Be part of our foodie community

Gravy stains and tall tales: A real foodie journey

2 days ago

Alone, overdressed, and mildly unhinged… my first attempt at dining alone.

It starts hours before the actual event.

Not the dinner. The idea of the dinner.

You’re in your hotel room, standing in front of a mirror, trying on versions of yourself like outfits. This one looks too try-hard. That one looks like you’ve given up entirely. Somewhere in the middle is a woman who appears relaxed, confident, and completely at ease with the fact she is about to walk into a restaurant alone and announce it to the world.

You settle on something. Not because it’s perfect, but because you’ve run out of time to overthink it.

Hair. Makeup. A bit more effort than usual, because somehow this feels like a performance. You are not just going to dinner. You are staging a one-woman show called “Look at Me, I Absolutely Do This All the Time.”

You leave the room.

The corridor feels longer than it did five minutes ago. The lift takes forever. You check your reflection in the mirrored doors like you’re about to go on stage. The lobby is full of people who seem to belong somewhere. Couples. Groups. People who look like they have plans.

Out onto the street.

The walk to the restaurant is a strange kind of theatre. You are hyper-aware of everything. Your shoes. Your pace. Your face. You try to arrange yourself into someone who definitely does this regularly. Someone who breezes into places alone, orders confidently, leaves with stories.

Instead, you’re thinking about turning around.

You don’t.

You arrive.

The door is open. Warm light spills out. Laughter. Glasses clinking. The low hum of people who are very clearly not thinking about you at all.

You step inside anyway.

There she is. The hostess. Impossibly thin. Impossibly composed. The kind of person who looks like she’s never once questioned a life decision.

“Table for one, please.”

You hear it come out of your mouth and immediately want to grab it back.

For a split second, you are convinced she’s judging you. That she’s clocked everything. The hesitation. The fact you hovered outside for a full thirty seconds before coming in. The internal monologue screaming, abort mission, abort, ABORT!

In reality, she couldn’t care less. But in your head, she gives the smallest nod, possibly an eye roll, definitely a silent acknowledgment that you are alone and have dared to say it out loud.

She picks up a menu.

“Right this way.”

And now it begins.

The walk.

This is the worst part.

You follow her through the restaurant, acutely aware of your own existence. Every step feels louder than it should be. You are convinced every single person in that room has turned to look at you.

They haven’t.

But in your mind, they absolutely have.

There you are, walking behind this elegant creature, like a slightly overdressed extra in a film about people who have their lives together. You imagine the conversations.

“Is she alone?”
“Why is she alone?”
“Should someone check on her?”

No one is saying any of this. One man briefly looks up from his steak. A couple continues arguing quietly over the wine. A group laughs at something that has nothing to do with you.

Still, it feels like a spotlight.

You reach the table.

“Here you are.”

She places the menu down. You thank her with the slightly over-bright enthusiasm of someone who has just survived a minor ordeal.

You sit.

Now what.

You reach for your phone immediately, like it’s a flotation device. You scroll. You tap. You pretend you are answering urgent messages, possibly negotiating something important, definitely not hiding behind a glowing screen to avoid eye contact with the world.

You hold the glass of water like it’s part of the act. Casual. Relaxed. This is normal. You are normal.

Inside, you are counting down the seconds until you can leave without looking like a complete lunatic.

And then someone appears.

A waiter. A menu is placed in front of you.

“Can I get you a drink?”

And this is where something shifts.

Because up until now, this has all been about survival. Getting through the door. Surviving the walk. Managing the seven minutes of pure, concentrated awkwardness that feels like it might kill you.

Seven minutes. That’s all it is. The grand, terrifying barrier between you and the rest of the evening.

Seven slightly excruciating minutes of not knowing where to put your hands, your eyes, your entire existence.

And then…

You open the menu.

And suddenly, it hits you.

You can order whatever the fuck you want.

Not what someone else feels like. Not something you have to compromise on. Not the safe option because someone at the table “doesn’t like garlic” or “isn’t really into seafood” or has recently decided they’re a vegetarian for reasons no one fully understands.

No.

This is yours.

The ridiculous cocktail with the smoke and the theatre. The one you’d normally be too embarrassed to suggest. You want it? Done.

That starter dripping in garlic butter that would normally start a small diplomatic incident across the table. Order it. No one is leaning away from you in horror. No one is commenting on your choices.

The main. Go wild. The thing you always look at and think, that sounds incredible but I won’t get it because no one else will want it. Get it.

Have the steak. Have the fish. Have something you can’t pronounce that arrives looking like a work of art or a complete accident. Better yet, have that thing you don’t know how to eat! Get the Dungeness crab. The full version. Crack it, tear into it, dig through every hidden pocket until there’s nothing left. Butter, salt, fingers wrecked. No one across the table pulling faces. Just you and the thing you actually wanted.

No one is stopping you.

You sit back, slightly stunned.

Because just like that, the fear is gone.

Not in some dramatic, life-changing way. It just… evaporates. Replaced by something far more interesting.

Freedom.

You take a sip of your drink. You look around. The room hasn’t changed. The people are still doing whatever they were doing before you arrived.

The only thing that’s changed is you.

Seven minutes ago, you were convinced you didn’t belong here.

Now you’re wondering why the hell you ever thought that.

The food arrives. You eat it. Properly. Or not. Not distracted. Not negotiating. Not sharing. Just eating something good, exactly how you want it.

And somewhere between the first bite and the second sip, you realise something slightly ridiculous.

You’re not surviving this.

You’re enjoying it.

And that thing you were so worried about?

It was never the restaurant.
It was never the table.
It was never being alone.

It was just those seven minutes.

Seven minutes that tried to convince you not to come.

Seven minutes that nearly won.

Nearly. … See MoreSee Less

Gravy stains and tall tales: A real foodie journey

3 days ago

You only live once. The clock doesn’t care

It usually begins the same way. A message, sent late in the evening, when the house is quiet and the day has finally stopped asking anything of you. You can almost picture it without trying. Someone on the sofa, glass of wine within reach, scrolling a little too long, watching someone else’s life unfold on a screen.

“I wish I could do this.”
“I’d love to travel but I’ve got no one to go with.”
“I nearly booked something once.”

That last one stays with you. Not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s so familiar. 'Nearly' is where a lot of people end up living…not in a bold, tragic way, just quietly, almost boring. Plans are discussed, options explored, bags mentally packed, and then… fucking nothing. Something always gets in the way. Timing. Other people… you know the ones who say 'Yea! Let's do this!' and then come up with every excuse in the book not to go. Your own personal doubt creeps in dressed up as practicality.

You hear it enough times and you start to recognise the pattern. It isn’t really about the destination. It’s about permission. About waiting for the right conditions to make something feel safe. Life is not safe. Life is not fun when it's 'too safe'.

The truth is, the conditions NEVER bloody line up.

There isn’t a perfect moment where everything clicks into place and the decision suddenly feels easy. What actually happens is much smaller than that. You get tired of waiting. That one day the idea of not going starts to feel worse than the idea of going. This is a good day!

That is the point where things change.

Not because you suddenly become fearless, but because you stop expecting the experience to arrive neatly packaged. You book the trip anyway, slightly unsure, slightly excited, wondering if you’ve just made a complete ass of it. BTW… you did…and that's half the fun.

And then you get to live with that decision.

The first part is uncomfortable. Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of shit. They are lying or trying to sell you something. There is nothing naturally effortless about turning up somewhere on your own when you’ve spent years doing things as part of a pair or a group. You notice everything. Where to stand. Where to sit. What to do with your hands. You become acutely aware of yourself in a way that feels faintly ridiculous… like you have a massive booger sticking out of your nose.

There is that moment, usually early on, where you question the whole thing. Sitting somewhere with a drink, looking around, thinking, what the hell am I doing here.

And then you get through it.

Because that towering wall of social discomfort you’ve been building up in your head for years turns out to be about seven minutes thick.

Seven.

Seven slightly awkward minutes of not knowing where to look, how to sit, whether to smile at someone or pretend to be deeply interested in the wine list (or worse, your phone). Seven minutes of feeling like you’ve accidentally wandered into the wrong room. I know… I've timed it.

And then it passes.

No announcement. No grand shift. You just… settle.

And here’s the part that always surprises people.

No one gives a shit…not even a flying fuck.

Not in a cruel way. In a freeing way. Everyone else is far too busy dealing with their own nonsense. Their own slightly awkward conversations, their own relationship dramas, their own quiet insecurities.

You are not the centre of attention. You’re just another person in the room.

Which, it turns out, is exactly what you need.

That realisation doesn’t arrive all at once. It creeps in. You start to see it in small details. The couple who aren’t speaking. The group trying a bit too hard. The solo traveller at the next table who looks completely at ease, not because they always have been, but because they’ve done this before and lived to tell the tale.

And then, almost without noticing, you find your rhythm.

The awkwardness fades. Not because something dramatic happens, but because you stop fighting it. You order what you want without the usual polite negotiations, like that pork tail soup you've always wanted to try. You go where you feel like going and not care that you'll offend someone's constitution. You sit longer than you normally would, or leave early without having to explain yourself. THIS is freedom!

There’s no compromise. No waiting around for someone else to make up their mind.

It’s just you, moving through a place at your own pace.

That’s when it becomes something else entirely.

That’s the moment that matters. You either keep putting it off, or you get on with it. As my brother-in-law once told me… Shit or get off the pot!

Time doesn’t pause while you decide. It keeps moving, whether you’re booking the trip or sitting there overthinking it for the hundredth time. Years pass in the same way conversations do. One idea rolls into the next, plans get reshaped, priorities shift, and before long the things you once thought you’d do start to sound like stories from someone else’s life.

You only live once. Not as a slogan, but as a simple, slightly inconvenient fact. Just do it.

And you are only worth as much as you owe. Not in money, but in experience. In the things you haven’t yet allowed yourself to have. The places you haven’t stood. The conversations you haven’t had. The food you haven't eaten. The decisions you keep politely avoiding. Besides, when you’re dead and owe no one a penny, what exactly have you won? A tidy spreadsheet and no stories? Who cares…just book it!

So you book the trip. You turn up. You feel out of place for a while. You get through it. You find your rhythm. You realise you’re capable of more than you gave yourself credit for.

Nothing miraculous happens. No dramatic transformation. No sudden reinvention.

You just fucking go.

And after a while, that becomes the whole point. … See MoreSee Less