Can We Still Be Friends? Eating Chez Nos Amis

Izzy and I were on our own this week so we were invited over to dine with various friends on three occasions. There was lunch with H., dinner with R. and M. and dinner at P. and T.'s house. Now mind you, these are all wonderful people but they don't necessarily eat the way I do. After all, not everyone is gastronomically obsessed, no matter how much I would like them to be. So I tried my best to keep that in mind throughout the week.

First there was lunch with H. and the butter incident, along with some frozen soup from the supermarket. But hey, she has two young children and very high organizational standards .. So I ate what she offered and was grateful to be invited.

Then there was dinner at R. and M's house. This was a different story because R. is well-aware of my standards. She served us Farfalle with Vegetables and Feta, with a side of Greens and Goat Cheese Salad. These dishes were followed by my favorite cannoli for dessert. All of these dishes were fine. My main gripe is that R. only seems to eat specific types of food. This in part because she is semi-vegetarian and hasn't eaten butter in years. This must explain the triple dose of cheese in one meal. I appreciated the effort she put into the meal and ate everything. Izzy loved the pasta, though he wisely kept away from the mysterious chunks of eggplant ( I can't say I was too fond of them myself but ate them to set a good example).

Lastly, we were invited for a playdate at P. and T.'s house. When we arrived T. was finishing up a bowl of dreaded Doritos, a word that is not yet a part of Izzy's vocabulary and hopefully will not become one. Thankfully, P. was kind enough not to refill his bowl in our presence, as she surely realized I would have recoiled in horror.

As the late afternoon turned to evening, P. invited us for some impromptu Chinese food. Chinese food delivery on Friday night is always a good thing. Not much can go wrong with that. We were just happy to eat with friends and not be home alone. Perhaps one day we will rate a homemade meal from P., I have a sneaking suspicion that despite the fact that she serves Doritos, she is a mean cook.

So I suppose what this all means is that friends are friends no matter what they feed us. As my friend D. put it so succinctly, "If you hold all of your friends to your high culinary standards, you won't have any." I think she may have a point.