Dining Out, Here and There

It's 22:13 and I'm at the cafe. My cafe. Writing this now. Brandy in hand, candle on table. Windows open onto the buzzing avenue outside. Hemmingway had his cafe and I have mine. I am so Lost Generation you fuckers can't even believe how... how...

OK, I'm not going to lie to you. I don't really "have a cafe." I don't even like the cafes. I avoid European cafes for the following: €3.50 coffee, and horrible euro-pop dance music. Usually I'm at home eating instant Kartoffelpuree in my underwear. Papa never mentioned the dance remix of "Country Road" blaring in the background of A Movable Feast, and I doubt he'd have taken it with him if it were. I came here for cake.

Last week I went back to the US for the first time in two years. Work sent me, but for me, it was all about the food.

I wish I could tell you guys it was good food. I wish I could say I needed a t-bone steak and that nowhere does steak like the US. I wish I could say I needed a tumbler of bourbon and a puff of rich Virgina tobacco. I wish I could somehow convince you guys I'm classy. I wish I could say that as I was driving north from LAX on the 405 I didn't suddenly cross five lanes of freeway traffic in a dangerous tire-squealing maneuver to the off-ramp the instant I saw the giant Taco Bell sign.

I'm not proud. I'm not proud and I don't want to hear about it. Every Grilled Stuff'd Burrito that you don't eat is another one in the world for me. That was my week. Taco Bell. Jack in the Box. Quizno's. Carl's Jr. Domino's. I've been telling myself it's not the food. I've been telling myself it's the nostalgia. Please agree with me; I need this. I need to believe it's the memories of coming home at 3 a.m. and Jack in the Box being the only thing open. I need to believe that living in a land where I can get unpasteurized Brin d'Amour, Mimolette and Petite Chévre, the Western Crispy Chicken Sandwich does not qualify somewhere in my mind as "good food."

But you know what? It wasn't the same anyway. They say the portions in the US are larger. Coming to Germany for the first time and seeing them slam down a massive platter of schnitzel, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes in front of me, I quickly decided that that little rumor was crap. Another made-up Americanism that gets repeated because it sounds believable, like how we cut up all the food on the plate then throw the knife away before taking the first bite. But something was wrong. Meals — old favorites — that I use to put away with the greatest of ease were suddenly too much. I tried, but on more than a few occasions throughout the week I just couldn't finish. I thought maybe I was sick. I thought maybe I was jet-lagged. I thought maybe cats were dogs and everyone turned gay and this was Bizarro Land because surely that was more likely than me being unable to finish the number six.

When my European co-workers used to return from the US and claim that after a week or two of US-sized portions they were suddenly hungrier than ever all the time, I thought they were just buying into some stereotype about the US that they wanted to believe. I thought their hunger was psychosomatic. I thought they wanted some segue into discussing yet again how Jesus the portions are just so damn huge in the US. But now I'll be damned if I'm not hungry all freakin' day lately. I get breakfast on my way to work, and by lunch time it's as though my stomach is digesting itself.  I'll get an early dinner right after work and by 10 p.m. it's as though I never ate.

If the cause of this was a week-long stroll through the fast food-filled Southern California strip mall of Memory Lane, then it stands to reason that the solution is a week of portions small enough to make my stomach digest itself back down to having reasonable expectations. And I will. Soon. But for now, I came to shit all over the cafe's tables¹.

¹ You thought I was going to say I came for cake, but I saved it from having a formulaic zinger.