City Living (and eating)

I love living in the city. I love it for lots of reasons like museums and never having to drive and that not being a big deal and accessible, convenient public spaces and public art and great architecture and awesome shopping and diversity and variety and FOOD.

My family was kind of poor-ish when I was growing up or well we spent a lot of money on Catholic school tuition and neither of my parents had big $ jobs, so we lived a little poorer than we might have and did once my parents nixed the parochial education. We also had a big family and my mom was a good cook, so we very rarely ate out. Like going to Dairy Queen or McDonald's or Taco Time was a big splurge and a big deal. Even more rarely did we eat at a sit down restaurant like a breakfast diner or the Sizzler.

At a restaurant, it was not an option to not eat your whole plate of food. Because restaurants were expensive and restaurants were a treat and how dare we look a gift horse in the mouth and not clean our plate. I mean while we were still little enough that ordering off the adult menu was a stretch, obviously my parents wouldn't force us to eat the whole adult portion because they weren't crazy idiot people, but once we hit our mid teens we sure better finish it all. And we better finish the whole kid's meal item if we were still eating off that.

I loved restaurants. They seemed so magical and exciting. There was all this hustle and bustle and often the people who work there were kind of costumed (even if it was just chef hats and server aprons), and I loved it. PLUS in a big family where you ate what mom served, the idea that I got to pick out just what I want was AMAZING! Miraculous even. When I grew up I wanted to eat at them all the time, and I would get a job that would let me.

When I got old enough that I helped with cooking or cook prep and more and more of the dirty business of dishes (IE not unloading the dishwasher but loading it and doing the stuff by hand), I really began to appreciate restaurants on an entirely different level. I loved that I do not have to do dishes. I loved that I didn't have to do any prep work or wait for very long. Then I went to college and met life without a dishwasher and a mom, and I loved it even more. Then I lived in NYC and became super good friends with the concept of takeout even if I couldn't afford it that much.

Now I can afford it. I can afford to eat out and to order in basically whenever I want (and now sometimes I really want to cook but not super often). So I do both of those things a bunch. Probably more than I should. I look down at my waistline, and yes it is confirmed, more than I should. It is especially problematic when I feel compelled to practically lick my plate clean every time we eat out. I cannot leave one lick leftover. I mean it is OK if it is at a place where I can leave more than enough for lunch tomorrow or something, but if we are on our way someplace hard to bring a doggie bag or it is small enough not to leave a worthy leftover, I really try to eat every last bite. Because I don't want to be wasteful. Because it is expensive. Because my parents scared this mindset into me as a child and it is still there frequently lurking in my psyche in a large scary way.

So this week I gave myself some important permission. I gave myself permission not to finish. To throw away. I mean if something is crazy delicious I probably will try harder to finish than I ought, but let's face it most of the time it isn't insane delicious, it is just food or even just good food and trying to stuff every mouthful in until it hurts is a terrible plan! So now, sometimes I waste food and don't finish, and it is OK. Because it just is, and I can accept that.