- Sarah Nardi
- Mystery date
There’s a reason we obsess over food the way that we do—a reason why we fetishize it, write paeans to it, or make it the object of our merciless excoriation. Food is like romance, with all the attendant expectations. When we eat out, we want to fall in love.
Staying with the analogy, small-plates dining is the equivalent of a first date, when we attempt to communicate the breadth of our personality in a condensed period of time. This is the kind of date where, generally with the liberal assistance of alcohol, we lay it all out on the table, offering lots of little pieces of ourselves in the hope that they can be assembled into a flattering whole. Timing is everything. The experience should flow naturally, effortlessly, the story of your life revealing itself in a gathering swell of beguiling facts. But all too often, this isn’t how the date—or the dinner—unfolds.
