I hate alcohol!! I hate the smell, I hate the taste, I hate what it does. I don’t care if the alcohol does cook out and the wine/beer/hard liquor “adds flavor.” It’s a smell I don’t like and I don’t like the taste it generally leaves behind. I think people forget I used to live in Belgium. I know what this stuff smells like. I was forced to be around it and I don’t like it and I don’t care if you do.

Why doesn’t my father understand this? I mean seriously, he has this stew recipe that he made up (not that you can go wrong with stew) and he loves it. But guess what he cooks the whole stew in red wine, two bottles of it. The rank diffuses through the kitchen and begins to fill the house. If I try to go in the proximity of the kitchen to talk to my mom, I leave because the smell consumes me and I begin to heave. I HATE IT. So guess what today dad decided he was going to make stew. Since I have never helped with it I was allowed the privilege to make it today—did I eat it? Heck no. But I have done my duty; I never have to do it again (I hope.) In protest I did what every good Edlefsen child does when faced with an unfriendly meal… eat junkfood.