I missed the appointment because of snow and below zero temps and a street that hadn't seen a plow. And the appointment had to take place before the end of the year, because, you know…insurance, and the ruling role it plays in our lives.
So the rescheduled appointment wound up being on Thursday afternoon, and Thursday was a day we'd kind of thought about road-tripping. We had to pivot a bit, but we came up with a pretty good alternative plan: we'd spend the morning at our local art museum and then go to one of our favorite lunch places.
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We frequent the art museum when special exhibits arrive, and we go for concerts, and I like their book clubs, but we don't always just go to look at the art. So Thursday we started on the ground floor and meandered, really looking, at the paintings and sculptures and photographs. Some we'd seen before, but enough time had passed that we could look with new eyes.
And some were new to us.
There were two special exhibits—-works donated by local collectors, which was pretty amazing. And there was a display of illustrations of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by an English artist named Patrick Procktor. (I had the thrill, later in the day, of seeing Procktor's name in the memoir I was reading; the author arranged a kind of cultural festival, and she wanted to introduce a hitherto unknown painter. To generate interest, though, her team decided to pair the undiscovered artist's work with the work of a known and established artist.
And that artist was Patrick Procktor. How about THAT? I thought. If I hadn't gone to the art museum today…)
And Mark spent time in the ceramics and pottery room,—Mark, whose first and long-lived job was working for a small firm that made machinery for the ceramics industry. He looks at pottery with informed eyes, thinking about how things were cast or poured, how handles attach, how glazes were developed.
Paintings catch James; he looks for the symbols renaissance painters embed in their work, and he marvels at the almost-photographic quality of some 19th century portraits, and he loves that the museum has a Salvador Dali.
Two hours melted away, and, "That was really cool," said James. "It was FUN."
We all agreed we need to visit the art museum every couple of months, just to look. And then we got in the car and drove to one of our favorite little family-owned restaurants for lunch.
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And, well: damn. The place was closed.
We should have, but never thought to, check on line.
So we decided to try another restaurant not far down the road. We'd had lackluster meals there far in the past, but it had new management, and we'd heard things had changed.
We went in and one very busy wait person pointed us to the fourth booth on the left. He took our drink orders, brought our drinks, and then we never talked to him again.
He whirled around the dining room, bringing plates, bringing checks, taking plates, taking checks. People corralled him—-more butter! (I GAVE you butter he said; in the little white bowl. See? I want MORE butter, the chubby, crabby man said.)
Refill my drink!
Extra salad dressing!
New people came in and were seated.
We waited, patiently at first.
Time went by and James said, "This is taking a long time." He looked at us. "Isn't it?"
I went to the bathroom, and came back, and we waited some more.
Finally, Mark said. "Okay. Let's go."
We put money on the table to cover the drinks, and I followed the boyos out. The server looked at their storm cloud faces and decided not to approach them.
But he, arms full of lunch platters, gave me this beseeching, forlorn, helpless look.
"I know," I said. "I know you're working alone. But we just can't wait today."
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In the car, little puffs of steam were foofing out of Mark's ears, in sync with his breathing. Jim was sitting quietly in the back seat, staring out the window at nondescript scenery.
Mark started the car.
"Let's just go home and eat," he said.
"Amen," agreed James.
And so we did.
I thought how amazing it is that a bad meal out—or worse, I guess: NO meal out, when you have the expectation of one—-can collapse an otherwise happy day.
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Eating out, when I was growing up, was an almost unheard of luxury. One income, five kids—five HUNGRY kids…my mother bought twenty pound bags of potatoes. My father liked potatoes—meat and potatoes—-and Mom used them to stretch meals. Boiled potatoes, fried potatoes, mashed potatoes: rinse and repeat. Those twenty pound sacks could be empty in three days.
My family emptied potato sacks, licked meat platters clean, and decimated the contents of cookies jar. We went through loaves and loaves of cheap white bread and jars and jars of peanut butter.
Imagine feeding THAT hungry horde at a restaurant more than once every couple of years. It was more than the budget could bear.
But there were just a few times…Once my father brought home take out from a local restaurant; I was very young, and I think it was my first taste of restaurant French fries. I remember the greasy napkins, and the excited jabber, but I don't remember much about the food.
I do remember this: It was a treat.
And then there was a time when my brothers' little league team—the one my father managed—-went to some sort of World Series event in a small city nearby. Did they win? I can't remember, but I can tell you that after the game, we went to McDonald's.
There was no McDonald's at the time in my small town, and this was amazing.
I did not like the hamburger—small, flattened, soaked in a soup of mustard, ketchup, and pickle. In those days, one couldn't have it their way. It was all or nothing.
Someone else ate my burger, but I didn't mind: I was lost in the revelatory flavors of my first Mickie D's chocolate shake and fries. So good.
SO good.
I probably didn't eat out again until I started babysitting, and Sandee and I, great sophisticates, would walk down to the Your Host restaurant or the Neisner's snack bar at the Plaza and get ourselves a burger or a grilled ham and cheese.
Food hot off the flat top: what a treat.
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And eating out was like the special high point of going to proms, and it was something we did to commemorate special occasions. Budgeting was still an issue: I could afford, maybe, a Julienne salad,--lovely, crisp lettuce with meats and cheeses,--hot, soft buns on the side, a big glass of ice water.
I could make a salad at home, but not with the panache of that one.
Eating out was FUN.
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And then fast food got more familiar; Mickie D's and BK and Wendy's stores popped up all over. If you had kids, you got them kids' meals, at least once in a while.
On Friday nights, when Matt was at his mom's, Mark and I would often eat at an Italian restaurant in the food court at the mall (until the night I had my first gall bladder attack after a doughy, cheesy meal.)
But slowly, insidiously, eating out became not so special; it was a convenience. The food wasn't always great, but getting it was fast, and there were no dishes to do on busy school nights, or weekends after concerts or games.
When menu plans crashed and burned, when busy days rendered us unwilling to cook and then scrub pots, then, "Oh, let's just go to Freddy's," we might say.
And life plowed along like that for a good bit.
And then, of course: COVID.
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For two years, maybe more, we ate in. Mark and James might say things like this: When COVID is over, let's go too Longhorn and get giant, juicy steaks. Or, I can't wait to get together with the women for lunch again, I might say.
And slowly, slowly, the disease seemed to calm, things got better, and we could, again, venture out to eat.
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But it is ironic that, as the COVID wave sucked back out to sea (somewhat, at least), what it revealed in its wet, sandy wake was a dearth of workers.
Every restaurant we pass these days has a "Now Hiring" sign out front. And many of them are left in the state the place where we didn't get served is in: one or two overworked wait staff are running their feet off, trying to keep up. And places are looking for cooks, too… It's no wonder that, at some establishments, quality has changed. At one of my favorite former places to sit with coffee and, maybe, a muffin, and sneak a little writing time in, the decaf is ALWAYS cold—or at least, it has been the last four times I've tried it. And the harried staff is always willing to make a new pot, but that takes a while, and by the time it finally is done, I'm often getting antsy and ready to go, until now I'm reluctant to even give it a try.
And, of course, now that I don't eat, very much, in the Land of Gluten, I am pickier about the menus at the fooderies I frequent…
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Mark and I went out for a belated anniversary lunch today (hard to believe the number of years we have been celebrating anniversaries, but that's another story), and it was lovely. We drove to a pub we'd never been to. It's about thirty miles away, and the service was wonderful, the view was great, and the food came, hot and fresh, in no time at all.
That anniversary lunch was a treat.
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And that's what eating out should be, I'm thinking: a rare fine treat. So I'm mulling about meals and venues, and whining a little, quietly, in my boney chamber, because, in general, I'm the person who cooks if we eat at home. But there are ways to make that easier. (We bought Bob Evans mashed potatoes when we were planning to deliver a long-distance Thanksgiving dinner. Serious weather quashed those plans, sadly, but we had the mashed taters in the freezer, so we used them. Revelation: they were GOOD.)
Maybe with the money I save by not eating out, I can indulge in a few convenience foods—plan ahead to make meal prep both tasty and resentment-free.
A new regime, a post-COVID regime, maybe: evening meals, for the most part, at home. And then, once in a while, a meal out at a place we know and like and can count out to be special.
It won't be as stringently occasional as in my childhood days, but if we can spread it out a little, save the chances and savor them, I think eating out can once again be what it should be: something fine and something special.
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