When It Comes to Dining Out, You're Missing Nothing

Wise words from someone with no other options right now.

No one enjoys dinner and a drink more than me. It’s what I (used to) live for. Getting dolled up and going to one of our staple restaurants for a familiar dinner and an ice cold cocktail was what I looked forward to most. It’s what made my world go ‘round.

Our “dinner and a drink” outings used to be reserved for weekends, because an extra dirty martini, bruised, with blue cheese olives alongside some seafood-based dish hits different on a Friday, and nothing tastes better than a glass of Etna red paired with rigatoni bolognese and a Caesar salad from your favorite Italian spot on a Saturday.

But ever since we decided to undergo an 8-week kitchen renovation mid-summer, I’ve come to the realization that dining out isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when you do it

every

single

night.

And before you judge us for not being resourceful and figuring out how to cook in our current setup mid-reno, let me explain what we’ve tried and why we simply cannot.

We have been living in our bedroom for the last 6 weeks. Just our bedroom, that’s it. We live in a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom home but because redoing our floors was part of this renovation, we had to dismantle our entire home and shove it all into the bedrooms (which already have newer floors and therefore didn’t need an update) in order to get everything off the old floors and post up in our bedroom.

Now, our bedroom is massive — unnecessarily so, which is why the last part of this renovation is reconfiguring the space to work much harder for us. But in the interim, the size of our bedroom has been housing our bed, both of our large office desks, our entire pantry, our refrigerator, the dogs and their crates, and 100 other odds and ends. And, because it’s summer in Texas, we’ve had our life-saving but energy-sucking portable AC unit plugged in on top of everything else.

At first, I had grand plans of being resourceful as fuck by using our microwave, 11-in-1 toaster oven, hot plate, and outside grill to create renovation meals. But after experiencing what it’s like to chop cilantro and veggies by your bed, eat dinner in bed, and throw away food discards in a trashcan behind your bed, you quickly realize

FUCK THIS SHIT.

And when you can’t toast a bagel in the toaster oven or heat up your coffee in the microwave without tripping the breaker because of how much is plugged into your room and sucking up all the power, you realize

NO, SERIOUSLY. FUCK THIS FUCKING SHIT.

The amount of DMs I received saying “Grossy Pelosi is doing a whole kitchen-less grill series this summer!!!” made my eye twitch. In fact, Dan Facetimed me one day to chitchat and I lamented to him about those DMs and how, unlike him, I only have our bedroom to work with, and even he was like “that’s psychotic.” Not only that, but it’s much different grilling outside during an upstate New York summer compared to a 105º Texas summer.

All this drove me to give up trying to create homemade anything these past 6 weeks. If it isn’t milk and cereal, fruit, a cheese stick, a yogurt, or anything else that requires no sort of warm-up, we’re ordering in or dining out. If I’m extremely desperate for, let’s say… a bagel (Narrator: “She’s always desperate for a bagel”), then I’ll temporarily move the toaster oven to our half-bath that is overcrowded with stuff and has been our contract workers’ bathroom of choice throughout the day.

It’s all been terrible.

My point in writing this entire build-up is that, I don’t know if it’s dining out-fatigue or truly just the demise of food quality in Dallas or a combination of both, but almost everything we’ve eaten outside of our home in the last month and a half has been painfully, aggressively mediocre (or, as the kids say, “mid”). Our tried and true staples still kind of slap, but the slap is stinging less and less (in a bad way) the more we rely on them.

Because dining out is only amazing sometimes. I’ve always viewed it as a treat, a special once or twice a week occasion — something to be looked forward to because, at the end of a long week of being fiscally responsible and eating at home, going out is the reward.

But when you’re eating outside of your home every night of the week, it gets real old real fast. I recognize this is coming from someone who loves cooking and finds solace and peace from the very act of putting a recipe together and serving it to friends and family, so maybe it’s a biased POV. But for the people reading this who sometimes wish they dined out more and feel they’re missing out by not getting to experience more meals out on the town, please be assured that you aren’t missing anything. Especially if you live in Dallas.

Dallas has some fantastic spots, but for every one great restaurant, there are four extremely just-okay restaurants that lure you in with vibes and aesthetically-pleasing backdrops and menus that are begging for an IG story post that will trick all your followers’ into thinking it’s worth their time and money, when it’s worth no one’s.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you have a functioning kitchen - no matter what size it is - lean into it. Appreciate it. Cherish it. Create in it. Don’t spend your weeknight meals wishing you could dine out instead because I’m telling you right now that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, unless it’s every once in a while. Save it for the weekends and make it really count. Don’t wear out your staples or be tricked by new hot spots that don’t have much to offer. Cook at home and save the dirty martinis for the weekend when they taste the best.

❤️ If you liked or loved this letter, hit that little heart at the bottom to show some love. A little love goes a looooong way around here ❤️

I’ll be back next Friday with The Weekly List!

Until then, stay home and eat good food.

— EGM