Serious Things: Continued

Last Sunday at 6 pm I was hungry and I didn't feel like cooking.  Luckily, I'm on a strict budget that has plenty of money allocated for eating out, so I said, "Hey Hawk, let's go to the Blue Plate for dinner."


Hawk was delighted with this suggestion.  He loves eating out, and he loves when I pay.  That way, he gets to pretend he is a kept man.


False.  It is I who like to pretend that.  


Allow me a moment to muse tangentially.  I promise I will tie it together in the end.


Happiness is a hard thing to track.  Many times we say

  or perhaps

 or

et cetera.  Those things are also mainly false.  Adjusted memories.  Decorated life stories. Flair.  Flavour. 


So anyway we went to the Blue Plate Diner. And I can tell you that the following details are facts.  The only flavour in the paragraphs below is the flavour in the food I'm reporting on.


When the food arrived, I was pleased.  My plate was full.  But, when I started eating my food, I went from pleased to blissfully, ridiculously happy.  You may suspect, but I did not suspect, that they had released any substances into the air supply, because I didn't feel lightheaded, giddy, giggly, or, on the other end of the spectrum, ragey or suddenly very very strong (more's the pity, I'm sort of a weakling).


Nor did I drink any alcohol.  I'd considered a glass of wine, but I was still feeling stuffy from my Cold to End All Colds, so I took a pass.  (You need to be able to smell to enjoy wine fully.  When sommeliers lose their sense of smell, that's it.  I learned that on W5.)


I don't think the happiness was due to Hawk, because I was with him all along, and my mood took a definite upswing after that first bite (sorry Hawk.  I guess I have adjusted to your level of awesome and now compensate for it, thus making any mood elevation you give me into my new baseline).


No, after almost a week's worth of analysis, I have come to the conclusion that my happiness was from the deliciousness of the food.


As you know, food is serious business.  And this food made me seriously delirious.


I was eating the elk and bison burger, with fries.  And guess what.  If you order a burger and fries at the Blue Plate Diner, IT COMES WITH VEGETABLES.

There have been murmurings that the Blue Plate is not what it once was.  If you have heard those murmurs, forget them.  If someone tries to murmur rumours about the Blue Plate to you, close your ears.  If you are among the murmurers, I now say to you, 

because on Sunday, I enjoyed the best meal I have ever eaten in my life, and it was just a burger (to be fair, a burger made of happy elk and happy bison who, how did I describe it to Sandcat and Magpie?  Ran around in fields under rainbows eating grass all day.) and fries and roasted veggies.  If they can make a meal that simple into a meal that takes tired me and turns me into happy, peaceful, blissed out, can't-shut-up-about-how-happy-I-am-because-of-this-food me, well then, friends, I think that says it all.

Living free-range makes cows both happy and delicious.