An ode to eating out
Robyn Alexander tells of restaurant meals past and her sense of nostalgia and loss because of Covid-19
Early on during the lockdown, a video went viral on social media: it featured a little girl in the UK being told by her mom that no food made outside her home at all is available to her. Between sobs, the child asks about one delicious option after another — "Chinese?" "McDonald’s?" — with her mother gently renewing the terrible news (no, it’s not open) with every query. Finally, the mom says: "I’m so sorry, darling, you’re going to have to eat what mommy cooks." Her daughter puts her head back and lets out a full-on wail of despair.
How I laughed at the time, still drunk (there was wine then) and blissed-out on seven slices of home-baked banana bread. What an idiot I was. Because eight weeks later, that despairing little girl is me. To go out casually, sit down in a crowded restaurant and have food someone else has planned, shopped for and prepared simply placed in front of me … and then, when the food is eaten, to have the plate magically removed — it all seems like a kind o...
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