Restaurants

Now that the Big R word officially hangs over our economy, no doubt New Year’s resolutions for many of us hinge on saving money.

New year, same goal: eat out

Because I’ve always been a contrarian, my 2009 goal is to damn the recession and continue my daily habit of eating out. I might be talked into sacrificing the dry cleaners, washing the car myself and buying fewer songs on iTunes. I’ll pare down scrapbooking, reduce my trips to the salon, cut back the heat and perhaps even say no to Indiana University basketball tickets if we hit rock bottom. But restaurants and I will remain fast friends for a number of sanity-saving reasons:

1. Nutrition. I can’t cook, and that situation won’t change while I’m alive. After all, I’ve owned a home business for baker’s dozen years now, and lunch still consists of a string of P words: Pringles, Pop-Tarts, popcorn, peanuts (sometimes pistachios) and pretzels, washed down with a Pepsi. Sugar cereals like Peanut Butter Crunch and Golden Grahams also rate highly with me. If this were a Sesame Street routine, preschoolers could instantly pinpoint what these items have in common: You open the lid and start eating.

Once in a great while, I’ll heat a can of soup on the stove without burning it, and my husband taught me how to pour shredded cheese and beans on top of tortilla chips to make instant nachos in the microwave. What a treat.

Ugh

2. Sanitation. Do-it-yourself meal prep creates never-ending stacks of dirty dishes waiting for space in the dishwasher. My husband and I experimented during December to see how this eat-at-home concept would work. He first fixed a pot of chili, which meant I spent the next three nights scrubbing tomato stains from the sink and trying to melt the cheddar cheese ring from the side of the bowls. Bacon left nasty grease to dispose and required a big honking skillet that didn’t fit in the dishwasher. I like it much better when restaurants fuss with the cleaning, as my patience level for sticking my hands in gooey, dirty places is exactly 4.6 seconds.

Although I will confess, anything involving hot water during an Indiana winter has an up side.

3. Communication. During what we have now dubbed “the kitchen test,” the Mr. and I found ourselves in the middle of such riveting conversations as, “Don’t you dare pepper those eggs” and “Why is the dog begging table scraps?” I’d use prep time to squeeze in another email or two on the computer; he disappeared to balance the checkbook during clean-up.

Meanwhile, we overspent the Christmas budget because I forgot to mention I’d already bought his dad a gift, and he got caught up sharing the tidbit that just crawled across the TV screen and skipped over the news that I contributed to our church’s latest project. Without time spent staring at each other in a booth, no responsibilities except talking, we were too distracted to truly share.

4. Justification. Let’s face it: if someone doesn’t keep restaurants in business, Uptake won’t have enough room on the Internet to post another good-bye list in 12 months.

So I’ll resolve to say hello to the hostesses instead.

Photographer credits: Damien Roue, Julie Sturgeon