Tag Archives: dinner

I’ve heard that story a million times already

One night at dinner my dad said, “Did I ever tell you kids about the time I raced your Uncle George when we were little kids?”

And I was being a typical teenaged jerk, and so I said, “Yeah dad, you’ve told us like a million times already.” Even though that wasn’t true. I’d never heard my dad talk about racing, or Uncle George. Uncle George lived in Minnesota somewhere, and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d actually seen him. There was a photo album somewhere around the house, in one of the big bookshelves in my parents’ room. But even that was kind of off-limits. If we ever got caught snooping around upstairs, it was a big deal and it always ended with a lot of yelling.

My dad gave me an annoyed look, and he was just about to open his mouth to say something to put me in my place, when my younger brother Neil said, “Dad, I’ve never heard that story.”

So my dad closed his mouth and smiled a little, and without looking away from where I was sitting, he said, “Well then Neil, you’re in for a treat. Because this is a great story.” And I kind of rolled my eyes really dramatically, like, man, now I have to sit here and listen to a boring story from my dad. “But your brother’s already heard it, so why don’t we get out of here? I’ll tell you in the car.”

And my dad got up and pushed his chair in, walking away from his dinner plate. “Where are you going?” my mom said.

“Neil and I are going out of for a ride,” he said to my mom, and then turning to Neil added, “You want to grab some ice cream?” to which Neil bounced out of his seat and ran to the foyer to get his coat.

I waited until my dad was out of earshot and said in a mock-loud voice, “And who’s going to clear up all of these plates, your mother?” and nobody heard me, not my mom, definitely not my dad. And that was fine, because I didn’t know where I was going with that comment, not really. As soon as I said it, I realized that all I was doing was inviting my mom to make me stick around and help her clean up. The phone rang, my mom went further back into the kitchen, and I disappeared into my room until I was sure everything would have been put away.

And then I went back downstairs, my mom was smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table, I asked her, “Mom?” and she said, “Yeah?” and I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was in an OK mood, like she wasn’t pissed off or anything, and so I said, “What was dad talking about at dinner?”

“What do you mean?” she said.

“That whole race thing, with Uncle George?”

And her forehead got really tight and she said, “Uncle George?”

“Yeah, dad was going to say something about a race?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him when he gets home.”

And just then the driveway lit up as the station wagon pulled in right by the kitchen. My dad and Neil got out of the car, and when they walked into the house, Dad had a pretty big smile on his face. I didn’t really want to stick around and see if he was going to start smiling in my direction, and so I got up to go to my room. As I rounded the corner from the kitchen to the hallway, I could hear my mom say, “You didn’t bring any ice cream home for the rest of us?”

I didn’t say anything that night, and I was pretty good about trying not to think about it for the next couple of days or so. But just when I figured that the thoughts of my dad and my brother and the story about that race were going to fade away for good, they rallied and made a comeback, something like three or four days after that night at dinner. It was all I could think about. What was so important about a dumb race? Why did my dad have to leave the house to tell Neil? Why wasn’t anybody else talking about this?

So I cornered my brother when I got home from school that day. I said, “Neil, what did you and Dad talk about when you went out for ice cream after dinner?” and I was ready, I mean, I wasn’t going to let Neil go without him telling me what happened. If I had to twist his arm behind his back, or threaten to scratch all of his CDs when he wasn’t home, I hadn’t really left anything off the table in terms of forcing him to talk.

But none of that was necessary. Right away, Neil was like, “Dad didn’t say anything. We drove around town for like fifteen minutes in complete silence. It was so weird. I kept thinking, where are we going for ice cream? Why isn’t Dad saying anything? And then finally he talked, he was like, Neil, when we get home, I don’t want you to say anything to your brother. He’s going to ask you about the race between me and Uncle George, and you don’t say anything, got it? And I was like, what are you talking about? And he said, the race story, from dinner. And I said, OK, are we going for ice cream? And he said, no, no ice cream, I think we have ice cream in the freezer. But there wasn’t any ice cream in the freezer. There’s never ice cream in the freezer. And then I said, but dad, what’s the deal with the race story? And he said, what? And I said, the race, you know, with Uncle George? And then he said, shhhh, be quiet, I love this song. It was that song Old Time Rock and Roll. You know that one, right? And that was it. There wasn’t any ice cream.”

My first instinct was that Neil was lying, but after a while he just wouldn’t stop talking and so I left the room, satisfied that nothing had really happened.

And then later that week at dinner, in between bites of meat loaf, my dad said out of nowhere, “So, I bet you’re wondering about that race story between me and your Uncle George.” And he kind of just smiled. I looked down, but he probably gave Neil a wink.

And I didn’t say anything for a second, but then came back with, “Who are you talking to?”

Dad looked pissed off, but pissed off in a way that tried to make it look like he wasn’t pissed off. So he had this kind of half smile, half scowl. And he said, “I’m talking to you. Don’t you want to know about the race?”

And I looked down at my lap and said, “Dad, you’ve already told that story like a million times. You tried to race Uncle George, but he was always a lot faster than you, and so you never beat him. Come on dad, that’s a pretty lame story. I don’t know why you keep telling it.”

Mom started laughing, but it was like she was trying not to laugh, and my dad shot her a nasty look. Everyone was really quiet for a good amount of time, all you could hear were the sounds of forks and knives clinking against plates and teeth. I thought about ratting Neil out, telling everyone about how Neil told me that him and Dad just drove around in circles listening to classic rock. But I didn’t.

And then five more minutes passed, and I opened my mouth and said, “Hey Mom, do we have any ice cream for dessert?”

And my mom looked at me with a really confused face and said, “Ice cream? Dessert?”

I said, “Yeah, Neil, didn’t you say something about ice cream in the freezer?”

“No,” he said, looking down at his lap.

And I said, “Oh, my mistake. I thought you said something about ice cream in the freezer.” And then I looked up at the table and my dad was just staring at Neil with a really pissed off look on his face.

Rotten mushrooms

I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of stuff to make dinner. The centerpiece of the meal was going to be a steak topped with sautéed mushrooms. I didn’t go out thinking, steak, mushrooms, but while I was shopping, I saw this package of mixed fungi, names like shitake and hen of the woods printed on the label, I thought, OK, those look cool, how can I incorporate them into a meal? And it kind of just took off around that thought process.

And then when I got home, I started taking care of all of everything that didn’t need to be cooked right away. I boiled some small potatoes, blanched the vegetables, stuff like that. And then while I set my cast iron skillet over the burner to get nice and hot, I wanted to take care of those mushrooms.

Only, I opened up the packaging and immediately I knew that it wasn’t going to happen. A really bad smell hit me in the face, and I automatically recoiled. But not wanting to deal with the reality of the situation, I tried to think of ways in which what I was perceiving might not have been as bad I was making it out to be.

Maybe these are just funny smelling mushrooms, I thought, and brought the package a little closer to my face. Nope, they smelled like fish, like rotten fish. And then I picked through them with my fingers. With an absence of any visible mold, I tried to get myself to think that, maybe it’s just the packaging, maybe this will all correct itself during the cooking process.

But feeling them in my hands, they were slimy, like oozy and wet, in a way that mushrooms never are. I got pissed. I knew I shouldn’t have fallen for such a stupid grocery store trick. Usually if I want mushrooms, I always just pick them loose out of this giant mushroom container. They’re always dry to the touch, not brittle or anything, but definitely not like these gross mushrooms were, covered in a funky slick.

I never buy vegetables that come preselected and wrapped. I don’t know why I changed my behavior this time around. And that was it, it was done, I’d exhausted all sort of justification that may have tricked me into thinking that there was some way to still make use of those mushrooms.

They were like six bucks. It’s not like those six dollars are going to break the bank, but it just sucks because, the best part about going to the grocery store and making your own food is calculating how much your dinner winds up costing, noticing that it’s significantly cheaper than going out to a restaurant.

But not when you’re just throwing money in the garbage, six dollars at a time. I briefly considered going back and getting a refund. But I don’t have a car, I live in the city, and so I’d have to carry this open package of rotting mushrooms seven blocks down, all while I’ve got most of the dinner ready to go. I guess I could just wait until after we eat, but then what am I supposed to do, save them? Keep them out? They stunk.

No, not at all worth the six dollars. It sucks, but I’ll never see that money again. You buy bad groceries, it really does feel like you just got ripped off. Because you did. I remember one time I bought a bunch of steaks at the grocery store and kept them in the fridge for a couple of days before opening them up and realizing that something wasn’t right. I actually did make an effort to go return them, and the people there were just like, “Nope, sorry, no refunds on meat bought more than twenty-four hours ago.” And what am I going to do, stand there and argue with someone about how that’s a ridiculous policy, that that’s why you guys put expiration dates on the merchandise, so it doesn’t have to be cooked all on the same day of purchase?

It’s like one time I remember I was coming home late at night, and I knew I needed milk for cereal and coffee the next day. So I stopped at one of those corner groceries, not a grocery store, but just like one of those places you’d buy a bottle of soda and a scratch-off.

I bought the gallon of milk from the refrigerator in the back. I woke up the next morning, poured myself a huge bowl of cereal, and then as soon as I twisted open the top from the gallon of milk, it was that gross, rancid, spoiled milk smell. I looked at the date printed on the side, and it told me that this thing should have been sold no later than sometime last week.

And I was just pissed, like I’m pissed right now. It’s like, you’re just an asshole at that point, you know that the milk is clearly bad, but you’re just hoping that some jerk is going to walk in and buy it without looking. Me. I’m the jerk. I didn’t look. I’m the guy that walked into a store and just kind of assumed that all of the food there would have been edible.

Whatever. It’s six bucks. I’m getting bent out of shape about nothing. But still. Part of me won’t let go of the anger steadily building up inside. I hope I can get over this someday.

My biggest regret

It’s my biggest regret. And I can’t stop thinking about it. If only I hadn’t listened to my wife. Why can’t I put it behind me? That pit in the center of my stomach, the metallic taste stuck to the back of my tongue. Why did I second-guess myself? Why didn’t I follow my instincts? If only I’d ordered that second burrito, I wouldn’t be going through what I’m going through now. I wouldn’t be so hungry.

And after all of this time together, you’d think the one thing I’d be handle in our relationship is ordering food. Yet it’s always a negotiation, regardless of how hungry I say that I am, despite my insistence that I’ll be able to make room for a second entrée, it’s always this sideways glance, the, “Are you sure?”

Am I sure? I don’t know. For a minute, just a brief moment, I’m caught off guard. Maybe I’m not as hungry as I think I am. There’s a quick flashback in my head, I’m little kid again, it’s Thanksgiving and I’ve overloaded my plate with too much food to possible consume in one sitting. My grandmother scolds me for such waste, telling me that my eyes are bigger than my stomach.

Could that be the case here? No. It’s not. I rallied. I fought back. I told my wife, listen, I’ll get the chimichangas, you get flautas, and then I’m getting a burrito also, because I can handle it, because I’m starving. And yes, people use that word a little too casually, no, I wasn’t literally starving. But figuratively, my stomach was distending outward due to the lack of nourishment inside my digestive system.

“Rob,” and this is where I was at a distinct disadvantage, because where my defense, my insistence on two meals had to make a comeback, my wife stood resolute from the beginning, “Why don’t you just eat your chimichangas, and then you can finish whatever I don’t eat from my plate?”

And yeah, I guess that’s a good point. But this was one of those rare occasions where even that might not have been enough. Even if it was, it’s not like I’d be getting a full serving of flautas, there’d be maybe half a flauta left, and of course practically the entire portion of my wife’s rice and beans. Don’t get me wrong, I love rice and beans. But I need equal amounts entrée to side dish here, I don’t want just bite after bite of rice and beans.

Ideally, if I were out by myself, table for one please, I would’ve gone for both entrees without looking back. So that was the loudest voice screaming in my head, get the burrito, nobody tells you not to order the burrito, nobody tells you anything. Yeah, here it was, my third wind, I was just going to ignore everything until the waitress came over and I’d blurt it out, chimichangas and the burrito please, and then I’d cover my ears and close my eyes and not respond to any external stimuli until the food hit the table.

But I didn’t get the chance. My wife was still looking at me. I was on my third wind, yeah, it was strong, but she was still riding that first wind, she hadn’t budged at all. “Rob,” she said again, and I wanted to cover my ears right there, but she had me, “Just get the chimchangas, and I’m not going to eat all of mine. You don’t need another whole burrito. Flautas are like mini burritos anyway. You’ll be fine.”

And beside the fact that flautas are nothing at all like mini burritos, despite that voice, something inside of me warning that I wouldn’t be fine, that this nagging sense of being way too hungry was going to follow me out of the restaurant, accompany me to bed, for some reason I gave in. I waited for a super strong fourth wind to blow in and provide some irrefutable attack, but there was nothing, the waitress came over to the table.

“Can I start you guys off with anything?” I looked to my wife, “Guacamole?” I mouthed to her? And she didn’t have to open her mouth, her head was almost imperceptibly moving from side to side, she communicated with her eyes, “Rob, we already have chips on the table.”

The food came, I housed my chimichangas, I polished off all of the chips and salsa, and I waited for my wife to finish her food so we could trade plates. It was just as I had suspected. There was maybe three-quarters of a flauta left, along with basically the entire portion of rice and beans, and of course that little garnish of shredded iceberg lettuce.

What really killed me was, my wife got to hang onto my plate in front of her, like a trophy she hadn’t really earned. This thing was spotless. Talk about the clean plate club, I was practically club president that night. Everything was gone, rice, beans, garnishes, I could just imagine the dishwasher looking at this plate and wondering, who did such a great job? I’d better show the cook. And he would, he’d show the cook, they’d all be overwhelmed with a sense of pride, wow, this guy really loved our chimichangas, really appreciated our authentic cuisine.

And now all of that work was credited to my wife. Meanwhile, I had this plate of basically scraps in front of me. Like I said before, I want each bite of a meal to be in a proportion, a little bit of entrée, some rice, a few beans, maybe a sliver of lettuce. That’s how you polish a plate clean. You can’t just eat plain rice. I mean, you can, but it’s not fun. That’s not why you go out to a restaurant.

And so there were a few leftovers on the plate when the busboy came to clear the table. He automatically took my clean plate away from my wife, but he paused to me, “You finished?” I wanted to be like, you don’t understand, that wasn’t my plate, that was my wife’s. I ate a lot. I ate mine and then most of hers. Seriously.

But he didn’t care. And worst of all, I was totally still hungry. It wasn’t right away, but pretty soon after we got home, I realized that I actually wanted that burrito still. Why didn’t I trust myself? Who knows my appetite better than me? Nobody. From now on, I’m never listening to anybody at a restaurant ever again. Because man, that burrito, the one that got away. It would have been the crown jewel to a perfect meal. But now I’ll never know the satisfaction that would have come from having gone from super hungry to ultimately satiated. It’s my biggest regret. I should have ordered that burrito.

I’ll eat whatever for dinner, just order anything

I get so indecisive sometimes, I can’t make up my mind about anything, even the simplest of decisions, like last night, my wife and I are trying to figure out dinner, she’s like, “What do you want?” and I’m like, “I don’t know, anything’s good I guess, whatever you want,” and she says, “Sushi?” and I’m like, “Sushi? Didn’t we just have sushi last week?” and I’m like, “Yeah, I guess, but it feels like we just had it,” and she says, “Yeah, well you had pizza for lunch and dinner yesterday, why can’t we have sushi separated by a whole week?”

And I can already tell that I’ve f’ed up, me being the one telling her we could order “whatever, anything she wanted,” but she doesn’t bring it up right away, I know she will, eventually, if I can’t decide on something, but she suggests, “Indian?” and I don’t know, I kind of just stare off into space, like thinking it over in my head, but it’s not even that I don’t want Indian, it’s that I don’t have any feelings for it whatsoever, like her saying the word Indian registered in my head, I heard her say it, but it didn’t spark anything inside me, neither good nor bad, and so I couldn’t respond with anything, I could only continue to stare, to zone out, maybe if I just completely ignored it she’d suggest something else.

“Rob? Indian?” and I need to respond, the best I can get out is, “Eh. I don’t know,” and now I know it’s coming, she’s going to get fed up, I’d be fed up, if I asked her what she wanted for dinner, and she pushed all onus of responsibility my way, of course I’d get a little annoyed if she started vetoing all of my decisions.

But I can’t commit. Do I want Indian? I don’t think so. Even sushi wouldn’t have been terrible, but I had already issued a complaint, she interrupts my thought process, “OK, so no sushi, no Indian,” and here would have been a good time to let her in on what was going through my head, “Well,” I could have been like, “It’s not like I couldn’t eat sushi,” but I thought better of it, we were already too far into this that if I had backtracked on the sushi, that would have been it, sushi for dinner.

“Mexican?” and I love Mexican, but the Mexican place by us is so heavy, so at least I have something to say here, I tell her, “That Mexican place is so heavy …” and she rolls her eyes, I don’t want to put off her suggestion entirely, so I add, “But I like it. It’s a great Mexican place. Just really heavy. Do you really feel like eating something so heavy?” and again, I think I got too busy defending my initial reaction, because sure Mexican is heavy, but now that I thought about it, I wouldn’t mind eating something heavy.

“Actually, Mexican sounds pretty good,” but she’s already been swayed by my comment, “No, you’re right, I don’t really feel like eating anything that heavy,” which is my own fault, I set myself up for that one. But now I couldn’t get the taste of those tacos out of my head, “But what about those chorizo nachos?” I try to tempt her, and she pauses, but I can tell it’s going to be dismissed, “No, maybe next time. What about falafel?”

And now we’re swinging the other way, all because of my heavy comment. Note to self: unless I’m really set on not eating something for dinner, don’t describe it as heavy. I like falafel, but, “Honey, that’s not really a dinner,” which, I don’t even know what that means, but it’s the best I could have come up with without giving her a minute to collect her thoughts, a desperate move on my part to try and avoid what I knew was coming next, an exasperated, “OK, so you tell me that you’ll eat anything, that it’s whatever I choose, right?”

There it is. “Right,” I tell her, “So let’s just get Mexican, you said it, obviously because you want it, right? You want it, I want it, let’s get Mexican,” and there’s a pause, I think that she’s considering it, but I’m mistaken, that face isn’t one of consideration, it’s one of apprehension, “But,” and I know it’s not going to happen, “It’s just so … heavy.”

And then I think, well, sushi wouldn’t be terrible, I could eat sushi. So I go, “You know what? Let’s just have sushi. You wanted sushi, so let’s get it,” and she’s like, “Are you sure?” and I should just be a grown up here and be happy with the fact that after all of my indecisiveness we’ve actually come to an agreement, but I can’t help myself, there are selfess points to be earned here, I could use this in the future, I say, “Well, I mean, I’ll get it … if that’s what you want. I can eat sushi,” and she looks at me and smiles and says, “Thanks hun,” and I’m like, “No problem. I’m a nice guy.”

Let us bow our heads in grace

Bless us, Oh Lord, for these, thy gifts, which we are about to receive, which we ordered forty-five minutes ago, which, it really shouldn’t be taking this long. Lord, did the waiter not understand me? Lord, did I not enunciate clearly enough? I did say medium-rare, right? Lord, please look after the less fortunate, the restaurant workers, those that can’t seem to do their jobs right. God, please guide the kitchen staff. Steer the grill man’s spatula in the right direction, make sure he’s not pressing down on the beef, robbing it of its juiciness. Because I will send it back, heaven help me.

Well, it’s about time. Do you mind bringing it back in five minutes or so? My family and I are right in the middle of grace. It’s just that we’ve been waiting here for the better part of an hour. Yes, it has been an hour, I’ve been timing the whole thing. How am I supposed to know when you entered it in the computer? You could have forgotten. You probably forgot. I don’t care, I don’t believe the timestamp on that check. It’s trickery. It’s a deception.

You see kids? This man is lying. He’s doing the devil’s work. Father, deliver us from Satan, his trickery, his lies, his forty-five minute cheeseburgers. Lord, I pray thee, also show mercy on this poor, misguided waiter. Deliver him from evil also. If it is your will, help him to understand the importance of timely service, of a friendly smile.

You can go, seriously, just bring it back in five minutes. Please. Lord, why must my family and I always be tested with the most incompetent servers? What are trying to tell me? Truly, your plan is mysterious. Your ways, the way you work, more mysterious yet. Give me a sign, oh Lord, grant me this one request, enlighten me to the road ahead. Is a twelve percent tip too generous for a job thus far not well done?

Has it been five minutes already? All right, just put it down, thanks. Wait, kids, don’t dig in just yet. Honey, please, in a minute. We haven’t finished saying grace. Lord, we thank you for this bounty, from thy bounty, our bounty, this cheeseburger, these fries. We thank you that our food has finally arrived. We ask you to bless the ketchup which we are about to pour, to make sure that whoever married the condiments last night, that they didn’t just dump fresh ketchup from the container into an old ketchup bottle. Not like that one time, where something must have fermented overnight, exploding when we opened it up. Oh the mess! It must have been a punishment, some sign, something. Did we mention your ways, the mystery? Yes, the mysteriousness.

Lord, I asked for my burger medium-rare, not medium. Is it too much to ask for my burger to come out the way I asked? Is this because of something I’ve done? Are we not saying grace for long enough before each meal? Is cooking a burger really that hard? Aren’t these things timed out? Is this because I shouted your name in vain last month? Are we still stuck on that? It wasn’t my fault! That idiot shot a nail through my foot with a nail gun! What would you have me say? I’m sorry, but in the heat of the moment, “gosh darn it” didn’t feel like it was going to cut it.

Heavenly father, I apologize, I beg you, cool my ungodly temper, teach me compassion. Allow me to enjoy this slightly overcooked beef patty. Show me how to forgive the staff, that idiot cook, that lazy waiter. The ketchup looks great. Please, grant me easy digestion, bestow upon me the time and space available after dinner to order dessert. If it suits you, please look over my waffle-cone hot fudge sundae, make sure that they haven’t run out of pistachio ice cream again. Lord, I beseech thee, we thank thee for these thy gifts. Oh, Lord, we thank thee. In the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. Amen. Dig in!