off because even if the last few words are "broken glass" I'm still in. I am definitely not the guy who will stand there mulling as he rolls those flavors around in his mouth wondering aloud, "Did you use cumin in this?"

Which means my wife, whose palate is much more adventurous than my own, is often stuck with various permutations of meat and cheese when it's my turn to cook. I am the person for whom Dominoes marketed the Cheeseburger Pizza. It would be my wife standing beside me, poking me in the ribs, pointing out that the nutritional information for that little treat would probably read like the periodic table of evil. In my defense,  can only counter that I'm pretty sure that no cardamom was involved in the creation of that pizza. 

And yet, they allow me to be somebody's parent. We are in the process of preparing my son to be released once again back into the wild. Back when he lived with us as a child, we knew what his favorites were, and they didn't fall far from his father's. Recently, as he has been hunkered down in our basement waiting for his papers to join the adult world to come through, his mother has been attempting to undo some of the bad things that have been perpetrated on him for two and a half decades of never having to read a label or eat a salad. As a family, we are attempting to account for a healthy diet. 

We're all adults here. 

Okay. Go ahead and laugh. We are trying new things. Recipes found on Al Gore's Internet, even. But no cardamom, please.