Each week in the fourth grade a student in my class was selected to be Star Of The Week. This special opportunity highlighted facts about the selected student on a laminated poster. The facts were simple and to the point: name, nickname, favorite color, favorite book, favorite food, etc. And in typical fourth grade fashion, the answers tended to be predictable and childlike. The most favored colors were blue or green for the boys of the class and pink or purple for the girls and the top books at the time consisted of Harry Potter or Goosebumps. Of course, the food of choice was pizza, chicken nuggets, or mac and cheese, that was, except for me.
When it came my turn to fill out the long anticipated poster of facts, with my picture plastered on top I began in typical fashion: color, purple; book, goosebumps; food, salmon teriyaki. Salmon teriyaki?! Three quarters of the kids in my class didn't even know what that was or even meant. I, on the other hand, had learned to spell teriyaki the year before after I had officially declared it my "all time favorite food." I loved everything about the dish and, at 8, I even had a favorite restaurant that served it, just the way I liked. I was determined to make everyone around me love it too - unfortunately, I did not foresee how challenging this task would be when I started to date a person who claimed to not like fish.
