Uh oh, Harriet Lesser. I’m guilty as charged. My standard restaurant order, pretty much regardless of where I dine is: grilled salmon (and tell the chef, no butter, please); string beans, dry, no butter or oil; and iced tea, unsweetened. But, I can’t resist dessert! (Two forks, so I can share with my husband.) I might as well eat at home.
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Dining Out Blues by Harriet Posnak Lesser
There was a time when going out for dinner was fun. When people drank daiquiris and martinis instead of one glass of wine. When Chicken a la King and Beef Stroganoff were the entrees of choice. When dessert was sinfully rich and chocolaty and topped off with real whipped cream — and cholesterol was a word found only in medical dictionaries.
Decades have passed since the new nutrition became a fact of everyone’s life-style. Fat-free, decaffeinated and fibred, it’s been lapped up like oat bran by the health-conscious crowd I hang with.
You know the kind of people I mean. No matter where we go for dinner, they order broiled fish or chicken (“absolutely no butter, please”), a tossed salad (“dressing on the side”), steamed broccoli and baked potato (“hold the Hollandaise and sour cream”). Each couple orders one dessert (a revolting concoction of mushy apples and crumbs) — with two plates “so we can share.”
Then comes the question that can make or break the evening. “Do you serve BREWED decaf?” Get ready for post-prandial Jeopardy! with the waiter as contestant and diners as Alex Trebek. The big difference is that everybody knows the answer. “Of course we do.” Make that, “Who says we don’t?” to follow through with the Jeopardy! simile.
There’s a lull in the conversation when coffee is brought to the table, with skim milk and artificial sweetener. In the good old days we talked about sex, religion, politics and sex. You really got to know your friends. Now I know them in a different way—Ralph, cholesterol 245; Jean, terrible triglycerides; Marty, Procardia, enteric aspirin, blood-thinners and beta-blockers; Lenore, Vasotec, Xanax and Prozac. (It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Lenore is married to Marty.)
Last Saturday night, I went out for dinner with all of the above. When they asked for their usual bland yummies, something snapped in my fat-free brain. I ordered oysters Rockefeller, Greek salad with extra anchovies and Roquefort dressing, Beef Wellington, candied yams and chocolate mousse pie served with regular coffee, sweet cream and sugar. I also ate four rolls with real butter. Most satisfying of all were the disapproving looks from around the table.
I held out for a long time, but even the strongest health nut has to crack. I wanted to prove that scientific scare tactics can’t kill rugged individualism—but after those unwanted pounds showed up on my scale the next day, I’m not so sure. I’m beginning to believe that the only thing we have to fear is fare itself.
©2014 Harriet Posnak Lesser
ABOUT HARRIET LESSER
Harriet Posnak Lesser is an award-winning journalist and social satirist whose articles have appeared in Long Island’sThe South Shore Record and Nassau Herald, The New York Times, Cracked Magazine and others.
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Harriet Posnak Lesser is an award-winning journalist and social satirist whose articles have appeared in Long Island’s The South Shore Record and Nassau Herald, The New York Times, Cracked Magazine and others.