Desserts with something fresh out of the oven and ice cream on top are similar- wait even 5 minutes and the melting ice cream hurts the taste and texture noticeably. Now, if they were talking about typical dishes without built-in temperature differences, I might agree with you.

Agreed. The only time I'd use my phone whilst in a restaurant would be a) to take a photo if it's a birthday party or celebration, or b) if there was really bad service or standards of hygiene, and I wanted proof to back it up when I reported it. Ok, technically there's also c) to take a call, but I would either switch the phone off or put it on silent or vibrate, to avoid pissing off everyone around me.

-MT.

I get that often, but that's for when I just chow something down at a cheap place or at home or a fastfood joint. If I go to an expensive restaurant, I don't go there that hungry. For one the portions are rarely that big, secondly what's the point of blowing the cash if it'll barely touch your taste buds on the way down? Had to do that recently because of a misunderstanding so we had to leave early, what a waste of delicious beef when I barely got more enjoyment out of it than a trip to Burger King. At least I wasn't the one paying or I'd be really annoyed...

It's not so much food puritanism, on my part, anyway. It's that I think food is intrinsically uninteresting, and I'd rather we got cooking and eating done quickly so we can talk about or do things that are actually interesting. There are simple, nutritious foods that taste good; spending more time on preparing food to trick it up into something more elaborate seems to me to be a waste of time.

I dunno. Healthy foods can taste *really* good, and look good too, with their vibrant colors. Unhealthy food only really tastes comfortable, and of course there's the slight bump from the fats and sugars that were once scanty in our pre-civilization diet.

It's also more expensive, though, which I think is the real problem. An overdone ground-beef patty, mayonnaise, some wilty lettuce and a slice of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils with some fat-soaked potato slices and tomato & corn syrup preserves on the side is not only cheap to produce, but the ingredients store well for long periods unrefrigerated.

I'm not convinced "taxing it" is the answer either, as then this comfortable, unhealthy mix will be unavailable to the poor, but they won't magically be able to afford healthy food as a result...

Have you ever been to the middle or far east? There's a whole lot of amazingly delicious foods that look, and sometimes smell, roughly like someone has already eaten them.

Without a sense of smell, you hardly taste anything... including if something is or might be poisonous, either because of its nature, or because its spoiled. You can't smell smoke, which is an early indicator of fire, and you can't smell a gas leak. Smell is pretty friggin' important to actual survival, so I'm not sure I'd classify it as minor.

Some restaurants have taken the step of banning cameras, or at least have established a 'no flash' rule.

Here was I thinking it was because they fear nobody's going to go to a restaurant serving a tiny portion size. The more the cook fancies himself as a great chef, the less you'll get on your plate.

Presentation betrays the care that was taken in preparing your food.

I think presentation is very important, but then again, I really enjoy going to more upscale restaurants. I'd rather go somewhere nice once a month (or every other month even) than go to places like Applebee's every week. If you don't care about presentation then you might fall into the latter category.

Considering the average weight of a geek, food definitely is “the other thing that he likes very much”. :)

Then again, considering his food mainly consists of (forgive my lack of knowledge about US trash “food”) pop tarts and pizza... ;)

But I already thought: Why is there not a /.-like site for all areas of expertise? One for cooks. One for artists. One for porn stars... (no, you’re not allowed there!). Whatever. :)

Are they using polaroid cameras?

An easy example: Drink some gatorade. Then work out like mad. Play basketball or rugby with friends or go running, just wear yourself out. Then drink more gatorade, suddenly it actually tastes good.