Dinner for One

How to Eat Alone
by Daniel Halpern

While it’s still light out set the table for one: a red linen tablecloth, one white plate, a bowl for the salad and the proper silverware. Take out a three-pound leg of lamb, rub it with salt, pepper and cumin, then push in two cloves of garlic splinters. Place it in a 325-degree oven and set the timer for an hour. Put freshly cut vegetables into a pot with some herbs and the crudest olive oil you can find. Heat on low flame. Clean the salad. Be sure the dressing is made with fresh dill, mustard and the juice of hard lemons.
Open a bottle of good late harvest zinfandel and let it breathe on the table. Pour yourself a glass of cold California chardonnay and go to your study and read. As the story unfolds you will smell the lamb and the vegetables. This is the best part of the evening: the food cooking, the armchair, the book and bright flavor of the chilled wine. When the timer goes off, toss the salad and prepare the vegetables and the lamb. Bring them out to the table. Light the candles and pour the red wine into your glass. Before you begin to eat, raise your glass in honor of yourself.
The company is the best you’ll ever have.

This piece of prose I discovered in college and always enjoyed what it had to say. This week my one evening off was on Tuesday night, and as I stared blankly into my refrigerator wondering what to eat, this piece popped into my head. So I turned off the tv and turned on my soundtrack to “The Piano” and cooked up a real dinner...there wasn’t even anything that got put in the microwave! I pulled out the pretty silverware and lit some candles and set the table as if someone important were visiting. When I sat down with my food, just looking at the way it all was set and how nice it looked made me peaceful already. I enjoyed the stillness and quiet and totally loved it. Ok, so maybe the chicken wasn’t exactly 4-star restaurant quality and there was 2% milk in my wine glass, but it was still greatness. And I realized that so often we are always so concerned about not offending others, or how everyone else feels, and if we’re treating our neighbors as ourselves. Which is all well and good. But sometimes you have to take a step back and treat yourself as others would treat you. A good quote to go along with this… “if you had a friend that talked to you the way you talked to yourself, would you continue to hang out with that person?”

I would challenge everyone I know...especially all the single ones...not only to treat others the way they'd want to be treated, but also to treat yourself how you want others to treat you! Because whether you realize it or not, you're teaching them how to do it right now. And why wait to get married before somebody starts treating you right??