After work I ran errands and felt a bit hungry. Not real hunger. The kind of hunger where you knew if you didn’t grab something, by 11pm, you’d feel bad. I dipped into the nearby Italian spot and asked for a table.
An entire social discourse happened.
“Hi, just me.” I introduce myself.
“Do you want to grab a seat at the bar/patio area?”
“No, I’ll just grab a booth.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to grab a drink in the patio?”
I turned to the area she thought was great. It was a bunch of singles drinking a glass of wine and eating appetizers. We were in the same age bracket, but different paths. I’ve raised the kids and buried the men already. These are my free years and I just want to sit in a booth and enjoy myself.
She pleaded with her eyes for me to change my mind. Then who’s the manicure for, she silently asked. It’s just to keep track of time, dear.
I was shown to my booth and my waiter tried as well. He first asked if I wanted wine and did I want to walk around the patio with it? I declined and got a hot tea.
The tea was to dip the bread with. He did me a favor and poured the olive oil and vinaigrette on top for me. I dipped it anyway.
I ordered the sweet potato polenta. I thought it would be polenta sticks with sweet potato added in. Instead it was this. I took a few polite bites and it will be a lunch option for tomorrow.
The pasta dish arrived. I was full already, but I picked at it while I read up on Jennifer Esposito’s latest Substack entries. This could have been a cafe stop, but I just wanted a booth somewhere that had good music.
Now I’m headed home with food for tomorrow and a questionable outcome. Did I enjoy my meal? Yes. Did I enjoy my table? Yes. Now I just have to reckon with the fact that I just drank milk tea with a healthy amount of vinaigrette. The video was supposed to be a quick food review, but the waiter surprised me. Ignore the fake nice voice.
I have thoughts on the Esposito discourse, but that will be another discussion.
