One of the more aggravating rituals of adulthood is the constant need to determine what one is going to have for supper. This ritual is only intensified by adding a spouse. Then, the two of you can descend into a recursive loop of “I don’t care, what do you want?” “Doesn’t matter to me, what do you want?” According to statistics, arguments over money and raising children are the top reasons for divorce, but I can’t help but imagine at least one or two couples ending up in front of the family court judge with the argument, “She just won’t tell me what she wants to eat!”

Budge and I are no strangers to this ritual. In fact, ours is a magnitude of difficulty higher because we don’t cook. You read that right; we do not cook except on extremely rare occasions and never unless we are taking the food to somewhere. The reasons we don’t cook at home are several and various but it boils down to neither one of us can really cook, we don’t want to fight the cats for our food, and it’s the only way we get out of the house consistently. I realize people will argue expenses, but with groceries being what they are, then adding in power bills, water bills, etc. , we’ve just found it easier to just go out for our meals that are more complicated than cereal or pbjs.

Now when I say, we don’t cook, we don’t keep ANY food in the house. The reason for that is crystal clear. I suffer from depression. Some days are worse than others, but that’s not the point. I eat as a way to soothe myself from bad thoughts or sadness. I always have since I was a child. If we keep food in the house, I will eventually eat it and that will result in me being as big around as I am tall, which will add to a slew of health problems. I have no real willpower against food, although that has changed somewhat since I started Trulicity therapy to keep my blood sugar in check. Budge and I both take GLP-1 medication, so our relationship with food has improved.

Still, this means we must answer the question, “Where are we going to eat?” every night. That used to be a real chore and lead to the good old argument of “I don’t really care, what do you want,” “Whatever you want is fine,” ad nauseum. We have managed to streamline our supper choices somewhat, though, in an effort to avoid this cycle and have a smooth transition to mealtime. It works about half the time. One way we manage our process is having certain restaurants we frequent on certain nights of the week.

Monday nights are for Sabroso’s. It’s a great little family owned Mexican restaurant on Woodruff Road. We venture there every Monday pretty much without fail. Mondays are right after our shots with our GLPs, so we aren’t overly hungry and Sabroso’s has a great selection of smaller portion meals that fill us up without being “too much.” If you’ve ever gotten too full on a GLP-1, you understand just how miserable that whole situation is. I get the Mexican chicken Caesar salad. Budge usually gets one of a few things, but most often a mesquite grilled chicken quesadilla. What I really look forward to, though, is the Chocolate Volcano! This is my current most favorite dessert. It’s chocolate lava cake topped with vanilla ice cream and a special chocolate sauce they make special for the Volcano. Budge gets a scoop of vanilla ice cream with some of the sauce on it because she doesn’t eat cake. I don’t eat all day on Monday so I can be sure to have room for the Chocolate Volcano! The family that runs the restaurant is a precious group of people and they look for us on Mondays now. It’s an enjoyable experience.

Thursday nights are Pita House. Oh my goodness, Pita House! It’s a little Mediterranean restaurant on Pleasantburg Drive that’s been there since 1985. Three brothers from Israel opened the place back then and they just recently in the last year turned the operation over to their three sons. It is a small building and parking lot and business is always booming. We don’t ever come on Friday nights because it is insane. The thing I like about the place is I am a picky eater. I hate to admit it, but I am. So is Budge. Budge is such a picky eater that her mother told her she would never find a husband if she kept being so picky! We’ll both eat 99% of what Pita House serves. I come for the hummus. No other hummus I’ve tasted ever anywhere, restaurant or store bought, can touch the hummus at the Pita House. What makes it even better is the bread. The cousins make the pita bread fresh every morning. I get a single beef kabob skewer with rice and hummus. Budge gets what she calls the Beige Plate. It’s a side of lentils, a side of hummus, and a side of rice on one plate. We’ve been coming so long all the family knows us by name and starts punching in our order as soon as we get to the counter.

Saturday’s big meal is at Taco Casa, which is about two miles up the road from Pita House. They are another family owned hole in the wall that serves terrific food. They open at 11:00 AM and we try to get there as close to that as possible on Saturdays because it gets crowded QUICK! This is another place where the guy who takes orders starts punching us in as soon as we step up. I always get a beef and cheese nacho plate with a bean burrito, no onions, on the side. Budge gets supreme nachos customized with no lettuce or black olives. It’s a great place to eat. Every Saturday we see people who are there every time we are there. It’s a little community of people who never talk, but always nod knowingly at each other. It pays to get there early though or else you have to sit in the annex at the front of the building. That’s where all the glass is so it’s hot. Not only that, but the two-top tables don’t give much room to spread a meal out. They also have the best sweet tea! Oh, I could drink a gallon of it at every meal.

Sunday after church depends on which service we go to. If we go to first service, we get out early enough to beat the crowd so we go to Cracker Barrel. I get a hamburger steak and mashed potatoes with gravy on everything, and Budge gets a vegetable plate with a salad, dumplings, and corn. We finish up with a cinnamon roll skillet. We can eat more on the weekends because our shots are wearing off. If we go to second service, we go straight to El Tejano’s, which everyone knows much better as Rosy’s. It’s yet another family owned place serving some of the best Mexican around. I always get a large order of chicken nachos with mild cheese, while Budge gets a combo plate with a potato burrito, a bean burrito, and a cheese quesadilla. Rosy’s, though, revolves around Rosy, who, along with her brother, is the proprietor of the establishment. Rosy is of indeterminant age, but probably late fifties early sixties. She has the energy of twenty people. Everyone who comes in the door is met with “Hello, beautiful! How many? Oh, I have you table right here.” Then, when you go to check out, she always says, “Was everything good, beautiful? It’s only ‘price of the meal’, you come back and see Rosy, okay?” She is the heartbeat of the place. She’s off on Saturdays and Wednesdays and if you come in, her brother is working then and though he is a fine fellow, it’s just not the same as Rosy.

Sunday night is Panera Night. It’s our last meal before Budge goes back to school and I’m home alone again. Every week, we get the very same thing. Budge gets a bowl of Mexican street corn chowder, and I get a plain bagel sliced and toasted with honey walnut cream cheese and a baguette. We eat and talk about the upcoming week, and when we finish, we play our set of games on our phone we play every night.

So, that leaves Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Those days we choose from a list of places we frequent like Jersey Mike’s Subs, Tropical Grille, 5 Guy’s Burgers and Fries, or one of several Italian places we have to choose from. Sometimes, if we didn’t go to Rosy’s on Sunday, we’ll stop in and eat there. Those days are a lot more of a toss up than our set meal days and we often go round and round about where to eat, but we find a place we both like. After thirty years, it’s not hard.

That’s it for this post, everyone! Know that I love you all, and keep your feet clean!