Considerations of food necessarily turn on circumstance.
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Waste not, want not; eat love pray; need and feed.
Whether to go out, stay in; have a third helping when technically full as a goog; or perhaps finish off someones abandoned cheese platter at a swanky do. This happened the other night and although Im not proud, Im also not guilty because there was a reason.
And that reason was food, and maybe a little wine. A classic combo.
We had opted for a bottle of red before a show rather than a glass, because as so often works out at swanky dos, it was more economic.
That the bottle couldnt be taken into the performance unfinished (or finished now that I think of it) posed logistical problems.
Organisers didnt want a raucous crowd packing bottles of juice in the auditorium because it might cause a scene.
One not normally associated with opera. Unless Puccini wrote one that involved a taser. So we had to knock it off in quicker time than wed prefer.
By knock it off, I mean the wine, not the drinking of it. That was probably never going to happen after we shelled out. Which led to the following considerations in short order.
One, should we drain this bottle without eating something, and two, has that half-eaten cheese platter over there been abandoned?
Interesting considerations when youre trying to appear sophisticated, and ones that go to the very heart of food.
Waste not, want not; eat love pray; need and feed.
I think most of us are brought up believing thats its a crime to waste food, because millions are starving.
So we clear our plates to assist the hungry, and then find ourselves embroiled in the obesity epidemic.
The only good thing coming out of such crises of conscience is that it helps with the packing away. Which is what I could see happening with that cheese platter if we didnt eat decisively. I mean act.
So we idled across the room with style and panache, engaged in vivacious banter until we were poised over the target.
And yes, that brie looked to be at room temperature.
Highlighting yet another major association with food, temptation.
To surrender or resist?
That old chestnut.
Watered down in this instance by a time-dependent bottle of cab sav.
Some decisions are made for you, really, and in this case it was the curtain call.
Hidden in clear sight by a crowd intent on beating the queue, either to the auditorium or the bathroom, we swooped.
And my how sweet guilty pleasures are, plucked from the apple tree of abandon as the world passes by.
Tasted pretty good, actually, which is what youre looking for when it comes to food.
Not bad under the circumstances.
