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Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Waiter You’re a Fly in My Soup
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Photo: John Spink/AJC staff
“Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.”
— W.C. Fields
Something disturbing happened to me at dinner recently. We were a party of four, and I was relating a story that included a quote, like the one above, I recently used on another blog post.
Our waiter was pouring wine and seemed completely anonymous until he piped up a politically correct slap on the wrist in my direction for what I was talking about. I was so shocked I could hardly speak (luckily my boyfriend defended me in a gentlemanly way.)
I find this kind of involvement by a waiter in what goes on at a dinner table completely reprehensible. I wish I could have said something right then and there, but it would have called too much attention to my identity. I’m not eating at a restaurant to hear what a waiter thinks of my politics, or anything else for that matter. I try to be unendingly polite when I dine out; I waited on tables for years and know how it feels to be treated nastily by surly customers expecting too much for too little. But I never inserted my opinion at the table.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? Do you agree or disagree that a waiter’s place is a silent one?
Permalink | Comments (47) | Post your comment | Categories: Dining
Changes coming for school meals. But when?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s been three years since the federal government issued its most up-to-date nutrition advice. And after a couple of years spent looking at how to work those guidelines into the school meals program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has called in Congress’s independent medical advisers to help.
What that means for children: Another two years before the department is likely to issue official rules to schools about how to change their menus. In the meantime, the department is encouraging schools to start following them, as much as possible, within current rules. (Here’s the memo, with suggested changes.)
Among the thing they’re suggesting: children should be able to pick both a fruit and a vegetable at lunch, choose from milk with a fat content no higher than 1 percent and select foods that are high in whole grains.
What do you think of the nutrition quality of the foods served at your child’s school? Have you seen changes in recent years to make meals more nutritious? How do you think some of these recommendations will go over with children? With school meals administrators?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Food
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