Food Is Love

I love to cook and bake. The best therapy for me is to pull out my baking ingredients and make cakes and cookies and other treats. However, if I did that as often as I need to, my entire family would weigh 500 pounds each. We are a big sweets-loving family.

I also love experimenting with ingredients and seeing what meals I can invent. I used to do this all the time back when I was single. Once I met my husband, though, I had to severely limit my experimentation because of his pickiness when it comes to food. While he’s significantly improved in that area, he still likes what he likes, and other than for health reasons, really doesn’t want to try new things. 

 

My kids were also picky, so although I’ve never been prevented from experimenting for myself, when it came time to cook for everyone, tried and true recipes won the day. Besides, I’m not a short order cook, and the thought of making different meals for different people did not appeal to me. Not to mention, it would have made it very difficult to teach my kids to eat what was presented to them.

 

So, much of my love for cooking has fallen by the wayside. I still did it, still tried making new foods occasionally, but only using ingredients I knew were on the “approved list.” We were limited, but it was better than nothing.

 

Fast forward to today, when both girls are away at college and law school, living in apartments. With kitchens. That they have to use. I was all excited, thinking about the shopping we’d do together to outfit their kitchens, the recipes I’d pass along for them to make their favorite foods. But with covid and limited time and their strong wills, my idea of what would happen differed significantly from reality. Again. So I let them take the lead, stayed in my lane, and reminded myself that it was okay.

 

And then the FaceTime calls started.

 

“Mom, how do I cook this?”

“Mom, can you send me the recipe for the chicken you make that I like?”

“Mom, how do I store this?”

“Mom, we need more pans, can you help me pick out the right size?”

“Mom, can you watch me do this to make sure I’m doing it right?”

 

Suddenly, everything was worth it and all is right in my world.

The Strategy

My husband and I have been going out to dinner more frequently lately, and the restaurants we’ve been choosing have been, on the whole, nicer than our typical standbys. Our kids are older—the Princess is in college and Banana Girl is in high school—so we should have been able to do this long ago. But it took us a while to realize we could up our restaurant game, and even longer to realize we could go out by ourselves or with friends and leave any children at home. I guess we’re slow. Or tired.

And I’ve come to realize that going out to eat, and really enjoying the experience, requires a strategy, especially if you want to make it through dessert—and seriously, isn’t the whole point of eating a meal so you can get to dessert?

I’ve always looked at menus ahead of time. My husband is a picky eater, so I always glance at what the restaurant serves to make sure there’s something for him to eat. I’m much easier to satisfy, as I only have three things I won’t eat:

• Anything alive (as in, it can’t be alive while on my plate)
• Any type of organ
• Any type of bug/insect

Beyond that, I’ll try anything once. If it has a sauce, I might even try it twice.

But lately, my eating out strategy has developed further. 

I look at the menu, not just for my husband, but also for me. First, I look at the desserts, because I need to know how much room I’ll need to leave for them. Some places just don’t have great desserts, so I can order appetizers along with my main course. Others have absolutely mouth-watering ones, and in that case I might just get an appetizer so I have plenty of room left over. Yes, I still believe that dessert goes in a totally different part of your stomach than your non-dessert food, but still, there’s only a finite amount of space and I like to have a little wiggle room. 

And I will never understand restaurants that don’t list their desserts online. Seriously people, that’s often the whole reason I’m coming to your establishment! 

Once I’ve determined if the restaurant is a dessert place or not (and if not, if there’s a good ice cream place nearby), I move onto the main course to get an idea of what I want to eat. I also balance that out with what appetizers they serve. If the appetizers sound more appealing, I’ll skip the main course and just order an appetizer and a salad. Then there’s totally enough room for dessert and my night is made. 

Having figured out what direction I’m going in, it’s now time to go to the restaurant, where my entire strategy can get thrown out the window if the chef offers an intriguing special, or the dessert display is visible. 

And people wonder why I include so much food in my books…