Food Fights: Dinner Decisions
Commitments are important to me. I committed to writing the final post of Food Fight Week today, and that’s just what I’m going to do.
It’s more of a challenge than you might thing, because yesterday the unthinkable happened. Whole Foods announced it was going to be opening up a market in Albany. I NEVER thought that would happen. Ever.
I once heard an argument that outlined how our region wasn’t sufficiently affluent to sustain a Whole Foods, and that made perfect sense to me. The calculus must have changed, or that argument was specious, because the store is in the works. However, I’ll have to write about this next week, so I can make good on my promise.
Thankfully commitments are also important for Mrs. Fussy because she has to put up with a lot. To be fair she does get some good things out of my food obsession. Like hot, homemade dinners when she gets home from work. And I always evaluate every bag of baby organic carrots on the shelf to make sure she gets the very best one.
But that still probably doesn’t quite compensate for this.
Here’s a little back story. Mrs. Fussy works a lot. And we have two children. So we don’t get out that often as a couple. And when we do, we generally like to keep it pretty low key and relaxing.
Anyhow, we had plans for one of those rare nights out with another couple. We know them through her, so she was coordinating the plans. Our friends were apparently interested in Downtown Albany’s Restaurant Week.
FUSSY VETO #1
You know my feelings on restaurant week. Even though the Taste menu looked pretty good, I just couldn’t get very excited about it. Especially when there were other places I really wanted to take Mrs. Fussy. Places I hadn’t been, but had heard great things from multiple sources. Places where I thought we could really have a fun night out.
I wanted to go to Taiwan Noodle.
So I sent Mrs. Fussy back to our friends with this alternative idea. They know I’m a bit obsessed with food and they were into the idea, except they had another suggestion. After talking it through with Mrs. Fussy, it was decided that we would order food from Taiwan Noodle and bring it back to our friends’ place.
FUSSY VETO #2
Noodles do not travel well. Maybe some places have found a way to package their noodles so they degrade less in transit. But certain foods demand to be eaten on the spot. Pizza is one. Noodles are another.
I was fine with the notion of take out, so long as we did it with appropriate foods.
Barbecue travels well, but I had recently broken my diet (again) to have a few bites of Capital Q’s South Carolina style pulled pork sandwich. But roasted chicken can also survive the arduous trip from restaurant to home, and we were all able to agree on Mr. Pio Pio. The question was what to order for four people. I asked Mrs. Fussy for some ideas on what she thought we should get.
FUSSY VETO #3
Ultimately we ended up with:
One order of their special goat stew
One order of arroz con pollo
One order of pernil
One avocado salad
One side order of rice
One side order of beans
One side order of plantains
One side order of red sauce
One side order of green sauce
One side order of a whole roast chicken
It was a lot of food. But if I truly had my way I would have also ordered a side of sausage. Had Mrs. Fussy had her way we would have ordered fewer dishes, and one of them would have been fish soup. Now she would say that in fact, I did have my way. Although I would say we compromised.
Getting to this order wasn’t easy though. We had ordered over Mealeo and a special soup we had put in for wasn’t actually available, which is how we ended up with the goat stew. The biggest source of friction is how I would ask Mrs. Fussy for her input on the order and then reject her suggestions. Repeatedly.
She didn’t like that one bit.
“Why do you even ask what I want when you are just going to tell me why I’m wrong?,” she blurted. And I have a good reason. Creating an optimal meal requires some thought, and I’m a bit like Doctor Gregory House. Sometimes you need your team to come up with ideas, so you can shoot them down and figure out how to save the meal.
Now Mrs. Fussy isn’t going to like this next part either, because here’s the thing: it totally worked. It did. Had she had her way we would have skipped the pernil. But the pernil was delicious. It may have been the tastiest dish we got that night. And while it seemed like a lot of food, we made it through a remarkable amount of it.
Although the bonus sausage would indeed have been overkill.
But we kissed and made up. And in the end had a great night full of Latin food, Spanish wine, German board games, and local friends.
–
Have a great weekend. If you plan to enjoy a mint julep for Derby Day, you MUST watch this video. And if you are interested in Cinco de Mayo, you could read this from last year. Or this post about tequila. Plus I have an idea of what to make with it should you perpetually be dissatisfied with margaritas.
FUSSYlittleBLOG 
Mrs. Fussy is a saint…
Agreed. She sounds like a truly patient woman.
And I thought I had a hard time deciding on dinner with my fiancé! At least we usually do the “eh, I don’t know, anything’s good” thing… if I was Mrs. Fussy, I’d be ready to smack you, ’cause from her point of view, why did you ask what she wanted if you weren’t going to use any of her ideas, and why does she not get to order what she wants, too? Then again, since she’s married to you, she must be used to it by now. Still, I admire her patience.
It all sounds so exhausting. And also remarkably similar to how I am about dining out or ordering out. For me it comes down to money. I’m pretty frugal but I like to go out a lot. Forget clothes and shoes, I spend on food. But not having unlimited funds, I try to consider where my money goes and I refuse to spend money on what I perceive as a bad meal.
Hence why I never, never eat at TGI Fridays and the like. If that’s my option I would seriously rather go hungry and wait until I get home or there is something better available.
It frustrates the BF a lot because I can spend long amounts of time not eating and waiting for that just right place to eat.
See, my problem there is that while I’m holding out, trying to think of the best place to spend my calories, my blood sugar’s sinking, making me less capable of making that decision. :(
Mine too. That’s why I always throw a piece or two of fruit or a cheese stick in my purse. I have everything in there. Just like Mary Poppins.
I would have just left you at home and gone out on my own.
PS: I think you should read this article (He Cooks. She Stews. It’s Love.)
If you order the picada platter for 2, you can get chicken, steak, ribs, sausage, along with tostones and yuca. It comes in a big 13×9 pan for takeout. Great stuff. Hmmm… maybe we’ll go there tonight!
While agree that noodles are not meant for transport, and that food is really important to food-lovers, I think that getting along with the other human beings and not making them feel bad for making suggestions is far more important. Especially when we’re talking about the human beings that we love.
It sounds like the food was good, but the enjoyment of the evening as a whole suffered.
Oh no. The evening was perfectly enjoyable. Even for Mrs. Fussy. We are pretty good about talking to each other, and keeping open paths of communication when things go wrong. This got dealt with early and we put it behind us before leaving to pick up the food.
She is also accustomed to my crazy, as I am accustomed to hers.
Accustomed or not, that doesn’t reduce how much of a pretentious d-bag you come off like.
I’ve forgiven last year’s TOP Semi-finals and the dinner at Dinosaur BBQ a few weeks ago, but I don’t forget. :) [I’m joking (sort of) — I do realize you weren’t the ultimate deciding factor in either]
I used to be like you, but, more recently, I’ve been going with the flow for the sake of argument. I can usually make the best out of most situations anyway, and if it’s so bad I want to gouge my eyes out, I just don’t eat and I try to have fun with the company. I recently got dragged to dinner at Carrabas, which could easily be one of the worst restaurants I’ve ever eaten at, but the friends wanted to go there, and they come and don’t always enjoy my choices, so I see it as taking one for the team.
If you and your wife have that kind of dynamic where you’re both comfortable living that way, more power to you both!
Daniel- I think that most of your readers seriously need to lighten up a little bit. I feel like the “anti-snobbery at any cost” attitude around here makes it difficult for me to talk about anything.
remember the Gregory House in Averill Park?