Betrayed by my own brain

Tonight Wendy cooked up a new dinner for us.  I try to be optimistic about these things but I am not generally the sort of person who seeks out new meals - I figure out what the best dish for me is at any given restaurant and simply order it every time.  Why eat something less than the best?  This same sort of thing applies to new meals at home because even though Wendy's experiments are usually quite tasty I am regularly apprehensive.  Call it cowardice, call it caution, either way I sniff and taste her new concoctions with trepidation.  Here is the new thing from tonight, a dish called Shakshuka, which is essentially eggs poached in a spicy tomato and onion sauce.

I love eggs, tomatoes and onions.  The smart part of my brain knows that the combination of these three things is very much going to be like eggs with ketchup and onions, a dish I know I love.  There is nothing in this pot of which I do not approve.  Unfortunately the other half of my brain has things to say.

Those white stringy bits look like cheese.  We are gonna puke, don't eat it.

That is egg!  We know it is egg.  No cheese!

Puke puke puke, gonna puke.  Poison!  Don't eat it.

Seriously, we watched this being made.  Wendy is adding cheese to hers separately, there is no cheese.  Safe!  Delicious even!

*hands over ears* Not listening to you, it is cheesy poison and we shouldn't eat it, gross!

Even as I forked in the first bits of it my lizard brain was still shrieking "POISON!" at me over my tongue informing me that in fact it tasted like egg, tomato and onion and was quite delicious.  It boggles me how bloody strong these tendencies can be when they are based on nothing at all.  I have managed to train myself after years of hating cheese to react in ridiculous ways to things that bear only a small resemblance to cheese.  However, I can just bear down and eat it and once I get halfway done lizard brain finally shuts up and I can enjoy my meal in peace.

There we go, finished it off and quite enjoyed it.  This is what Shakshuka looks like with cheese on it, stupid lizard brain: