Me and My Veggies

I've almost always loved my veggies. I mean, sure, when I was a young one, I put up a fuss over certain ones, like those evil green pebbles that call themselves peas. But broccoli, and cauliflower, okra, and brussel sprouts, collard greens, squash... zucchini? All good in my book. In my late twenties I developed a love affair with eggplant. I had to get grown and move from my parents to even experience such a fabulous vegetable, but once I did, I knew what it meant to live off the land, for I could surely sustain my every cell's nutritional requirement with eggplant. I even spent a few years avoiding anything that once had a face and blood all together. Opting for plants only. I felt much healthier then. Aside from all the chemicals that I was pumping into my body at a feverish pace, as though I was in a race to some junkie-only finish line, and only Keith Richards could lap me to take the lead. But I digress...
One of my other all time favorite sustainable, succulent sustenances are brussel sprouts. I love them. They may reek to high heaven when you're cooking them, but it's an aroma that makes my mouth water and gets me all a tither. Until, that is, a few months ago...when I got soooooo sick. Then just after I got over it, like a week later, it all happened again, in exactly the same way. symptoms and all, identical. The only thing I could attribute it to was the meal I had eaten the night of becoming so viloently ill each time. I had brussel sprouts. From the same store, from the same batch. They were frozen, steam in the pouch brussel sprouts, and honestly, I believe that they were tainted. Oh, they tasted fine, and if they smelled bad, well, how the hell would anyone have known? But a short time after eating...I was violently ill. We'll leave it at that. I didn't even relate it to the seemingly innocuous morsel nestled upon my plate, or else I'd have never seen fit to eat them again, as my symptoms subsided and I was able to move from clear liquids and on to solid foods again. I just thought vegetables always give me stregnth, I'll make some brussel sprouts! Bad, bad, bad idea.
So needles to say, I've been less than gung ho over the sight of those tiny cabbages ever since then. Wifester and I were at the store last weekend, and I saw the lovely brussel sprouts, bobbing their heads from behind the mist and beckoning me ..." come back into the light...just a try, this time will be different, we promise", And I, with all the strength I could muster, turned and walked away from them. Tempting as they may be, so was cocaine and every other chemical substance that I could snort and smoke and....well, let's just say I've learned that when something is no good for you, you just gotta leave it alone.
Likewise, my love of okra has been, er-um, squashed, due to the unfortunate "Memorial Day Experience", which is always said, now, with the quotation marks gesture, just for added emphasis. I went how many weeks without tomatoes because of the salmonella scare, only to find out they were safe all along! Meanwhile, I was chopping up jalapeños, who were responsible, left and right! I don't know how much more of this I can take. Please, stop ruining my veggies! I love my veggies. I don't want them taken away from me. When, where, for the love of all that's green and organic will this crazy madness end?