Dining out, we tend to favor the familiar. Life can be wearying – you know this – and weariness all too easily robs us of our better enthusiasms, our curiosity, our lightness. It’s so much easier to return to places we know and to drive past the places we don’t. After all, to seek out, to find, to eat at a new place – to do it well, anyway – takes energy. You want to step through the doors with your mind blank, free of distraction, open and attentive to the new and the strange.
Summers, thankfully, we have a little more time and energy. Two summers ago, we tried to eat at all the area taquerias – this is recommended to everyone who has access to taquerias. Last summer, we did pizza (not so much). This summer, we’ve decided we’re going to very intentionally go to all those places we’ve been driving past. We’re seeking them out, opening ourselves up to them, and we’re going to experience the new.