At my favorite bookstore in August, I came across a book that looked fascinating, Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant. A bunch of well-know authors wrote essays about secret eating habits from their single days. Next time I see it in a store I'm buying it. We all have eating habits that we don't indulge in when others are around - I had a friend in grad school who ate cereal for dinner every night. For months. I remember a time when Meredith's favorite meal was white rice with butter. Jared admitted on Facebook recently that when his wife wasn't in town he eats Taco Bell - yuck!

My super secret food behavior isn't a type of food, rather my last step of food prep. When I eat alone, the last thing I do in the kitchen is to pre-cut all of my food. That's right, as if I were feeding a small child who can't be trusted with a knife, I cut my food into bite-sized pieces. This enables me to eat one-handed, freeing up my other hand to hold a book and turn the pages. There's nothing worse in my book (hah!) than having to put down whatever I'm reading between bites in order to pick up my knife.

Now, when I'm eating on my own in a restaurant, I feel lke I can't do this. Instead, I let my available reading material determine my food choice. If I've brought a magazine, newspaper, paper, or something that lays flat I order meat or anything that requires two hands. If I've got a book with me, then it's pasta, a salad, or some other meal that I can eat with one hand.

It's what works for me.

tip math

Ok, a quick moment out of the conference - I'm about to go through the list of posters in this session to see who I want to talk to, but I've got plenty of time and need a little solitude before delving back into a large group of people I don't know.

I just had lunch down in the hotel restaurant - note, don't do that. We get a free breakfast buffet, fine, but the lunch buffet was 12$ and not great food, in fact, quite bad Chinese food. And there I am, a single diner, and the waiter took that as leave to disappear. I have blogged about dining alone before, and let me just say, that as someone who enjoys having a nice meal by myself sometimes, it's ridiculous how variable the service to someone on their own is, especially as my tips are much more variable when I'm by myself. In a group the default is a 20% tip, and he who deviates from that either forces someone else to step up, or leaves a message diluted by the number of people who gave the requisite 15-20%. So really, it's the single diners to watch out for. When I'm out on my own and the service is good, I'll tip more like 30% because I appreciate the effort, but bad service cuts me down below 20%, and I almost never do that. I did at lunch. I had an empty water glass and a hankering for hot tea, and it was almost ten minutes before I even saw my waiter in the room, and no one else came around to fill the water, either, except after my waiter finally brought me tea, and then I didn't need it. Although, I feel like I stiffed the guy with a 2$ tip on a 13$ bill, but that's just over 15%, so he probably didn't notice. Junk.