When I was a child I had a bunch of food allergies. I was allergic to milk, to all kinds of berries, and tomatoes. It sucked. I’d go to a birthday party and my mom would bring sherbet (but not anything with berries) for me because I couldn’t have ice cream. My friend Mindy, who was also allergic to milk, and I would be handed apple juice with our food whenever we got lunch at school.
I thankfully outgrew my milk allergy by the time I finished elementary school and my other food allergies sometime in my teenage years.
Today I drink a lot of steamed milk with some kind of tea and I love ice cream, yogurt, and cheese, though after a childhood of not being able to drink milk, I still don’t like any in my cereal.
Tomatoes, I learned are delicious.
While fresh strawberries are good, it wasn’t until relatively recently that I discovered how amazing blueberries and raspberries could be.
I think that a lot of people take all of these foods for granted, but I’m so grateful that I outgrew my allergies and get to enjoy blueberries in my yogurt, a hot matcha latte on a cold day, and cherry tomatoes right off the vine in my front yard on a summer day.
I think the past year has made many, maybe most of us, notice some of the things we’ve taken for granted, things like hugging a family member, having coffee with a friend, traveling. I hope that when this is all over, and we get to do those things again, we’ll savour them, remembering what life was like without them.
