“This looks good!” my mom said, pointing to the bottom of the menu, “A paella with rabbit and shrimp and sausage and snails.”
“Mmmm, you’re right, Mom. Let’s get it.” The dish sounded both delicious and like something I wouldn’t make at home.
And then it hit me. I was doing the exact same thing my mom was, just based on a different set of gastronomic values. My mom’s calculations, like a mental Excel spreadsheet, ultimately gave her what she wanted, namely a good price for a lot of protein. My fuzzy logic, combined with dreadful mental math skills, favored items I considered priceless, dishes that I couldn’t make at home for lack of time, expertise, or ingredients. Dining out, for us, seemed to be an exercise in measuring what we value against the numbers printed on the menu.
When our entrées arrived, my mom’s eyes widened. The paella, studded with plump snails and bits of rabbit confit, was topped with two jumbo shrimp, a glistening crimson sausage link, and what appeared to be half of a pan-fried rabbit. But it wasn’t just the quantity of food that was impressive. Each component was perfectly cooked and came together into a perfect whole.
After eating as much as she could, my mom waved down the waitress.
“I have a question about the paella.”
I was terrified she was going to ask about its price, whether there was some hidden charge we had to pay for the dish’s opulence, its warm, wild flavors, its rustic charm.
Instead, she asked, “Where’s this sausage from? Do you make it here? The pork tastes really fresh, and the spices too.”
Wait. My mom wanted to know the sausage’s provenance rather than its price? That’s something I would ask. Was my mother becoming me?
The waitress indulged us, “We don’t make the sausages ourselves. They’re from a smokehouse just down the road.”
As she reached down to clear our plates, my mom and I simultaneously said, “Oh, we want to pack that up,” gesturing towards a tiny mound of paella. It’s a compulsion I picked up from my mom—and of which I’ve learned to be proud—I always save any food that’s left.
After we shared a few deeply satisfying desserts, my husband picked up the bill; my mom didn’t even ask to check the math like she always does. Neither did I. We both just thanked him. We were full and fully content, happy to have had such a wonderful meal with our family. And that’s really what both of us value most.
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