A restaurant buffet does not promote healthy, moderate eating, but plans had been made with the grandchildren, so the dieters said, “I think we should go just for the family experience.”
Our grandson headed straight for the soda-dispensing station where he pushed all the buttons and returned to the table with a mixed drink.
“Hey, I have some of each kind,” he said, taunting his sister before slugging it back.
“Eww! Why do you do that?”
“Because it tastes good,” he said with a grin and headed to the slushie machines for layers of iced drinks.
Their younger sister showed up with her second plate of food. “It’s my 12th birthday. I am going to eat 12 plates of food today,” she announced.
That first, large plate had held three small items.
The littlest granddaughter had much more on her plate: marinated chicken, pulled pork and a hamburger. Way too much for a second grader.
The birthday girl left and returned with a small arrangement of raw vegetables.
Little sister’s plate of barely-tasted entrees sat on the table.
“Do you want anymore of that?” I asked.
She didn’t want any of it.
“I want a taste of the marinated chicken, but I don’t want the whole thing,” I said. A couple of others echoed my thoughts.
The marinated chicken disappeared across the table in sample bites to other nibblers.
I took a couple of bites of an apple pie. I like apple pie, but I wanted to try other pies. “You want some apple pie?” I asked my husband. He nodded. Someone else forked a bite before it reached his place.
I went back to the dessert bar with my cousin. I found a lemon meringue pie. She found a cream pie.
I found a miniature cupcake at the dessert bar and plopped it down in the Birthday Girl’s place while she prepared plate number nine.
She returned and looked at the tiny cupcake.
“I just wanted to be sure I gave you a cake on your birthday,” I grinned.
She did not look very eager for cake.
“It counts as a plate,” big sister intervened.
“Whew!”
Back at the table, I picked up a fork to taste my lemon pie. “Not very lemony,” I said, placing my fork on the table. “How does yours taste?”
“It looks like a cream pie, but it tastes lemony. Let me try yours and you try this,” my cousin said, holding her plate across the table to me.
We switched plates and took one bite each.
“Can I have a taste?” a granddaughter asked.
Grandson watched and laughed as the plates of pie moved back and forth across the table. We offered him a taste, but he refused to join the tasting party.
My husband returned to the table. “I got a pecan pie,” he proudly announced.
It did not look like pecan pie to me. I reached over, snagged his pie and studied it. “This isn’t pecan. It’s walnut,” I said.
I started to give it back, stopped, picked up a fork and tried a taste.
My brain hit high C on the pleasure scale.
“This is slap-your-momma good!” I smacked the table.
The kids looked at me and laughed. “Slap-your-momma!?”
“Yeah! It’s a Southern thing,” I took another bite. It was still slap-your-momma good.
I decided I better send it back to my man before I ate all of it, but my sister and cousin wanted a taste, then each granddaughter wanted a bite.
Grandson laughed at all the pie plates floating around. And, he still declined to taste any of them. A mixed drink was one thing; mixed pies from others’ plates was quite another.
“Now, I really do need to go get another maple walnut pie for you,” I said to my husband, and left to find one.
When I came back my sister slid into her seat with a shoo-fly pie. “Do you want some?” she asked, offering me a taste.
“No, the last one I had was really dry.”
She took a very polite taste. “This one isn’t. You try it.”
With my fork I cut off a small wedge and chewed it thoughtfully. It was moist. The other tasters agreed.
The youngest granddaughter looked up, “Does anyone want a taste of my chocolate ice cream?” She held out a small bowl filled with machine-pumped ice cream.
I reached for her bowl. “Delicious.”
She grinned at being big enough to make an offering for the dessert tasting party at our family experience around the dinner table.
Birthday Girl shoved aside her 12th plate and pronounced herself very full and ready to leave.
We skipped creating a family experience at supper that night. For some reason, no one seemed very hungry.