Reason of the Month

“And the food took forever!” a woman said to her friend while riding the elevator of my building. “I know!” he exclaimed. “And then it was, like, cold!” Forgetting the coldness factor for now, and admitting first-off that dinner parties, supper clubs and all sorts of communal cooking activities can create just the same lags in time for food, when you’re cooking for yourself, the dreaded wait is over.

What can I start you off with? Would you like to hear our specials? What did you decide on? Do you need a few more minutes? Can I get you another drink? Would you like to see our dessert menu? Would you like to Supersize that? Would you like fries with that? Would you like that a la mode? Would you like to have that wrapped up? Are you sure you wouldn’t like any coffee or dessert?

And ah, the things you’ll cook, and mm, the things you’ll eat. All made by yourself, your friends, and fellow home cooking-happy strangers. When I first began “not eating out in New York,” strictly speaking, many people asked me how I would maintain my social life. My mother in particular, I think, was afraid I’d become something of a hermit, standing over a pot of risotto, stirring contentedly for hours completely lost in my own warped head, or something like … Read More

Thanks to everyone who submitted their original, thoughtful and personal Reason for Not Eating Out #27 entries! There were so many good reasons among them — including avoiding the “drunken riff-raff” or the walloping calories of Southern eaten-out specialties. I go the sense that a lot of you are bloggers trapped in a busy person’s body. Should you decide to take up blogging (if you don’t already), I will be your first reader! I ultimately chose to post Jess Habalou‘s … Read More

Whoever said, “a watched pot never boils” clearly does not know the joys of cooking. He or she does not understand the tiny miracles of science stirring in every pot, even before it boils. Never saw the blip of creation right as the first bubble formed against its side. It is like not having watched the sun set.

There are many people who read the phrase “not eating out in New York” as synonymous with “not dating in New York.” And those male species of the lot, I have no use for. Not to be “difficult” or “stubborn,” two things I have been called, oh, a few times in my romantic repertoire, but there is nothing more pathetic than a person who has forgotten that a date isn’t simply about impressing someone with their Zagat-like city restaurant knowledge.