Food Rules: The Edible Experiment, Week Three

Journal Entry
Week Three
September 17, 2010

Rule 58 “Do all of your eating at a table”

I live by myself and have an extremely busy, never-a-dull-moment life what with owning and running my own business, taking 18 hours this semester, and having a 1-hr commute each way to and from school every day. So when I eat, it’s usually hurried, on the road, or while multi-tasking, naturally. I actually enjoy coming home, making a bowl of oatmeal or whatever else might constitute as a “hot” meal that is quick and easy and doesn’t require a lot of effort on my part (even if “hot” only means hot temperature-wise, and “not a lot of effort” includes washing all the dishes afterward). I look forward to those blessed 15 minutes each evening where I actually get to sit… at my coffee table, on the floor, (Japanese style, right?) in front of the TV, as I watch reruns of ‘Real Housewives’ or ‘Plain Jane’ or ‘Criminal Minds.’

Yes, yes, I have a kitchen table. Albeit this semester there is hardly enough space on it for a glass of water since it is perpetually covered with any one of my 23 textbooks this semester, school syllabi, business paperwork, etc.
But I so enjoy sitting in my living room for those precious few minutes ‘to myself’ (more like me and the TV)... dinner in hand, attempting to ‘unwind’ from my jam-packed day.

Let’s just say that I have managed to eat more meals at my kitchen table this past week than I think I ever have in the 3 years I’ve been living in my house – perhaps because this week I didn’t even have time to watch those brief segments of my favorite TV shows and was forced to have a textbook open with me at the dinnertable, reading as I ate. I know, the whole point of eating at a table is to slow down, take time to enjoy your food, savor it, relish it, not be distracted by – oh, Pollan forbid – multi-tasking. But hey, a coffee-table is still a table, right? And I did manage to move to an actual kitchen table, with a chair, to eat most breakfasts and a few dinners.

Better luck next week? Perhaps.