Funny tangent story time! One of my coworkers was in Malaysia for a week getting some new testers setup to be shipped to us here in the states. These things are bordering on millions of dollars a piece, so I guess it requires some personal attention.
But I bet if you ate a half dozen portobello burgers or mushroom pizzas with the attitude that you wanted to get over your mushroom aversion, you could do it. That has been my experience at least, and you would most likely save yourself many an awkward situation down the road and have a bunch of new dishes that you enjoy.
Not only is it important that you get them to try new things, bro, if they don't like it, you should have them try it again later in life.
Welsh. Well my mom is. My dad made bachelor food and thought he was a pretty decent chef for it. Wonderbread toasted with butter, sugar and cinnamon. Gourmet!
Dry pork is overcooked pork which is really easy to do, especially with "tender"loins. Find a good brine solution (Alton Brown), and start buy halving the brine solution and working up in subsequent cookings till you get a taste that you can live with.
My mother is British as well and I grew up with the same type of food essentially. My girlfriend finds it odd that I can't really handle very spicy stuff, meanwhile she can take shots of habanero hot sauces like they're nothing. My mom did try to change things up a bit, but Pot Roast and Shepard's Pie are by far my two favorite home-cooked foods.
I've perhaps overcompensated. I use a lot of spice. I'm definitely not shy about throwing some habaneros or ghost chili's into almost anything. Thai spicy 15? More like Thai mild.
