Dear J-
I wonder if I am as strange about food as the voices in my head tell me I am: once I settle on a dish or two, every time I go to that restaurant I’ll get the same thing. Weekends find us at some point going to the Original Pancake House, where I go through a steady rotation of buckwheat pancakes or corned beef hash & scrambled eggs. This weekend, working the late shift I hate going out at night — so naturally on Saturday I busted out the bento box I got from Mitsuwa a few hours earlier and today I made a special trip there just to pick up not just a bento, but the exact same one, with a nice fat piece of mackerel. There are other varieties, of course, but this one hits the right notes for me, just the same as the different restaurants I have programmed into my head.
Perhaps it’s an unadventurous, unambitious sort of cowardice: I know that X will work, so why bother changing? It doesn’t make much sense to take a gamble on other items that may or may not please me as well (on the other hand, this is how I always get in trouble when cooking: experimentation is fine as long as your test subjects are, well, you, not so much loved ones). Regardless, it’s one of those things where if you ask me I’m sure I’ll deny being stuck in a rut, food-wise.
One of the things that tends to shock people about figgy is how voracious she is at times; though I have my favorites I wouldn’t say that I’m particularly picky (I do not care for the texture of liver, but aside from that …) — growing up with the parents I had meant that you were in for big meals with a ton of variety, and we’ve been trying to instill that in her. She is, of course, a big fan of the carbohydrates but also, surprisingly, a meaty sort of kid in that all the different kinds that cross our plates end up being sampled (sometimes extensively) by her. I’m sure she’ll develop favorites — she’s already starting to pooh-pooh some foods — but right now it’s a treat to watch, and great for us in that we don’t have to plan our menus around anything but keeping peanuts out. Hmm, that reminds me, we haven’t been for Thai in a while …
Mike
Dear J- 
4 January 2010 at 4:16 pm |
I also always order the same thing but Ben takes forever to order because he always gets something new, so it takes him a while to make up his mind. It drives me crazy!
11 January 2010 at 7:34 pm |
I used to frequent the Costa Mesa Mitsuwa when I was a student at Orange Coast College. That place is unreal.
13 January 2010 at 8:01 pm |
Sometimes I wonder if ordering the same thing time after time is a sign of low imagination, or perhaps a low threshold for happiness. I prefer to think that I’ve instead found the secret recipe for satisfaction.