My grandmother used to make an incredible stew of sausage, white beans and endive with lots of garlic. I forget what the dish was called, but it had a long, lovely Italian name with lots of vowels and soft consonants. My younger brother, who is a superb cook, has tried to replicate grandma’s endive stew but it’s never quite right, so when I saw something similar on a restaurant menu recently, I had to try. “I’ll have the endive stew,” I told the waiter.
The waiter was a short guy, but since he was standing and I was sitting he was able to look down on me with pure contempt. “I assume you mean the ‘on-deeve’ stew?” he sniffed.
I sighed; I am hopelessly common, so I readily admit that I said “en-dive.” I don’t spend a lot of time discussing lettuce in real life, but I think “on-deeve” sounds pretentious, the kind of word used by people who insist on calling a vase a “vahz.” By the same token, although I may be common, I don’t like being corrected by waiters, although I’m sure it must have made him feel good to finally put his liberal arts degree to good use. Now, I smiled meekly at the correction and silently resolved to under-tip him, which I did. Besides, the stew sucked, anyway.
This experience is not unique for me. I am continually confronted by supercilious food servers who feel that their role is to edify and educate me, when all I want is to order dinner. It disturbs me that there is some aspect of my persona that makes strangers feel comfortable correcting me. I’m not sure why: My table manners are perfectly respectable and on the night that I ordered the “en-dive” stew I was wearing my best cargo shorts and my special-occasion flip flops, so it can’t be my attire. I am clueless.
It was not long after the endive incident that I was in a neighborhood Chinese place and asked for a fork, as I habitually do, which offended the waitress. Her English skills were limited to begin with, but she refused to give me a fork, muttering and pointing furiously to the chopsticks in front of me. “Wow,” said my partner; “I think she just told you to fork yourself.” I thought that I would happily learn to use chopsticks in a Chinese restaurant if the waitress would learn to use English in an English speaking country, but I could hardly say so, (not that she would have understood anyway) so I under tipped her instead.
We were at a restaurant near Galleria when I decided I was in the mood for a steak. I don’t like blood, however, so I ordered my steak well done. The waitress rolled her eyes. “Chef refuses to overcook the meat,” she said primly; “he says it’s an insult to the steer.”
We all have a breaking point; this was mine. “An insult to the steer?” I began, as the waitress stared. “If Chef is so concerned with the steer’s feelings, ask Chef how the steer felt about having an iron bolt shot between his eyes, then having his throat slit and then being ground up into hamburger patties.” The waitress was backing up by this point. “Because if you ask me,” I continued, “that’s the real insult.”
I was wound up to say more but I noticed that my partner was sliding under the table from embarrassment, and other diners were beginning to stare so I stopped. “Fine,” I said, resolving to under tip her. “I’ll have the pork roast.”
“We serve the pork rare,” she said.