Same Thai, different day
The diet and the wallet have dictated that Take-Out meals in our house are simply taken out of the freezer. But the other night I did not want to cook, heat, assemble or nuke. I wanted someone else to cook my meal and I wanted to eat it out of paper or plastic with plastic utensils.
I wanted my favorite Thai food.
I alerted the troops. They were shell-shocked. No veggie? No fruit? No low-fat, fat-free, whole grain, organic anything? No one needed to set the table?
Frankly, I think they drooled.
So I ordered it, drove to the restaurant, paid for it, proudly carried my plastic bag full of styrofoam containers to the car and drove home to put the bag on the table.
DINNER’S READY!! (It was a shining moment.)
You know what? My coveted basil-fried rice with chicken didn’t taste as good as I remembered, so I didn’t bother with the satay or the pad thai. It wasn’t awful but it didn’t meet my needs. Good food and good eating has heightened my taste buds.
And yes, while I was shoving all the containers into the trash compactor I thought – it’s like when I go back and read old things I’ve written. I thought they were good or I’d never have had them published. And I read them, I wince. Occasionally I’ll agree that I turned a good phrase here and there, that the premise has merit — but lots of times it doesn’t meet my the needs of the writer I am today.
This is nothing new. Many writers will concur that their early work was good…for then. The best thing to do is to continue getting better, to cultivate your tastes — hone your craft — so that you don’t go stale.
Do you have a memory of something — literary or epicurean — that just wasn’t how you remembered it when you gave something old a new try? What — or who — never disappoints?
I will say that Butterscotch Krimpets and cheesesteaks never fail to live up to my expectations…just like Jane Austen and Margaret Atwood. Sort of.
Thank God for trash compactors, huh?
Poets Billy Collins and Natasha Trethewey never ever disappoint. Neither does anything off the menu of D’Angelo’s Italian.
Wow . . . I had this EXACT thought today. LOL! Exact. I no longer eat out much. It started when I developed a very bad allergy to tuna and seafood–so sushi, which I enjoyed, was off limits. Other foods just never wowed me. It wasn’t worth it to me, wasn’t as delicious as I expected. And I, too, have opened old unsold stuff and thought–good hook, but really? Where was this going.
And Neil Gaiman never disappoints me.
Angie: Poets and Pasta! LOL
Erica: Neil Gaiman is on my list…and I’ve stayed away from sushi because it’s just so darned expensive when you’re landlocked!
Amy
Bertucci’s Pizza with sun dried tomatoes & roasted zucchini never disappoints. But we actually don’t eat out much either, and when we do, it’s the same couple of local restaurants we trust to be good. I’d usually prefer my chicken cutlets with peppers over take-out. It’s true, you cultivate a taste for quality food and the rest pales then!
Joanne: It’s not even 8am and now I’m thinking about pizza! And chicken cutlets with peppers. I think we’d like that…have a recipe to share?
Amy
Food and writing. Once, when I was down and out and living a nightmare I wrote a satire on a notebook gifted to me by another woman in the shelter. The premise was to compare food bank fare with restaurant cuisine. At the time I thought it was bitter and cynical. Nothing like black humour to keep a gal’s engine running. I actually kept it and after a review I find it’s not as vitriolic as it is grimly funny. I don’t think I could face the poetry though. Too dark for sure.