On Perceiving Beets

by Mary Brady

This brain of mine was born with “not liking” as a basic subroutine. I mean, the default on something news is “no—thanks.” Perhaps this is a common survival technique and perhaps most brains are “not likers” (Live with likers spell checker!), at least to a degree. I have, thanks to higher powers, taught myself to ignore this initial response most of the time—but not all.

—Beets, yes, beets. Well…

I love beets and made the best pickled beets ever the other day. Those of you for which this is not an oxymoron, you know what I mean. The tang, the texture, the delightful color of fuchsia, which stains your lips, teeth and tongue and a few hours later—tints other things.

These pickled beets were so absolutely perfect in taste and appearance, I told my husband how good they were when he called home that day. To which he responded, “Yum, I love pickled beets.” (One of the reasons I married the man!)

“I’ll save you some,” I said making a promise I did not keep. I ate every single beet chunk in the jar; even my fingers were pink. Then I felt bad that I didn’t leave any for a man nice enough to tell me whatever I make for him is the best whatever he’s ever eaten—and he’s always so sincere—and I believe him every single time.

—beets—The beets were gone, but I saved the stupendous pickling juice to make more.

I went the grocery store and I bought more beets...yellow beets…the red ones were scrawny. My brain went—they're strange! Then asked, too strange? To which it answered itself, Grow up. Beets are beets! The rest of me went along with this, took the yellow beets home and eagerly cooked them up.

I dropped these yellow chunks into the dark violet juice, added a little more vinegar and sugar, heated and cooled them.

Then I opened the pan and my brain got one past me with a prolonged, “eee—uuu—eee. They're yellowish, like little chunks of jaundiced internal organs swimming around in there with the cloves and bay leaf.”

“Shut up and try them.”

“eee—uuu—eee.” Spearing one with a fork. “eee—uuu—eee! Organs.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“No.” If a brain can jam a fist on a hip in a very petulant manner, mine did just that.

“It’s a root vegetable, not a pancreas, for goodness sake!”

Then I waited. A couple hours later the beets didn’t seem so organish to my brain.

By the next day they were nearing good and by the time they had changed to a medium pink (not the deep dark violet of a great pickled beet), they were downright tasty.

I keep having to train, train and retrain this brain of mine. Maybe a new one would be in order. Does anyone know the current address of Best Brain Buy, Brains R US, or the ever-popular McBrain-olds? The drive through might make it an easy transaction.

Well I don’t know where any of these are, so I am stuck with this recalcitrant Studebaker brain of mine.

Studebaker… The old unreliable, lemon of an ugly car that almost nobody wanted is now an item for the rich and discerning collector. Maybe there’s hope for my brain…

When writing, I try to give my characters free reign with the idiosyncrasies of their brain right up to and including the very rim of the envelope. I hope that makes them as much fun to read as they are to write.

Does your brain have an idiosyncrasy? Or if not, which strange reaction would you like it to have?

To one commenter will go one of my books or a set of TossOn™ bracelets
(see http://www.etsy.com/shop/julsandmaude for examples).