Clean Plate Club

Tonight after my mother’s art show my parents took me and Russ to eat dinner at Revolution. It was a lovely to get to sit down and relax after standing up visiting with all the nice friends who came out to see my Mom and her art. It was actually nice to get to eat dinner with Russ who I have hardly seen in the last couple of weeks because he has been in California, Chicago, Nantucket and New York and I have been in Durham and well, at the fair.

The difference between Revolution food and the fair is dramatic. That delta was probably just as great as the difference between food in Danville too. So I think my parents had a good meal.

Since we were eating so late I was hungry, but did not want to order anything too heavy. I picked the golden beat salad and the Ahi Poke tuna. The waiter looked at me and told me I was ordering two salads. I nodded that I was in agreement with that and he gave me the look that said, “I just want you to understand what you are getting.”

I guess that waiters think most people are expecting either a hot meal for dinner or something larger than a salad, but this waiter could not read the invisible tattoo on my forehead that reads, “This person is only allowed to eat salads.” To me a treat is to eat a salad someone else made me.

The Ahi “Poke” salad came first and it was spectacular. I easily could eat one of those everyday for the rest of the year and been happy. The golden beat salad came next and it too was yummy, small, but yummy.

After I had eaten every last sliver of beet and grapefruit section my plate looked as if it had just come from the dishwasher it was so simonized. A bus boy came by the table and after looking at the empty dish asked me the most ridiculous question ever, “Are you done with that?”

I am never sure what else he thinks I might be doing with that plate after I have practically licked it clean. Maybe rather than asking me if I was done with it he could ask me how I liked it, but since there was nary a morsel left that question too seems unnecessary. If I have fulfilled the requirements for the clean plate club I think it is fine to just take my plate without asking me any superfluous questions. It kind of makes me feel bad that I did not leave a tiny lettuce leaf on the plate, but it was all so good and without many calories that I wanted to eat it all.

Next time a waiter asks if I am done with my empty plate I am going to say, “No, I think I would like to take it home.” I just want to see what he says.