Life
How to pick a date restaurant: advice from food writer MC Slim JB
I thought I would highlight a comment from my fav Boston food writer (for the Phoenix and STUFF) MC Slim JB. I wrote a semi-serious post on how to choose a date restaurant where I warned men not to take me to Bertucci’s. He adds a few good points:
- My advice on this score includes: don’t pick someplace expensive (looks like you’re trying too hard), do pick a place that makes really good drinks if you plan to imbibe, avoid places that are punishingly loud (conversation is kind of important), and don’t be afraid to ask about food aversions/taboos: nothing will kill your prospects like bringing a vegan to a steakhouse or someone with a seafood allergy to a sushi joint.
If you’re interested in learning some more about the MC, see my interview with him here.
I’d like to add that if your date is a very attractive, but exceptionally dull, self-centered, or dim, try to pick a place with that punishingly loud atmosphere. When he/she opens her mouth, just pretend that something brilliant is coming out and enjoy the view.
Let’s get real: inner beauty is only one of the reasons why people go on dates.
How to pick a date restaurant
The question I get asked most often is: “Where should I take my romantic interest on a date?”
this cup runneth over with romance
When you ask me this, I secretly congratulate you on “dating.” The media often presents a rather skewed vision of college life, with claims of “rainbow parties” in middle school (I thought rainbows were the things that came after rainstorms) and incessant “hookup culture.”
I’m not convinced that things are really any different. I hear about coffee dates all the time. If romance is dead, the need to mutually self-coffeinate is not. As you get older, coffee becomes booze.
But the principle remains.
There’s obviously no simple answer to the original question. A few relevant considerations: what’s the occasion? What’s your budget? Dietary restrictions? Willingness to travel? For the purposes of this post, I’ll discuss first date options here.
An anthropological view of beauty pageants
Once upon a time, I was a contestant in Miss New York USA 2010, and I blogged a lot about it. And posted photos of my experience.
If you read coverage, you’ll find that I had a positive experience overall. I also noted in my paper that my dieting/exercising/obsessing was probably more appropriate for someone competing on the national level – so my stress level was definitely more elevated than many other contestants.
I ended up not only blogging about the experience, but writing a 24 page paper on it. The paper was written in about two days… and the class was on the anthropology of consumerism, which explains why I focused on beauty as a commodity.
Here’s an excerpt, the conclusion, which has been edited for general blog-y consumption.
- A beauty pageant is actually a very democratic competition. Anyone can enter, as long as they cough up the entrance fee an pay for their wardrobe. Contestants are treated fairly and equally – we all wear numbers, receive the same gift bags, and sleep in the same dorm rooms. There are no height or weight requirements.
But the fact remains that there’s only one girl who gets the crown.
Some of the contestants are models. Many of the top 20 had done at least some modeling work in their lives, and the girl who eventually ended up winning, Davina Reeves, is signed to a modeling agency. But the vast majority were fairly normal girls. Many were short, heavy, plain, and did not have expensive dresses. Some were pretty, but not tall, slender, or striking enough to have careers as models. Some wanted to be actresses or astronauts, some ran businesses, many were students.
I was confused at first why so many of these girls were entering a pageant. It was an expensive and time-consuming task. Did they actually think they had a shot at the title? (more…)
[Photo Album] Hey, Remember That Time I Tried to be a Beauty Queen?
Me and the best Miss NY USA ever, Tracey Chang
Love her! Everything a beauty queen should be – smart, ambitious, and yes, gorgeous.
I am now paler and paunchier, four days after the fact.
This photo shall serve as photo evidence that I was indeed, for two brief seconds, ever so fit and tan. I’m a little scared by the ribs, but I think that’s just my oversize skeleton poking through.
FOBs need love, too.
Yeah, I had no idea why they had cadets there either.
There are just some things you don’t question.
Getting fat again
So I use “fat” in a tongue-in-cheek way. But I definitely spent the last few weeks watching what I ate, which meant no crazy banquet dinners, dinners of scrambled egg whites and vegetables, and the occasional helping of cheese dip, heaped high with guilt.
As a result, my stomach became a cast iron tank. My collarbone and ribcage took greater prominence. When I lay down, I marveled at how my skin stretched over my gently jutting hipbones. It felt like a lesson in skeletal anatomy.
So on my first day back on Planet Girl, I felt totally free to go on a carb-and-calorie rampage. I was going to eat EVERYTHING and ANYTHING I could possibly ever want to eat. I was going to ignore stomach pains. I was going to consume whatever was put in front of me, especially high in simple starches, sugar, and fats. I was going to try to undo whatever I had done to myself.
The night before, I’d made good work of a ginger-and-scallion lobster dish, a beef/pepper/pineapple stirfry, and a salt and pepper fried squid at Peach Farm in Chinatown. The verdict: the cooking was a bit rushed, and the quality suffered as a result. My dad commented on how slapdash the dishes seemed to be put together, although the beef stirfry was meltingly tender and delicious. Then I topped it off with a half a red bean bun as I stalked around on my 5 inch clear heels, bronzer still caked on my stomach, legs, and arms.