There are very few people who like brussel sprouts including me. When I moved back to Ireland for a while as an adult, I was amazed to see trees of the vegetable. Almost everyone was buying them at the grocery. This came to mind today when I was listening to an old “Leave it to Beaver” while I was walking. His mother was trying to force him to eat the sprouts but he wouldn’t hear of it. They had a big family event the next night, a game and dinner at a restaurant, and still the Beaver refused. His mother told him if he didn’t eat them he wouldn’t be able to attend the game and the wonderful evening out as a family. The dad didn’t want this to happen so he finally made a deal with the Beaver. The next time there were brussel sprouts on his plate he had to eat them. Of course, when they were at the restaurant and ordered their meals the Beaver’s came with the miserable vegetable. He couldn’t bear to eat them. He put one in his mouth and his brother Wally slapped his back and down it went. Then he realized they were not so bad. They were never a popular vegetable until a few years ago. Many of the cooking shows started including them as part of meals for the contestants. That is when a variety of creative ways of cooking them were invented. In case you were wondering, they were developed in the late fifteen hundreds in, of course, Brussels, Belgium. So they were definitely available during the Good Gus era. The Good Gus Series is available online at Kindle, Nook and Waterstones. Hard copies, personally autographed, are available through our website www.goodgusbooks.com along with past blogs for your reading enjoyment. Digitizing for all the books will be ready next week! Please consider adding “The Special Gift” as a new Christmas tradition.