New Foods, New Resolutions

I imagine myself to be quite the foodie, of course.  A love of food (and more specifically, a love of eating it) almost seems to be a prerequisite for having a love of cooking, you know?  Sometimes, though, I can surprise even myself with how limited my experiences with different cuisines has been.  I attribute it to growing up in the Midwest, whose cuisine consists almost exclusively of bland things with gravy on top.  My partner has German roots and has fond recollections of German and European cuisine, so that has been something I've been keen to explore.

So, earlier in the month, she and I placed an order from GermanDeli.com for some brötchen {rolls} and some leberwurst and teewurst.  She had told me to expect the flavor to be much different from the braunschweiger that I remembered from the Midwest, but nothing she could have said would have prepared me for the pure food ecstasy that was German leberwurst.  We had brötchen and leberwurst for dinner both Thursday night and Friday night, and Sunday morning we had a traditional German breakfast of softboiled egg with (again) brötchen and leberwurst.  Incidentally, it was also my first-ever softboiled egg-- both cooking one and eating one, even!  Really!  It will certainly not be my last, though.  

As much as I value variety, I think it really shows how much I enjoyed it that we ate basically the same meal three times in four days.  Next, I just need to find a German cookbook so I can make some delicacies of my own...

Changing subject, today I got a call from my sweetie before lunch; she was alone in her office and wanted to let me know that she wouldn't have to watch the clock during her lunch break, if we wanted to do something nice for lunch together.  I imagine she was thinking about how I generally really enjoy being treated to a nice restaurant--that might be my favorite indulgence.  It can really make me feel special to sit in a restaurant, have my order taken, have the food served to the table... I think maybe that's a time I allow myself to open and draw healing energies in.  I guess it makes sense--if I use cooking and serving food to send healing energies out, maybe being served and eating lets me draw them in too.

Anyway, I made reservations for lunch at our favorite really-nice local Italian restaurant--We had a gift card that her boss had given us, and I imagined that if it went over, maybe we'd be out for an hour and ten minutes, something like that, and she had let me know it wouldn't be a big deal.  We ended up being gone for almost two hours!  Even though the restaurant wasn't busy, it took a long time for the waiter to come to take our order.  Then it took a long time for our soups to be served.  Then after we had finished our soup, it took a long time for our entrées to arrive.  Once we were done with our meal, it took another long time for the waiter to bring the check and settle our bill.  I like to think of myself as easy-going, but it rather ruined the experience for me--especially since I had really started stressing on how long I was keeping her away from work, but also just because it gets hard to feel valued, welcomed, and cared for when you're feeling neglected and ignored.

There was some positive, though; I had my first French Onion soup and my first risotto today at the restaurant.  I told you it can be shocking what I haven't tried yet!  I rather enjoyed both of them, despite the disappointing service.  It makes me want to learn to cook them myself.

Also, my partner and I have started watching the movie Julie & Julia, which is where the "new resolution" part comes in.  With the events of the past few days helping to open my eyes to all the amazing foods that must be out there that I haven't experienced yet, and the movie providing an inspiration, I think that I want to start making a point to try more new recipes--I don't know if I'd take on 500-odd recipes in 365 days like Julie does in the movie, but maybe 2-3 a week?  I think it'd be fun.