I may have mentioned how much I have grown to dislike cooking, so it really takes almost no prodding whatsoever to get me agree to dinner out, or carry out in. Yesterday, I received a text from my daughter telling me she’d had a really bad day. She asked if we might go out or order carry out. Well sure. She had me at “Hey.”
This is when the vegan/vegetarian/carnivore/omnivore differences reared their ugly heads. Allie is a strict-ish vegan, during lent, when there are not pancakes or nachos on the menu. Walter, my husband and the family snow lover, is full on carnivore. He can eat just meat for a meal. Nothing on the side. I’m an omnivore, and the fact that I eat virtually everything shows.
Allie, the instigator of the carry out, suggested Sunflower, a local vegetarian spot with lots of vegan options. My husband, mother-in-law and myself went there with Allie once in an effort to support her dietary choice. The menu was predominantly comprised of fake meat items. It took my mother-in-law a long time to study the menu. A gourmet cook, I think she was struggling to find something that wasn’t absolutely disgusting. And for the first time I can remember, all of us adults had enough leftovers on our plate for the waiter to ask if we wanted a box to take it home. (To which he received a choir of “No thanks.”)
Walter suggested Indian food. He has become a fan of a new spot in the neighborhood which is struggling to make a go of it. We went there once because my mother-in-law received a coupon, a neighbor’s recommendation, and it’s close -an irresistible trifecta for coaxing her out for a meal. We received entirely too much attention from the staff as we were the only customers in the place. That, and the presence of food with green sauces, was enough to put me off the place. Wasn’t there a Chinese restaurant next door?
So yes, our family of three placed three phone calls to three different restaurants, none of which deliver, and my husband and I set off on a 30 minute $40 food delivery route. We all ate our separate meals together. In front of the TV. My diet, my budget, my desire to eat together at the dining room table all out the window at the whims of a moody teenager’s mood. But I’ll say it again. She had me at “Hey.”