Food Snob

People seek experiences that satiate their needs.  One of those needs is to consume.  Another need is entertainment.  The two combined usually result in dining out.  In a town where you can find restaurants galore in a stones throw of one another, Asheville has become a culinary melting pot of ideas. Some flourish and others fade which begs the question: can you judge a book by it's cover? Can you judge a restaurant on the amount of filled seats?  Is it the experience, the food or the delicate combination of both?  Can a restaurant make it with ordinary food and amazing service or is the food alone that measures its success?  Why do people sit and wait for what seems like hours at Mellow Mushroom?

Ashevillians peacefully rioting for pizza

This question has always perplexed me as their food has never been mind blowing.  Does this interference allow the diner to shed any guilt of actually enjoying themselves while being gawked at by hungry on lookers awaiting a table?  Is it some magical force from a fault line miles deep emitting odorless happy gas?  I have no idea.  This is Asheville.  Home of the oddities that make it unique. Blah Blah Blah.
 

Okay, if my wife was reading this she lost all interest at magical fault line.  Hopefully you didn't.  You must be thinking how truly bored I must be if I am attempting to share my experiences with you.  Right?  Wrong! The truth is that my wife constantly cooks healthy food and I miss butter.  I want charcuterie plates, oysters, burgers and sushi!  She wants me to live forever in a dull, tasteless, foodtopia of vegetables and tofu.  Don't get me wrong, I love my wife.  I would never choose anything over her.  She just doesn't understand my dilemma.  In a desperate ploy for culinary enlightenment I need an excuse to justify dining out once a week.  I've decided to convince my wife that a date night is important to keeping the "spark" bright in our marriage.  It's just a little white lie.  Nobody is gonna get hurt.  She likes food.  Everything will be fine as long as she doesn't figure out my true motives.  This is where you come in. 

In return for my cheaters remorse I will share my experiences.  Each week I will take my wife to a restaurant here in greater Asheville.  If we are lucky, I will eventually get to two a week.  Baby steps first.  Afterward I will share some random information in the form of a "review" and hopefully you will read it and offer some feedback.  Unless you are a jerk in which case I will find myself drinking heavily to swallow the guilt caused by your bullying.  This will probably result in the failure of this blog and my marriage.  I would prefer you to talk behind my back.  In the most unlikely case that you want to leave some quality feedback about this experiment, I thank you in advance.  My ego is only stimulated by gracious people.  You will just have to accept this as a part of my human identity.  Speaking of me!

In order to protect my identity I will not tell you who I am.  I can't have people knowing as I'm sure my reputation will be notorious and eventually strike fear into the heart of restaurant owners.   I might even be the next Mackensy Lunsford.  Have you experienced her scaremonger tactics?  She strikes fear in everyones heart.  Most importantly if my wife finds out what I am up to I'll be eating ground turkey and greens for the rest of my bitter existence.  Secrecy is imperative at this point.

The only drawback to this decision is it leaves out a level of intimacy that I should have with you.  I don't want you thinking I am just another pretentious food snob!  Neither of us want this whole identity thing looming over of us while you are trying to navigate the mental mazes I create.  While pen names are cliche they can be effective.  As much as I hate to be cliche I will consider this option.  In the mean time, you should subscribe.