Growing up, my family has always accused me of being a picky eater, and it comes up every time we're eating together. Every family get-together, it's always a big deal whether I'm going to eat the prepared meal or not. My sister especially likes to offer to make a separate meal just for me because I'm "sooo picky!"

I can't get it through their skulls that I'm less of a picky eater than they are - I'm just vocal about the very few specific foods I decided I don't like. Which happens to be in a lot of recipes my extended family makes.

I spent 20 years traveling the world with the US military and I made it a point to try local cuisine everywhere I went. I became a bit of a foodie, and some of my favorite foods are from foreign countries. Every time family members came to visit me in other countries, I'd spend half of their visit just introducing them to amazing cuisine in the local area.

We'd eat out practically every day to give them a taste of the local culture. And surprisingly, most of them didn't care for it. They wanted their "American food" instead. They weren't very adventurous when it came to trying new things. There's nothing worse than going to a ramen shop in Japan or a döner shop in Germany and having your family ask if we can go find a McDonald's instead.

But sure, I'm a picky eater because I've hated squash since I was a child, and that's apparently a staple of every family banquet.