date a girl who eats

by Bianca Consunji

Date a girl who eats. Date a girl who dares to order a steak instead of slowly picking at salad leaves dressed with vinaigrette on the first date. She is the girl who knows what’s good on the menu, and knows that carbonara is often ordered by the bland brigade of people who don’t know any better.

Take her to a steak restaurant; make sure that you order your steak medium rare and not well done, because she knows that only barbarians order well done. Steak, medium rare, is the best way to identify good meat from the mediocre. She skips the Hollandaise and tucks in, stopping only for a bite of potatoes in between. The girl who eats doesn’t beat around the bush: she knows that steaks that require sauce are insecure.

Date her because that’s the same way she likes guys: substantial, and real. You won’t need to impress her with fancy restaurants, because the girl who eats has been to roadside eateries that serve food that’s just as good—or even better—than stuffy establishments. Knock down a stick of barbecue and a good, cold beer with her (as long as you don’t ice it down to a watery mess).

When you’re with the girl who eats, you won’t have to worry if there’s a fried chicken grease spot on your shirt, or if there’s ketchup on your cheek. She’ll understand—she’s been there. Maybe as a joke she’ll smear cake icing on the tip of your nose and kiss it off.

Date a girl who eats because she’ll take care of you. She’ll feed you chicken soup when you’re sick, and bake cookies on lazy weekends. A girl who eats isn’t afraid of adventure, and is constantly in search of new things to try: fried milk, chocolate bacon, tequila-flavored ice cream.

The girl who eats will go all over the world in search of the perfect meal, but knows that often, the best things are the ones closest to home. She will keep coming back to the basics: a bowl of steaming rice topped with her mom’s beef stew, flavored with onions and pepper; her grandmother’s soup, the result of hours of stirring in the kitchen. Her dad’s grilled cheese sandwiches, done in five minutes, but no less impressive.

Maybe one day, while the two of you share a slice of cake, she’ll realize that you’ve occupied a permanent place in her heart in the same way the stews and soups from home have, and she won’t have to go around the world in search of the perfect meal. Because anything you make for her at that point is the perfect meal, even if you char the steak and forget to salt the potatoes.