Top 10 Foods I Hate That Other People Love

1. Sushi The ubiquitous sushi. It's not just at sushi bars and Japanese restaurants anymore. You can find it at Cajun seafood joints, at all-you-can-eat buffets, and at breakfast places in the form of "frooshi"--fresh fruit carved and shaped to look like sushi. Like most foods on this list, I don't necessarily hate it--it's just that it's been so overdone and I'm just bored of it. It's the last on my list of things to eat when dining out. Maybe I've just never had good sushi.

2. Goat Cheese Despite my affinity for goat (see #10 in my "Top 10 Foods I Love That Other People Hate" list), it does not extend to goat cheese. It's another ubiquitous ingredient, and has found its way from the cheese platter into too many dishes, from salads to savory tarts to pastas to pizza toppings. I simply just find it so gamey in flavor that it overpowers my palate and diminishes the flavor of everything else it is paired with.

3. Truffles Another ingredient that has become so popular and overused. I'm not talking chocolate truffles--those, I can eat all day long. I'm talking about the hyper-expensive white or black fungi that are the darling of the culinary world. I know they're a luxury and all the food fans love them, but I just think they taste like dirty feet. Or, what I imagine dirty feet to taste like. Even freshly-rooted truffles from Tuscany were totally lost on me, shaved paper-thin atop homemade pasta tossed with olive oil and garlic. I want to like them; I just don't. Same goes for truffle oils and all things truffle-infused. Bummer.

4. Pickles Okay, I don't hate pickles. I just don't like them very much. A couple of bites from an authentic delicatessen dill pickle is enough for me. I can't even eat a whole one. I think seeing a rack of vacuum-packed dill pickles in the candy aisle at Blockbuster Video put me over the edge. I must say, however, that I recently canned some dilly beans with my pal, Brooke, a couple of weeks ago, and I went through an entire jar the first day. They were good. Maybe it's a sign that my palate is maturing.

5. Cauliflower A white, cruciferous vegetable. What's the point? Bland and horribly dry, especially raw. However, I will admit that I quite enjoyed them in a gratin prepared by a friend, all creamy and topped with cheese. But, gratineed anything, all creamy and topped with cheese, is good. Unless it were topped with goat cheese (see #2, above).

6. Jello For some reason, my dad loves Jello. Strawberry Jello, to be specific. Sometimes, I'll look in my folks' refrigerator and find an entire tray of strawberry Jello chilling, just waiting for him to dig in. I can't say it's the fake fruit flavor, because I love fake fruit flavor in popsicles, Jolly Ranchers, and Kool Aid. I can't say it's the gelatinous texture, because I am not bothered by squirty, squishy food. Maybe it's the combination of the two? In any event, whenever I do eat it, it must be topped with whipped cream, in the proportion of 1:1. And it must be real whipped cream, not the junk from a can or Cool Whip from a tub. However, if anyone were ever to make one of those '80s-era poke cakes, made with boxed white cake and a layer of Jello oozed into little holes poked into the top of the cake by the end of a wooden spoon, I'd appreciate a slice. I'm strangely obsessed with the oddity of such a concoction.

7. Oysters Snot in a shell. Mussels, clams, scallops, they don't bother me. But, whenever I see those oyster-eating competitions on TV, I want to vomit. And then I imagine what that vomit would be like if I'd eaten oysters. And then I want to vomit again. It's a vicious circle.

8. Soft-shell Crabs See #7 above, regarding vomit. I've only tried soft-shell crabs once, but it was on the East Coast and I imagined they would be the freshest available. It was just weird eating an entire crab, knowing that there are parts of a normal crab that I would never otherwise eat, and wondering why I would eat them just because they were encased in a freshly-molted soft shell. That just doesn't make sense.

9. Okra I really want to like okra. I mean, she's like a multi-media goddess, what with her talk show, magazine, and Sirius-radio station. Alas, okra's just to slimy for me--while I'm pretty forgiving with texture, there must be an offsetting pleasance of flavor. Okra doesn't cut it.

10. Non-fat Food I once had a co-worker who was always trying to push her latest non-fat food find on me, whether it was salad dressing or cookies or whatever other nonsense. She was constantly trying to lose or maintain weight, but if she ever looked at the ingredients (the first of which was typically SUGAR to mask the chemical taste), she'd realize why it wasn't working. I recently bought a tub of non-fat vanilla yogurt to eat with my homemade granola because I didn't like any of the flavors of the non non-fat yogurts. Unfortunately, sugar was near the top of the ingredients list, presumably to hide the flavor of all the chemicals added to approximate the texture of a full-(or, at least, low-)fat yogurt. All things in moderation, darling. Just don't pour cups full of full-fat dressing on your salad or eat an entire dozen cookies. Enjoy your food, just don't eat so much of it. And if you do, just do what I do when I think of oysters. Just kidding.