It’s Just Dinner

Sigh, Sitting on top of the lower half of a whole wheat bun, is a sizable portion of evenly cooked, tender and juice chicken breast, with a real graded grill mark pressed into it. It is covered in melted pepper jack cheese, topped with three, thick, crispy strips of bacon. Leaning off to the side of the sandwich is the top half of my bun, resting on some fresh cut lettuce leaves with big slices of firm cut tomato and onion. All this is accompanied with a crispy pickle wedge and a handful of succulent, red grapes. The whole meal is topped off with a few oven fresh chocolate chip cookies and cup of coffee. Mmmm, just the sight of this lunch is enough to make my poor mouth rejoice, knowing all the rich flavors my taste buds are going to indulge.

Enjoying this gorgeous meal at a country club, that I am not a member of, I find myself once again fortune enough to be able to share in some of their amenities; such as, their fine dining cuisine. Upon this particular lunch, I begin to notice how much of my social life is based on food or a whole meal. Yes, it is true being that I am human; I do required food for nutritional value that sustains and maintains human life. However, sharing meals with others has always been a part of my life. For instance, when I was young, my family would have events that were based around a single meal. There were times when my folks and I would go to a park in some far off remote location and meet up with my grandparents, aunts and uncles and various cousins, for a picnic. The meal would be either a “potluck dinner” or some sort of barbeque. Other times, we would all go to grandma’s house and there, we would have at least one meal that we would all gather around the table for a formal feast. That I might add, my mother, aunts, sister, and cousins would all help her cook. I can also remember from my early youth when my friend, Mike, and others would come over and we would all sit down for some grill cheese sandwiches and watch TV. Or often times they would spend the night, and the next morning we would all wake up to a late brunch composed of warm and moist waffles, or my all time favorite, biscuits and gravy. Oh boy, oh boy, I can remember quite well how those breakfasts smelled so wonderful, the aroma from freshly cooked sausage could make my mouth savor from half way across the house.

As I started getting older, my interaction with food was often in the social setting. Yes, we still had all the regular family events around the meals; I started forming independent relationships with friends outside the family. Growing up, as most American kids do in either junior high or high school, one of our biggest highlights in school was meeting for lunch. Here, over our meals, we would ramble on about our favorite sports team, and how one was better than the other, or how this car was superior to the rest. At these same lunch-ins we would all sit together and formalize our plans for the afternoon or weekends. In the later part of my youth, foods seem to be a real focal point of my life. With my friends everything seems to somehow evolve around food. Who had what to eat help determined whose house we were to “hang at” for the evening.

There are some traditions that still carry on today, like birthdays or dating. Whenever it was someone’s birthday, the first question that would always pop up was “Where would you like to go to eat?” Presently, that single statement makes more since than ever before. Let’s face it, everybody is busy and really, who has the extra time to stop their world to clean their home to let a somewhat sizable group of people over so they can prepare a meal that everyone would enjoy? And let us not forgot that after it is all said and done, who really wants to clean-up after an event? Let alone to re-clean the home they just spent a considerable amount of time cleaning. It seems the only fair and sensible thing to do is just find a central location that everyone can enjoy. In return, one can sit down, relax, and share in each other’s company and enjoy a wonderful meal. And the best part, each person will be able to go home gilt free, and know that these friends do not have to clean up after each other.

Carrying on into today, meals are not just part of my social setting. Meals have been the key component to creating a relationship with others, whether it is in my personal life, like dating or reconnecting with old friend, or maybe in a business setting. Either way, whether the meal is a lunch or dinner, it can be used as a tool. In dating, it is a means where two people sitting down privately and sharing as they each measure their compatibility with each other. From there, the idea of a personal meal evolves into the business environment. Everyone is running around with hectic schedules, needing to find time and a way that would allow for the ability to sit down to connect and focus on each others’ ideas with minimal distractions. Whether the meal is personal or professional having, beautiful gourmet food just enriched the experience. As this grilled chicken sandwich has done for me in this particular lunch-in. Overall I am thankful that food is essential nourishment for my body. However, I am grateful for the contribution it has made in my social life. I have been blessed by being able to share in many wonderful experiences, and with countless relationships among coworkers, family, and friends over a beautiful meal like the one sitting in front of me today.