The Menu Reading
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By Carol Braker
The Turquoise Room, inside La Posada Hotel, Winslow, AZ
The Signature Soup
$8.00
Smooth black bean and cream of corn, chile cream signature
For customers, menus are often an overlooked part of the dining experience. Before the internet, the food selection was a surprise when you walked in. Post pandemic the menu is often a QR code that you scan and squint at on your phone. Turns out that a menu can be a vital part of the anticipation of a restaurant meal.
I spent a few days with my aunt and cousin, who is blind, this summer. They planned a couple of restaurant outings for my cousin’s birthday. Once the reservations were made, I was surprised that a couple of days before our meals my aunt got out her iPad and we sat on her lovely deck overlooking the woods and began “the menu reading.”
I never had a menu read aloud before and what a surprising pleasure it was. Since my cousin can’t read the menu herself, I could understand the need for reading it aloud, but I didn’t realize what a cherished ritual it was for both of them, and became for me.
When my aunt began, she started at the top and she read each and every item. Had she eaten the meal before the reading, she could provide a backstory. A descriptive backstory is something that the menu writers might want to include themselves. For example, who would know from the above description that the soup is a black bean soup in half of the bowl and cream of corn soup in the other? When you gently mix the two halves, yellow and black, together you get a slightly different, delicious flavor with each bite. Guests travel from around Arizona to enjoy it.
My cousin loves dining out, especially since she was having a cocktail summer with a different drink every day. My aunt never assumed that my cousin wouldn’t want the food so she could skip reading the item. Each dish was the start of a conversation; when they last had the food, the experience with that food, the way it was cooked and its presentation, and whether this restaurant might do it justice. Occasionally, the memory of that dish might spur a story of how my aunt, a gourmet cook, had prepared it for others and how they liked it.
Over the years, my cousin has become a master menu planner and she consults on all the dinners my aunt prepares. Through the years they have bonded over all types of foods, both homemade as well as restaurants. The “menu readings” certainly heightened my dining experience and brought me closer to my cousin and aunt.
Carol is a world traveler who always plans her next meal while eating her current one.
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