Food For Thought

Interesting article in Friday's Globe about how food can impact on a budding relationship.  What you eat, what you order and how you eat it can tell your date a lot about what you're all about.

Now the article starts off with a man asking out a woman for dinner.  Fancy restaurant with all the bells and whistles and a wine list that could make a blush wine blush.  She looks at the menu and orders a steak.  She tells the server to she wants ketchup on the side.  The server cringed, the man cringed.  It was their first and last date.  He was was in his mid 20's and was in the habbit of dating older, more sophisticated women.  She was 19.  What the hell was he expecting.  There was no second date because her ketchup clashed with his panache. What was he thinking going all 5 star on a 19 year old.  Unless she grew up in a Fortune 500 family Boston Pizza or Montana's would be fine dining.  You can put ketchup on just about anything in those spots and look like a gastronomical guru.

Let me digress here for a moment.  I have real hang up about ketchup.  It is essential for a grilled cheese sandwich.  You can put it on hot dogs, hamburgers and french fries.  Ketchup is a lovely add to all things potatoes execept mashed.  I've tried it.  It does not work.  But I have a friend who puts ketchup on his sunny side up eggs.  That bothers me.  The yellow yolk and the red ketchup mingling on the plate. 2 semi liquids getting tangled together in a most unnatural way. Universes colliding!  My skin crawls.

I don't eat much meat anymore. I will make exceptions.  I tried tofu turkey on Thanksgiving.  That's never going to work. So for Christmas it was back to butter ball.  Instead of hamburg meat I'll have a soy burger.  Not as bad as you might think.  You put enough mustard on a soy burger you hardly notice the difference between your meal and the real deal.  But if you enjoy soy while your date is scarfing down a quarter pound of black angus chances are there's a self life to your new relationship.

First dates can be tough.  Rule of thumb.  First dates should always be lunch. It's sort of a long speed date. You've got an hour, hour and a half tops.  If it's not working you both have an excuse to bail even if you have nowhere to go.  Do that 9:30 on a Saturday night and you may as well put it in neon that "sure I'll give you a call" is how you're leaving things.

Lunch gives you an idea of what the person likes and dislikes and if this will be the first and last repast.  I have never had a first date meal, lunch or dinner, where my date or I finished everything on the plate.  The wine, yes.  The plate no.  I think it's nerves. 

Dining out is not always the deal killer. We tend to order things at Chez Cafe that we wouldn't make for ourselves at home.  Buying groceries for the first time is an indictor of their position on nutriton.  If they're pulling Hot Pockets out of the freezer section while you're in produce inspecting the organic vegetables I'm betting that this wont be a long term tryst.  And if you happen to spend the night and you're served eggs up with ketchup in the morning get out quick.  Universes are about to collide.