Fun fact: she left Yahoo citing the staggering incompetence of management and development teams. She was brought in to salvage Yahoo and they proceeded to ignore her and belittle her every chance she got.
Note to vacationing non-Americans: while it’s true that America doesn’t always have the best food culture, the food in our restaurants is really not representative of what most of us eat at home. The portions at Cheesecake Factory or IHOP are meant to be indulgent, not just “what Americans are used to.”
If you eat at a regular American household, during a regular meal where they’re not going out of their way to impress guests, you probably will not be served twelve pounds of chocolate-covered cream cheese. Please bear this in mind before writing yet another “omg I can’t believe American food” post.
Also, most American restaurant portions are 100% intended as two meals’ worth of food. Some of my older Irish relatives still struggle with the idea that it’s not just not rude to eat half your meal and take the rest home, it’s expected. (Apparently this is somewhat of an American custom.)
Until you’re hitting the “fancy restaurant” tier (the kind of place you go for a celebration or an anniversary date), a dinner out should generally also be lunch for the next day. Leftovers are very much the norm.
From the little time I’ve spent in Canada, this seems to be the case up there as well.
the portions in family restaurants (as opposed to haute cuisine types) are designed so that no one goes away hungry.
volume IS very much a part of the american hospitality tradition, and Nobody Leaves Hungry is important. but you have to recognize that it’s not how we cook for ourselves, it’s how we welcome guests and strengthen community ties.
so in order to give you a celebratory experience and make you feel welcomed, family restaurants make the portions big enough that even if you’re a teenage boy celebrating a hard win on the basketball court, you’re still going to be comfortably full when you leave.
of course, that means that for your average person with a sit-down job, who ate a decent lunch that day, it’s twice as much as they want or more. that’s ok. as mentioned above, taking home leftovers is absolutely encouraged. that, too, is part of american hospitality tradition; it’s meant to invoke fond memories of grandma loading you down with covered dishes so you can have hearty celebration food all week. pot luck church basement get-togethers where the whole town makes sure everybody has enough. that sort of thing. it’s about sharing. it’s about celebrating Plenty.
it’s not about pigging out until you get huge. treating it that way is pretty disrespectful of our culture. and you know, contrary to what the world thinks, we do have one.
Oh my god yes!
That’s why waiters always ask if you want a to-go box. Wanting to take home leftovers means the food was good.
Hell, one of the best things about Thanksgiving is divvying up the leftovers. Loading up plates with extra turkey and stuffing and slices of pie. Sending extra home with every member of the family and knowing they’ll be able to take it easy that night or the next day with a meal ready and waiting for them.
We share food. We share our time. We share memories.
Aye to that
For ourselves and casual meals, you’ve got a 50/50 chance that the meal will be designed to have left overs. Most families I know have 1 or 2 days of the week that are ‘leftovers’ days. Days that you eat what was left from meals of the proceeding week. It’s to make things easier for the cook(s) in the house and also it saves money in the long run.
Then when guests are over or it’s a celebration, you always cook extra to show off and make them feel welcome AND so that they can take a meal (or two) home with them.
It’s actually tied to the Great Depression to a greater or lesser degree.
Also, it’s actually a slight (or an insult to a degree) to say you don’t want a to-go box at a restaurant if you’ve still food left, as that tellst he staff that you did not enjoy the meal and only ate to be polite
Basically Americans are an example of ‘the way to a heart is through the stomach’, although it’s oft kindly meant. It’s also how to spend time and conversation with those you know and care for, to strengthen bonds and memories.
I’m sure most of you already saw/ read somewhere that Tumblr is changing their rules about “adult content” and that they already started flagging stuff as of today.
I went through the entirety of my art blog and several pieces got flagged (some for actually going against their new rules – bad bad devil nipples, but some just cause fuck yeah bot algorithms)
Anyways, if you want to continue to follow me and see my stuff you can find me on Twitter (for now only there, I have to find a place that comes close to what Tumblr offered in terms of presentation urg)
It were lovely 4 years overall on here and I met/ got to know a lot of fine people ❤ So thank you all for supporting and following me for the past years, hope to see you around!
Chartreuse Abstruseness Export 