Food restrictions

Going out to eat with friends or family is one of life’s greatest pleasures. At least it should be. But it turns into an exercise in frustration and mortification when that loved one has food restrictions.

Being gluten-free is child’s play in the face of folks who are trying to work a menu when they are avoiding dairy, nightshades, high-fructose corn syrup or sugar in any form, prefer their water filtered, and are currently avoiding eight major foods as part of an elimination diet.

This is when I’d like to eliminate them. Or disappear into the floor of the restaurant, after giving the server a sympathetic look and a massive tip.

We all thought Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally was a high-maintenance diner. While she might be the patron saint of these picky eaters, her requests for salad dressing or ice cream on the side seem downright quaint.

It’s great that as a society we’ve evolved to the point that we can cut out major food groups and pantry staples from our diet. It’s a modern first-world problem. The Irish weren’t in a position to cut out starches or any other foodstuff when the famine hit the Emerald Isle, for feck’s sake. And I bet a starving child in Burundi would be more than happy to down that lobster mac and cheese you just poo pooed, dairy, gluten and shellfish sensitivities be damned.

If you don’t want to eat something, navigate toward a more palatable dish on the menu or stay home and roast an organic chicken. Don’t ask the chef to change a dish he or she spent considerable time perfecting. And don’t broadcast your laundry list of food issues to the table. This type of extreme self care just comes off as an attempt to pull focus from what really matters—that lobster mac and cheese, of course. I’m packing Prilosec.

Desserts in jars

I love Anthropologie, I do, but I don't want to eat there.

These days, restaurants—so precious that I want to squeeze their white-washed and reclaimed wood cheeks—are squeezing all sorts of tasty cakes, crisps, puddings and brulées into Mason and Ball jars.

Adorable.

But what looks like a saccharine craft project becomes another kind of project, as I try to scrape, pull, and otherwise extract all of the tasty goodness out of the jar and into my piehole with a spoon or fork that doesn't have the same curvature. Serve my molten chocolate cake with a spatula, if you insist on stuffing it into a jar better suited for jam.

Let my dessert breathe on the plate, so I can breathe a sigh of relief.

(The idea for this post comes from a friend with the last name, ironically, of Mason.)

(photo: cynthiashaffer.typepad.com)

Restaurants that don't put salt on the tables

Saturday, I had the most amazing meal at the newest hot spot in town. Brick walls, warm candlelight, waiters with Ira Glass eyewear and corresponding attitude, hour-long waits. You know the place.

This time, the food lived up to the hype. We ordered the tasting menu and soon, a dizzying array of appetizers hit our table, followed by homemade spaghetti. Then came two entrees, one of which was pork cheeks, a dish that will dance through my dreams. Two desserts brought up the rear and went straight to my rear.

All in all, a perfect evening.

Well, except for one tiny little thing that forced me to bust out a four-letter word.

Salt.

Much like my personality, my palate runs toward the salty side. While I usually order dishes based on how the chef wants them prepared, I also want the right to season my food to my palate's preference. I want to sprinkle bread with sea salt after I dip it in olive oil. I want to add a pinch to the Bolognese sauce, which, while full of flavor, was a little too Healthy Choice for my taste buds.

But there was no shaker or cellar in sight. Like a napkin and silverware, salt on the table should be a given. Don't make me ask for it and don't arch your judgmental foodie eyebrow at me when I do. While I may be rubbing salt in the wounded ego of Chef Fancy-Pants, it's definitely preferable to punching you where your taste receptors don't shine.

(photo: luxist.com)

Well drinks

I spent nigh on three decades wondering what all the fuss was about. I grew up with blue-collar alcoholics, I saw a buttload of drinking in college, and then I entered the working world, which meant a lot of ill-advised shoulder pads, crap happy hours, and drink specials.

Which meant a lot of cheap hooch and well drinks.

I didn't get it. Whiskey sours, sea breezes, white wine spritzers, Cape Cods, gin and tonics, highballs, vodka gimlets, screwdrivers, scotch and soda… I sampled the hell out of them all and found one common thread.

They all sucked gas-station attendant ass.

They tasted of medicine and jet fuel, laced with teeth-bruising sweetness. I didn't get it. I didn't cotton to beer and while I liked the pretentiousness of wine culture and barrel-aged reds, my migraines didn't.

So I stuck to Diet Coke.

Then something miraculous happened. I ordered a Tanqueray and tonic. My taste buds screamed their approval and I never looked back at the nameless bottles behind the bar. I traded up to the literal top-shelf liquors, trying Bombay, Tanqueray 10, Hendricks, Plymouth, Death's Door, and other kinds of fancy-pants gin. I asked a bartender to create a flight of martinis with different vodkas so my girlfriends and I could do a proper taste test. I no longer need to wish at the well because my dreams came true in a delicious green bottle.

 What's the worst drink you've ever knocked back?

(photo: mchenryconightout.com)

Calorie-laden beverages

I've long suspected Starbucks mochachocalattes are chock full of death but like most people, didn’t think that hoovering one once in a while was a big whoop.

I was reading my Glamour mag in the tub as I’m wont to do when I came across this atrosh fact (see photo). One 32-ounce Dunkin Donuts Coffee Coolatta® with cream plus whipped cream is—wait for it—904 calories and 57 grams of fat. NINE HUNDRED FOUR FATASS, ARTERY-CLOGGING, LOVE-HANDLE-INDUCING CALORIES! There’s not even any booze in it! A company has to work hard to add that many calories to a cup. If you’re on a diet and counting calories, that’s 3/4ths of your day’s total caloric intake. I’m all for personal responsibility, but chucklehead companies like Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks are reprehensible for putting this gutbomb on the menu.

With a nod to Jeff Foxworthy, you might be drinking your doom if…

• there’s whipped cream on top of cream
• the cup could be used as a planter or a punch bowl
• if the beverage® has a registered symbol after its name
  
• the beverage’s name is nothing found in a dictionary
• the drink contains nothing found in nature

I know this isn’t exactly a laff riot, but neither is your health.