Blog Trek

Placing Your Food Where Something Other Than Your Mouth Is

There are so many tips around right now for weight control.  This afternoon, I turned on the TV in time to see a nutritionalist advising that diners request their take-home containers when they first receive their meals.  Okay, I can go for that.  "Out of sight, out of mind," she pontificated.  Okay, I get that, too.  "Put the container on a seat," she added. 

Wrong.  When would you ever want to place your container of soon-to-be-leftovers onto a chair or bench in a restaurant?  Since when has that been a clean environment for food?  The very place where people park their behinds.  Those same behinds that have sat on many different seats that day.  The seats where many other people have also placed their behinds.  The seats that, unlike the tables, which are wiped down, or the floors, which are at least vacuumed, and also if carpeted, steam cleaned, and if linoleum or wood, mopped on a regular basis, are not.  The seats are at best wiped or brushed off if they are visibly soiled.  Otherwise, forget it--they are never touched until the furniture is replaced in some far distant future.

The possibility of bacteria entering your take-home container?  I'd gauge it around 99.9%.

Disgusting, and a nutritionalist should know better.

Finicky

It rained finally yesterday.  My new tree looks green and happy.  I'm sending good thoughts its way in the hopes that it grows at least 3 feet over the next few weeks, and blocks my view of my neighbor's driveway.

I half-cleaned my house, and not at my leisure.  My son called Friday afternoon and wanted to come to dinner, bringing his friend who wanted to try eating kippers.  For the uninitiated, kippers are really a British treat--smelly, smoked fish that my son swears stinks up the house for weeks at a time. 

The ones I bought were able to be boiled in bags on the stove.  My son brought rotisserie chicken, because he refuses to eat British food.  He says it's all bad, but how he can find fault with Bangers and Mash or Toad in The Hole is beyond me.  Then there's Spotted Dick (suet pudding with raisins,) and various other delights such as Steak and Kidney Pie and Mince Pies.  We had a spirited discussion over the differences between Shepherd's Pie and Mince Pie.  He said all of it makes him ill, and that another friend he brought for Christmas Day lunch with my cousins in San Diego swore she ate Shepherd's Pie and it was horrible.  I informed him that we would not have eaten S. Pie on Christmas Day, and that it was the Mince Pie that she had not liked.

Unbelievably, when my son went to England as a child, he always managed to find either hot dogs, hamburgers or pizza, thereby avoiding the British culinary delights readily available at all restaurants and homes we visited.  He swears when we go on our next trip, planned in two years time, he will do the same thing.  I'm hoping by then, he'll be a little more open-minded and adventurous.  He has been trying everything from sushi to Indian food over the last couple of years, so why would he be so resistant to what amounts to quite plain fare?

This was a child who refused to eat cheesecake or carrot cake until about a year ago, when he finally realized that there was something outside of yellow cake with white frosting for birthdays or dessert.  I believe that finicky eaters are born, not made.  I always tried to vary the menu at home and we went to restaurants with varied items.  But when we went to eat Chinese, we had to go through the drive-through at the fast food beforehand.  At our favorite restaurant, the waiter would bring my son a soda and a small plate for his hamburger and fries along with our order. 

I suppose I should be thankful that at least we don't have to do that now he's older.

To bib or not to bib

I ate lunch out today.  This was not because I wanted to or felt the need for a restaurant experience, but because I had no choice.  My first afternoon appointment had to be moved up and there was no time to go home as I usually do, to let the dog out, eat something cheap and homemade, check messages and call the afternoon patients to remind them I'm coming.  Therefore, I had to make a big decision--what to eat.

Usually, when confronted with a monumental, life-altering decision that weighs the instant gratification of fries against the long term effect on my probably already clogged arteries and voluptuous (or too-wide) hips, I err on the side of grease, but not today.  I didn't even want to smell fries (note to self to take temperature and see if self is sick.)

Instead, I remembered that Noah's Bagels was in the vicinity of my destination, and the thought of a bagel sandwich appealed more to my senses than anything else I could swallow in 30 minutes. 

I figured I had better wash my hands before embarking on anything to do with consumption, and grabbed the key from beside the cash register.  Had I not done so, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed lunch as much.  Sitting at the last table before the back door was a man obviously intensely into his lunch.  On the table stood a hardbacked book.  Behind it was the most delectible lox-covered bagel I had seen in a long time. 

No, folks, I have not decided to do unpaid commercials for Noah's Bagels, despite their lox-to-die-for.  I'm actually getting to the whole point of this blog, and yes, as a side, I ultimately ordered the lox on a sun-dried tomato bagel.  It arrived with capers and tomatoes (I had to have the onions withheld in deference to my patients' and caregivers' sensibilities) and a side of fruit salad. 

But, to return to the matter in hand, I think the man eating was the one who made me enjoy my lunch out the most.  He wore a business suit with a sky blue shirt, across which was strategically placed an opened paper napkin to protect both his shirt and the maroon tie, which I could just see at the edge of his collar.  His expression was one of utter contentment as he ate and read in the relative quiet of the bagel cafe. 

Many times I have thought about protecting my shirt at lunch.  The only time I have done so is when eating lobster, when everyone in the restaurant is wearing a lobster bib and munching away with gusto while butter flies everywhere in sight, and in the case of my son's meal at that time (he was about 10 years old) up the wall, including a piece of lobster claw to boot.  I have never felt comfortable enough to tuck a paper napkin in my neck and go to it.  Obviously, the man at Noah's wasn't going to spend the rest of the day hidden in a back office, and he couldn't take the chance he would be wearing a stain.

And for all of you who are wondering, no, I did not follow his lead.  I ate carefully and avoided losing anything in my lap. 

Basically, I'm just a weak coward with an image problem.