At your work, ALL the group HAS to go to the same place for lunch every single day?
I really wonder about this dynamic too. Huh? I can’t remember the last time I went to lunch with a co-worker.
Not only that, but when my office does lunch together - that is delivery as we can’t all be out at the same time- not only would I never consider asking them to change locations if I don’t like what they’ve chosen but they wouldn’t consider doing so if I did ask.
You’re reading something I didn’t write.
Nobody HAS to do anything. But some workgroups are pretty chummy and prefer to eat together more often than you might be used to. And ostracizing a PPE most days would be bad. And everybody else dining at 7-11 or McDonalds 2 or 3x week as doreen’s friend insists doesn’t work so well either.
I just can’t imagine a group of people that are going to lunch together, whether it be work or a social outing where 7-11 or McD’s would possibly be considered an option.
Well maybe if you are 17 and heading to a concert.
What is this? The Brady Bunch Movie?
‘Dining’ at 7-11? For a group lunch? Seriously? What do you do, form a line at the microwave and then stand around in the parking lot and nosh?
If you’re on the road and trying to make time, grabbing a few snacks at 7-11 and hitting the road is fine. My Wife and I do quite a few road trips and rarely stop for a real meal. We will hit a breakfast place in the morning before the rubber really hits the road, and go for it. Stopping at fast food to stretch legs is OK, if we are trying to make 1000 miles that day, but it’s a totally different thing than having lunch with friends.
W.T.F.
My last job, when we’d do a group lunch thing, we’d occasionally end up eating at CostCo.
That’s probably exactly what would happen if we ever agreed. It’s certainly what happens when we stop there for him to get the hot-dog shaped cheeseburger on the way to drop him off after some activity.
Lots of things are different that making plans to have lunch with friends as the main event. One of them is having lunch with friends as a byproduct of some other activity- which is the only time I have meals with the guy who prefers (but doesn’t insist on) fast food. Another is certain work situations I’ve been in, where due to distance,time or parking issues the only practical way to get food is to have only one car/person leave the workplace , which means everyone has to go to/order from the same place.
You say you don’t often stop for a real meal when you’re on the road- and that’s fine, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But not everyone does that - the group I travel with always stops for actual meals. They might not be big meals and they aren’t always expensive meals but they are almost never fast food meals. And the guy who always wants fast food restricts us (whether he intends to or even realizes it or not) because we then end up eating at ChiliAppleFridays sorts of places, where you can get burgers and chicken nuggets.
Seriously. Now we’ve strayed far afield from the topic of “picky eater” into something along the autism spectrum that people here are always refering to.
I’m not challengeing anyone’s claims about the wacky people in their lives, but someone over the age of say, 15, suggesting that people have a meal at 7-11 really does go beyone the pale.
How, pray tell, does one eat *at *Cosco? Do they tailgate in the parking lot with their economy sized carton of Froot Loops? Does Costco serve food?
They have a snack bar- frozen pizza ( not still frozen,of course), hot dogs, chicken nuggets. That sort of thing.
Yes. They have a food court, with tables and everything. It’s after the registers. They sell pizza by the slice or whole (which can also be bought inside the store to cook at home), hot dogs/Polish sausages, soda, smoothies, etc. It’s not fancy food but high quality for the price.
ETA: no chicken nuggets that I’ve seen. They also have a sort of baked loaf of bread filled with meat and cheese, salads, and pulled pork sandwiches.
This is exactly what I have been talking about. Try it, and if it sucks, I’ll even give you the $10 back so it’s like it didn’t even happen. If you avoid new things- food, movies, non-life-threatening activities, out of fear, you are missing out.
I have enjoyed my co-workers enough to have lunch once or twice a week, at a few jobs. We all have to be there and choose to socialize, and there’s no cafeteria, so we go out to local restaurants. No big deal, until we went to the pizza/fried chicken buffet for the billionth time. The sushi place, the Mexican place, Chinese, even Italian? Always someone unwilling to eat the “strange” menu items and therefore averse to the whole damn place. “I won’t eat there. They serve SQUID!” was mentioned a few times by more than one person.
And yes, there was one job in a small town where the only options were McDonald’s, subway, Perkins, and the diner outside the gas station. So McDonald’s it was, quite often.
And its inexpensive.
Quite honestly, once you’re over 18, I think a person should be able to eat anything he or she damn well pleases.
I meant to comment on this earlier. Certainly you have the unquestionable right to set the standards for who and who is not a candidate for a relationship. My only question is why you lump not adventurous food wise with “not willing to try new things”? Are you a chef? A food critic? Prefer someone that will cook for you?
What if he / she is a skydivin’, hiking, world traveling, Esperanto teaching individual that just doesn’t happen to share your broad love of the gastronomic world? Of all the things one can bring to the metaphorical table, is food your deal breaker? Totally okay if it is, I’m just curious.
I’m still not eating kale.
[QUOTE=tenacious j]
If you avoid new things- food, movies, non-life-threatening activities, out of fear, you are missing out.
[/QUOTE]
But these are three distinct things. Why will you assume that someone who simply isn’t turned on by “the food experience” avoids new things? If you’re lumping these all together, I’m thinking *you’re *the one who is possibly missing out.
I just want to rant for a moment about what a PITA it has become to serve any given group of people a meal of which everyone will eat more than one part. I love to cook, and I do a good job at least remembering everyone’s dietary issues, but it’s getting ridiculous. For example:
Family dinners:
Mom is game for most things, but won’t eat anything spicy or octopus. Tries to keep things healthy, most of the time. I respect that, but when it’s a birthday or holiday dinner, dried fruit compote is not a dessert in my book, dammit.
Tom Scud is spiritually willing to eat just about anything, but the calcium oxalate kidney stones put the kibosh on many things that are quite healthy for most people and have been standards in our house (spinach, chard, many nuts and beans…and I think the one that bummed him out the most was tahini). Basically, a large chunk of the Mediterranean diet. And no tea or chocolate, either.
Sister and BIL: both basically picky eaters of the type the OP was talking about. They do not eat cooked vegetables, and not too many raw ones either. No whole grains. No yogurt. Nothing with complex seasonings. Plus BIL has diabetes, gout, diverticulitis, and is lactose intolerant - hmmmm, wonder if there’s any relationship there? (He would eat fish now and again if he could, but my sister finds it repulsive and won’t cook it.)
Nephew, thank goodness, takes after his grandmother and loves veggies. He is only 9, so one can hope that he will develop a wider palate for more complex things that American culture sometimes doesn’t consider kid-friendly (and yet, kids all over the world eat them).
Among my friends who get invited to dinner now and again (often in groups), we have:
A bunch of vegetarians (if that were the only restriction, I’d be a happy camper)
One of the vegetarians was, until recently, nursing a baby who is allergic to half the planet - dairy, nuts, eggs. Allergies of the type that have put him in the ER several times a year, no matter how hard his label-reading parents try.
Tom Scud’s aforementioned dietary restrictions
A couple of friends who are lactose intolerant, one of whom swears he is also gluten intolerant (self-diagnosed, as far as I know).
WTF am I supposed to cook for all these people? Especially for a festive dinner? I try to do a few different things so that everyone has at least one or two things that they can eat, but it’s a royal pain in the ass to develop a menu.
I didn’t say the same people miss all of those. I was giving examples of things people avoid out of fear. That’s all. 
You go ahead and rant girl; that group *does *sound like a PITA. Which leads me to ask, when it comes to this group, what on earth do you love about cooking? It seems to me that you’re doing the same thing and expecting different results. These people do not appreciate/ respect/ share your culinary skills, so why not hand the ladle over to someone else or just 'dumb it down" for them and save your skills for those prepared to take joy in it?