Thursday, March 24, 2011

My Favorite Past Time

This past week I have gotten to indulge in one of my favorite past times, eating. Such a simple thing makes me so happy. To use a phrase a friend of mine often says; it’s not about the Quality but the Quantity. I have lived and enjoyed living by that statement many times. But as you get older you learn the hard way that you can not eat like you are a teenage growing boy anymore, because the only thing that grows is the girth around the waist line.

My wife has started making a little money making wedding cakes. She has done at least three this year. Such a happy time in our house hold, the wife doing something she enjoys and we get a little bit of bonus money. But, the plus for me is the cake. When making a wedding cake it must be square on the sides and flat on top. To accomplish this, my wife takes a knife and cuts chunks from the cake until it becomes the shape she needs it to be. I call those pieces “Chunks of Happiness.” Not one to ever let food go to waste, she places the “Chunks of Happiness” in a bag for me to eat later. Recently I was being a little creative cake maker myself and decided to add peanut butter and chocolate on top of the cake. Miller Family Motto: Peanut Butter helps make the world a little better.

This week I got to eat at two new restaurants. The first I met with a friend of mine for lunch. I have another saying ( I seem to have a lot of those when it comes to food): I’ll try anything once and if I don’t like it I’ll try it again just to be sure. I have come across a place I’ll only try once, maybe. The diner’s menu was built around southern cooking. This Yankee has grown to love the southern cuisine. But this place ruined it for me. I didn’t notice the rating until I paid; they only had a grade of a 71, a C! I came out smelling like the grease they cook everything in, and my stomach was telling me about it all night. This was one exception to the rule Quantity over Quality. The other restaurant I went to was a higher class place. It was paid for by my company so I was all in. Higher class must have meant slower pace. If I’m spending 3 hours in a restaurant, my arm better be hurting from the constant motion of going from my plate to mouth. This place took forever with the food. No one else seemed to mind, they were enjoying their alcoholic beverages. I don’t drink, so a gallon of water and two loaves of bread latter I was getting a little annoyed. After all that waiting, I was not impressed and the portion was small. I was thinking in my head if there was a McDonalds on the way home. Another of my favorite lines “Would you like fries with that.”

Life can be like the food we eat. Every now and then life will throw some “Chunks of Happiness” your way and once in a while life is like being in a grease pit. But as long as I have Peanut Butter in the kitchen and a McDonalds on the corner, life is good.