Have you ever noticed that when a party of four orders dinner at a restaurant, if someone orders something, the chances are that someone else will also order the same thing. It’s a rule. It might not be a supper club rule, but it happens all the time.
This rule isn’t always a good thing. We were once in a restaurant outside of Paris with two other couples. While my French isn’t great, my 8 years of high school and college French, made me the spokesperson for the group. I knew that veau was veal and I like veal, so I ordered rognon de veau. As the third person ordered the same thing, it occurred to me and I announced: “Rognon de veau is probably organ meat”. Of course it was, and while it wasn’t what we would have ordered, it certainly was a learning experience.
The “I’ll have what she is having” scene from the movie “When Harry Meets Sally” was filmed at the famous Katz’s deli on the lower east side of Manhattan. My connection to Katz’s goes to my Aunt Mary Johnson, the consummate shopper. Aunt Mary lived on Staten Island and worked in Manhattan. Just about every weekend she would go shopping on the lower east side and a couple of times a year my family would drive in from White Plains to visit with my aunt and shop. These visits usually included lunch at Katz’s and while the deli food was great, I never saw the reaction that Meg Ryan’s character had.
A favorite story about my Aunt Mary’s shopping prowess, goes back to when my grandparents passed away. As way of background, my father always claimed that our family was part Jewish. In the family dynamic, Aunt Mary was closer to the Jerry Seinfeld side and my uncle Jim was definitely of the Archie Bunker ilk. My grandparents died within a month of each other and as the family was preparing for their burial, Aunt Mary announced to uncle Jim that she had gotten a great deal on a tombstone. She told him she had found it in a shop of the lower east side and while it was slightly used the shop promised they could buff out the Star of David. Poor uncle Jim went into a tirade about not marking their good Catholic parent’s grave with a Jewish tombstone. To which my aunt Mary replied….”Gotcha”
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