Behold, the power of cheese!

Went to Melting Pot with my Mom and Dad the other day and it was delicious! For those not in the know, the Melting Pot is a fondue place in downtown SLC. It has tons of different types of fondue, some cheese, some chocolate and then there are some broth fondue's that you cook your meat in at your table. So cool. This was our chocolate desert. I'm drooling just looking at it. For our appetizers we had cheese fondue with veggies, bread and fruit to dip in it. I'd forgotten how cheese can make everything taste like heaven! I was grabbing anything I could get my hands on just to make sure I could dip SOMETHING in the cheese...a penny, breath mint, anything! I couldn't spoon that stuff into my mouth fast enough! While we were eating I couldn't help remember back to when I was a little kid. My parents were always trying to make us be healthy by torturing us with "green, leafy veggies". I despised them. Especially brussel sprouts, spinach and lima beans (I get that lima beans are technically a "bean" but they are so odious to the taste buds that I have always lumped them in this category. Plus, their green so it kind of works.) It never failed. Every night at dinner something green and leafy was placed on the table, and the war of wills would start! Michelle, was the brown nosing, oldest child and would take her heaping spoonful of glop with a smile on her face, and then pass it on to me. I'd hold onto the bowl for a few seconds and maybe stir the contents, so it looked like I was dishing it up, and then pass it right onto my brother Jason, without putting any on my plate! Jason, oddly enough like everything green, except for peas. Go figure. But I digress. So after fooling everyone with my trickery, I'd dive into the main dish or the mashed potatoes with relish, until the bowl would get to my father, then the jig was up. My dad would look at everyone's plates before dishing up his helping and would ultimately see something missing from my plate. "Zan, did you take some veggies?" he'd ask. I'd just sit their staring at him like I didn't understand what he was saying. Then he'd ask again. Now you couldn't lie or you'd get spanked, so I usually had to fess up at that time, and to reward my honesty, he'd dish me up a huge spoonful of whatever crap was being served. But that was only half the battle. He still had to get me to eat it and that's when the real war would start. The rule was you couldn't leave the table until you'd eaten everything on your plate. Normally I'd just give in and eat them but there were some nights I'd end up falling asleep at the table because I was so stubborn. Man, I was a brat, wasn't I? But this terrible behavior did have some reward. Every now and then, taking pity on us, dad would make a cheese sauce to pour over the greens so we'd eat them without complaint, and it worked. Ladies and Gentlemen, if a simple cheese sauce can get a brat like me to eat BRUSSEL SPROUTS without crying and whining, you know it must be the most powerful substance on the earth! The CIA should use it in their interrogations! Forget water boarding, just have have someone in the room eating something smothered in cheese and tell the insurgent that he can't have any until he spills the beans on his terrorist organization. They'd be amazed at how fast he starts talking. :) Mmmmm...cheese.