Walking the Walk, While Talking the Talk

Sitting down at a restaurant, impatiently waiting for your food, complaining about the service, and racing home to write a review on Yelp to critique your dining experience is easy to do. However, being on the other end of the dining experience - cooking to please - is quite obviously a completely polar endeavor in itself. Great cooking, eating, and drinking are things that are all too often taken for granted. If your steak comes out a little overdone, you find a small bone in your cod fillet, or your Sex on the Beach has a splash too much of vodka in it, don't be too quick to cap your top and let steam whistle from your ears like a stovetop kettle (Well, for most people the Sex on the Beach analogy may not be too much of a problem). You're most assuredly not the only guest that the business is trying to please.

Too often I have seen diners excessively upset in a restaurant setting because their perfect evening was ruined by something as small as receiving steamed carrots instead of grilled asparagus with their entree. Cooking is an extremely difficult task. Catering to the different desires of 50+ guests at any given time is also very hard to do. Combining the two does not make either of those tasks any easier. So, the next time you run into a dining experience gaffe and blow your top, grab that Chef's hat and throw on that apron and let's see you go to work, wannabe Bobby Flay.

Cooking for yourself (or your own audience) is the best way to appreciate the outstanding service and food you can get at a restaurant. If it's not difficult, it's time consuming. For instance, last week I took the time out to make homemade fried chicken one night for my brother and I, as well as homemade pasta sauce with fresh grilled chicken on another [night]. After cooking for an hour or so, dinner was devoured in less than 15 minutes. Here's some pictures:

All in all, try to be as dissimilar to this guy as possible when the little things aren't going your way at a dining establishment (or anywhere really). [http://overheadbin.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/30/13033784-man-throws-tantrum-over-reading-light-on-alaska-airlines-flight?lite]
 Otherwise, people will blog about how ridiculous you are, like me.


Happy eats!