Growing up, I kind of limited myself to the new foods that I was willing to try. I come from a Russian-Jewish background and the foods from those cultures are very interesting to say the least. For example, gefilte fish is something that my brother and I swore that we will never eat. When we were younger, we always used to laugh about how someone could’ve possibly came up with such a dish – fish jello soup. It still seems unreal to me but mostly everyone in my family indulges in it at almost every holiday. In addition, my family is the exact opposite of someone who is neophobic. They are willing to try almost everything including snails, alligator bites, frog legs and so much more. Ironically, they always called me the weird one because when we went out to eat I ordered calamari and penne vodka. It came to a point that the waiter at out usual restaurants knew what I was ordering before we even sat down. They always used to yell at me and make fun of me for constantly ordering the same exact dish at every place we went to.

I can’t recall the exact moment when my eating habits changed but all of a sudden I was willing to try foods that 3 years ago wouldn’t even cross my mind. My family was just as surprised as I was when we went to a sushi restaurant one day and instead of ordering chicken terriyaki I got a few different rolls that included a variety of raw fish and new ingredients that I have never tried before. Since that day, I was willing to try almost anything. I believe that broadening my horizons for food definitely made me overall a more open-minded person. I’m very grateful that my family sort of pushed me to try new things because now I can really appreciate all different types of cuisines that are offered in New York City as well as any other places that I travel to in the future.