The same thing happened every single time I sat down for lunch. Upon taking the contents out of the plastic bag, my colleagues would peer at the food and make comments:

• “What is that?”
• “That looks delicious!”
• “Is that the weird pita thing you had last week?”

Sometimes, they asked me to describe the ingredients in my lunch and how I prepared it. They were attentive, nodding with approval or raising their eyebrows with curiosity.

“Is that what you people from the West Coast eat?”

During my first few weeks in New York, all of this scrutiny of my food frankly weirded me out. Never before have I experienced such interest in my food or my eating habits.

“What other things do you like to add to your stuffing?”

As time passed, though, I noticed that a lot of people in New York have this weird fascination with food. Any food.

“What do you think of the grilled cheese today? Your sandwich looks a little tired there.”

The food need not be exotic. Anything will pique the interest of anyone.

“What do you think you will choose at the vending machine? Are you gonna go for the Snickers or the Twix?”

This interest, however, only comes alive when a person interacts with the food.

“I don’t know… if I go with the Twix, I’ll get that nice contrast of the gooey caramel with the cookie crunch. The Snickers, though, has the peanuts. More heft.”

If there is a bit of food sitting alone on a table, unclaimed, no one cares. No one inspects it, analyzes it, questions it. It sits alone, in peace.

Unlike most of the meals I have eaten in public here.

The waiter had brought out the main course and The Beau and I smiled with delight. Before digging in with forks, we both admired the dishes in silence.

The couple sitting at the table next to us—and the table wasn’t literally right next to ours, as often happens in New York restaurants—watched us eat. The woman leaned over and blurted, “That looks delicious—what is it?”

After I told her the name of the dish and listed the ingredients I could recall, she nodded enthusiastically and continued, “Wow—isn’t this the best food you’ve ever had?”

The man who was sitting across from her nodded enthusiastically at us.

“You don’t like the food here, do you,” my friend asked. We were at a restaurant, though it is better known for its bar. I had ordered a burrito and, truthfully, I ate it with great disappointment.

“It’s okay,” I said. “California has spoiled me.”

“Well, what’s in that thing, anyway?” she asked. She put her fork down and looked at my plate. I had eviscerated the burrito and was picking at the contents. Occasionally, I peeled off a bit of the tortilla to accompany the slop. “I see bell peppers, rice, tomatoes… is that lettuce?”

“Do you really get a full glass of orange juice with the breakfast?” he asked. Some people have remarked that poor enunciation of words is part of the New York accent. I don’t know that I entirely agree with that—people are enunciating just fine when they’re saying things like, “GET THE F@#$ OUT OF HERE, YOU F@#$ING @$$HOLE! What a f@#$er…”—but there is a contingent of people who live here who perpetually mumble. And when people are mumbling and speaking fast, I have difficulty understanding them.

“What?” I replied. There was a time when, with this fellow, I would have responded, “I’m sorry?”, but that apparently takes too long. He usually starts repeating himself before I can get to the “ry” part of “sorry”.

“Do you get a full glass of orange juice with the breakfast,” he repeated, this time a little more slowly.

I shrugged. I hadn’t eaten at this diner before.

“That’s actually a better deal,” he continued. “I just got a cup of coffee, but if I knew that you get a full glass of orange juice with the breakfast if you don’t get coffee, then I would have asked for the juice.”

“Uh huh,” I said, unsure of what else to say.

I don’t know if it’s simply just a fascination with food, or if it’s this fascination with food mixed with a significantly elevated level of neuroticism. There’s plenty of both here.