It's not my favorite essay, but I liked what Fisher had in this segment. She continues to link dining with celebration and sensual pleasure, and she frowns upon those who see "dining out" as a chore or routine habit.
"Dining out" is usually special to me just because it's too costly. I wonder how it would be different to work in an industry with regular business lunches and dinners. Just combining work and business etiquette with eating would, I think, steal away the sense of anything special.
She goes on to recount how she entertained a bigwig by choosing just the right restaurant, ordering the meal and arranging for the bill and tips in advance.
I found this a trifle braggy and wondered what everyone else thought. I suppose she was seen as a leading figure in entertaining, and so her personal anecdotes were welcome advice. And ordering for others in a dining-out scenario seemed archaic.
On the other hand, as a woman, she may have been displaying her own power, as the host who could commandeer the best table, service, pick the food and wine -- traditional men's roles in the time she speaks of.
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At first I thought her anecdote was archaic. Then I tried to think what it might be like today -- I think it might work, and it would be a really neat thing to try.
I kind of liked this essay, mostly because I had never really thought about it before. Dining out is still a treat for me, but the men in my office go out to eat every day at lunch. I can't imagine that they find anything special about it anymore. I have had a few "business lunches" since taking my current job, and I find them rather impractical. My co-worker and I inevitably fall into chatting rather than working, which is fine with me but is not what we're there for.
I found the bigwig anecdote to be braggy, too, but I was interested in the concept. This is something that would never occur to me to do, but I kind of like the idea. It is more like eating at someone's home.
Maybe she meant that food and other sensual pleasures were never meant to be mixed with routine. I don't know. I liked the part where she said she didn't want to be distracted with "wifely chit-chat."
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