Let’s talk about food

John & I have an understanding about food. Well, it’s probably more accurate to say a growing understanding about food. If you asked John, he’d say I don’t yet fully understand.

The way it works when John & I eat together is that if something falls off my plate, it becomes up for grabs & because I don’t necessarily grab it fast enough, John takes it. I would like to say that I don’t make a habit of letting my food fall off my plate, but in all honesty, it happens. A lot.

I only have a couple of plates to eat from at the moment, as I have never needed many more up until now. I bought them in my first year of university, and they are really quite small, as far as dinner plates go. Needless to say, my food falls off my plate all the more regularly. The falling food problem is also not helped by the fact that our dining table is currently the residency for my sewing machine & the orders of service for our wedding, patiently waiting to be stitched together.

Eating from small plates on our laps = food everywhere.

So, we’ve started using the humungous plates that I bought John for an anniversary present in recognition that he really does need a lot more food than I do. These plates are about 33cm wide, which you’d think is ample space for my food not to fall off my plate, but apparently not. I’d like to think that this problem is because my Mama raised me well and we always ate at the dinner table, never on our laps. I love that.

Besides John thinking that anything which falls off my plate becomes up for the taking, he also likes to think he has ownership over the food on my plate. I will never forget the look of disappointment on John’s face when I manage to finish my whole meal without offering him any.

 

I thought I had found a way around his need to eat my food - simply give him bigger portions so he’ll be full and won’t want any of my food. Well, this is definitely not a satisfactory way around things for John. He enlightened me the other evening as we were eating some seriously delicious burritos that he had cooked up, that I just hadn’t understood. It’s not that he wants seconds from the pot, it’s that he wants to eat my food, and if I just give him more food on his plate, he still needs to eat mine too. This is going to end up in a whole lot of ballooning.

I’m not sure I will ever understand men & their eating habits, but I do know for sure that there will never be any food wasted in our house. John simply wouldn’t let that happen & that is fine by me. Plus, he is a brilliant cook, so I think I can cope with him eating from my plate if it means that I get to eat his culinary delights.