Choices

I've recently had the pleasure of being invited to taste the new menu at work, and it has inspired me to get blogging again. I used to write regularly, find a hook and then let it flow. As life has changed over time, I find myself sometimes so overwhelmed with content that I just can’t find that line.. let alone the hook, but I found that the simple act  of bringing a group of people together to experience each other’s skill with flavours and tastes got my fingers working and the words flowing off the page.

I’m not sure whether you’ve arrived at the ‘lunch or dinner’ date stage, but nights out in busy bars and clubs, for me, are most definitely a thing of the past!. My partner and I seem to have more dinners with friends or outings to restaurants these days, so that I feel I can definitely confirm that I am indeed a grown up.

What really spurred me on to write was the incredibly flavoursome experience of the menu launch and food tasting at our beautiful hotel. When you work in hospitality it’s so easy to forget what is happening from the guests' perspective, and being treated like a guest in your own business feels rather different, and all of us who usually ‘serve’ the guests in various ways got to sit in the guest's chair and appreciate our colleagues' creations.

Sat in a room salivating in anticipation, reading the details of the new menu, we sensed the passion and enthusiasm in the creation of these incredible dishes. How often is it possible to discuss with colleagues the flavours, textures and presentation of the food that you eat, but that's what happened as we sat together sharing our chosen favourites, alongside those delectable must-haves that we couldn't keep our hands off!

Sitting with others for a meal is one of life's rituals. It’s a time when conversations can flow and invoke feelings of connection; connections within the context of the space you share, the food you eat and the conversations you have, considering someone’s body language, their eye contact with others and on the food. Reading between the silences and the chat.

Exploring the menu together was much like a conversation, discovering who is more adventurous in their choices, or those surprised by an unsuspecting dish that they would  never usually order, pushing them out of their usual comfortable choice and into another zone altogether. Trying something new can completely alter your mindset. If you’re a solid ‘chicken chooser’ and fish perhaps is well…too fishy .. would you be prepared to taste the halibut? I watched as others had their fancies tickled by choices that they would never routinely make, and that got me thinking … what else could happen if we changed our regular choices and tried something new?

Of course our friendly safety nets of chicken supreme and succulent beef wellington were en point and on the menu, and knowing that these staple, tasty dishes were reliably present actually made us more likely to choose something different.

Sitting next to a young housekeeper who had never liked fish.. I watched her bite into an incredible salmon starter and her expression changed completely, she liked it! Had this tasting experience changed the trajectory of her food choices from her usual chicken?

When I was in the dating game, a meat and two veg kinda guy would give me the ick. My thought pattern there was, if he’s not going to be adventurous with his eating, then how flavoursome would life be? How far could we go?

Not that I’m encouraging anyone to make life and love choices based on food selection, however it can tell you something of a story, and just because they’ve always eaten the same thing, doesn’t mean they can’t try something new. Perhaps even have a taste epiphany! Meeting new people with different tastes, lives and perspectives can often enhance our own. Perhaps people should be dining out in new groups, with people they’ve never met before, with new conversations, new subjects, new personalities, learning something different and thinking new thoughts.

We can be a prisoner of our own thoughts, set and confined by our own boundaries and choices. Breaking that cycle of the monotonous same selection, can allow you to step into a different way of thinking and even living. Something as insignificant as your  menu  choice can evolve into a love of a food, its culture, and take you to new places.

Whilst there is safety and predictability in what is familiar, without taking the opportunity to make a different choice you could actually be missing out on your own next chapter.

We are on this planet for such a small amount of time in comparison to how long it’s existed. Make your choices count. Change the trajectory, be it large or small. Move in a different way, evolve and don’t stand still. Be adventurous in your choices, curious in your questions and clear in your own intention, and I always intend to love cows!🐄

No tights today. It’s my day off. But I do have some rather healing acupuncture needles in my ears. My new trajectory.