Dining Out More But Still Less Than Before
It's been about a year since I've written about my dining-out habits. A year ago I observed that, post-Covid, I'd returned to eating restaurant meals (dining there or taking it home) 8x per week. That was a big drop from dining out basically every day for lunch and dinner before Covid. During Covid I dined out way less. In fact at the start of the pandemic I ate strictly what was in my own kitchen/pantry for a full month. I broke my fast after 31 straight days when I had a jones for a big, sloppy burger. Then I did it again a few weeks later, risking my life for a shitty burrito. But, hey, the lockdown era is in the rear view mirror. We've had a few years of getting back to normal. So, what's the new normal?
My new normal is dining out 8-9 times per week. That includes lunch most weekdays, either lunch or dinner each weekend day, and one or two weeknight dinners out. For these purposes I count takeout/takeaway food as dining out, though I do that less than once a week. For me part of the pleasurable experience of dining out is dining out.
How have I landed on a new normal of 8-9 restaurant meals per week instead of basically 13? It's a few things. For one, Covid was like a big reset to break old habits. But old habits are easy to get back into. After all, I'd been dining out most of the week for years, decades even.
What's really helped me is the reset opportunity Covid provided for relearning that I can make tasty food at home. And it's not hard. I've thought about that the past few days as I've pondered what to make for dinner. In the past I would've been, like, "Ugh, do I even have anything to eat at home?" But now it's like, "There are at least three tasty things I could make for dinner; which one do I want tonight, which tomorrow, and which two nights from now?" Thus yesterday's dinner was a roast beef sandwich (I'd bought fresh roast beef slices and sandwich bread at the supermarket), tonight's was shrimp cocktail, and tomorrow's will likely be ravioli with marina sauce.
My new normal is dining out 8-9 times per week. That includes lunch most weekdays, either lunch or dinner each weekend day, and one or two weeknight dinners out. For these purposes I count takeout/takeaway food as dining out, though I do that less than once a week. For me part of the pleasurable experience of dining out is dining out.
How have I landed on a new normal of 8-9 restaurant meals per week instead of basically 13? It's a few things. For one, Covid was like a big reset to break old habits. But old habits are easy to get back into. After all, I'd been dining out most of the week for years, decades even.
What's really helped me is the reset opportunity Covid provided for relearning that I can make tasty food at home. And it's not hard. I've thought about that the past few days as I've pondered what to make for dinner. In the past I would've been, like, "Ugh, do I even have anything to eat at home?" But now it's like, "There are at least three tasty things I could make for dinner; which one do I want tonight, which tomorrow, and which two nights from now?" Thus yesterday's dinner was a roast beef sandwich (I'd bought fresh roast beef slices and sandwich bread at the supermarket), tonight's was shrimp cocktail, and tomorrow's will likely be ravioli with marina sauce.