Your table is ready Mr. Guidry, would you prefer cymbals or non cymbals?

I close my eyes and I can see it: I was in a suit, starched shirt, cuff links, fiddling with my Dunhill lighter on the perfect white table cloth.  There was food, wine, jazz, the clinking of ice in crystal and the laughter of beautiful women.  There was staff standing by to fulfill my every need. Heaven.  I was in my favorite place in the world,  a restaurant.


But that was before I had to change everything.  I'm afraid that's all over now, I'll may never have that again.  I've gone vegan, and also avoid sugar, flour and wheat.   The only vegan's who party when they eat are the Krishna's.

If you don't understand the sacrifice I'm making then you just don't know.  Restaurants are awesome sauce.

If you are not a huge fan of restaurants I feel sorry for you. I learned by age 14 that anyone with $50 got to be king for the length of a meal at a restaurant.  You are served, literally waited on by people happy to do so.  Actual enthusiastic participation not grudging acquiescence.

"Aren't waiters wonderful?  You ask them for things and they bring them. Same principle as Santa Clause" Arthur (1981 Dudley Moore not hat Russel Brand abortion)

Being a patron in a restaurant is a gestalt of awesomeness, you're eating which is awesome, the food is prepared better than you can make it yourself (usually) and exactly how you like it and delivered to you by fawning minions. WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE!

A restaurant was my first date, 11 years old, Luanne Kimball, at the local pizza place, she played Bohemian rhapsody on the jukebox;  my first job at Sir Walter Raleigh Inn, dish washer & food prep 14 years old.  And second job as a short order cook at a drug store lunch counter, (yes I know, I'm old).

Restaurants are at the center of most of the major events in my life. I proposed to the mother of my son in a restaurant, I turned 18, 21, 25, 30, 40 in a restaurant.  I've interviewed for jobs and closed deals, and enjoyed countless evenings of laughter and friendship. 3am at a Denny's is where the muse came out to play. Eating out is how I celebrate, how I woo, how I work.  A restaurant is home.

AND I am from and live in New Orleans, arguably the best restaurant city in the world.  There is better food here at a gas station then at the restaurants in most cities.

Here's the problem.  Restaurants, the best ones anyway, serve foods that I no longer eat.  Ordering a side of veggies and a salad at Emeril's Delmonico is blasphemy.  I can't do the Chef's tasting menu at August, no more jazz brunch at Commander's Palace, gone, the three hour dinner with friends at Antoine's, bye bye Chophouse, so long Couchon, Adios La Boca, See ya Felix's, the party is over.

Restaurants are the collateral damage in my struggle for health and fitness.  My current dietary restrictions pretty much rule out every great restaurant in the known universe.  No sugar, no flour, no wheat, no eggs, no dairy, no meat. All that's left is a plain baked potato and a salad with oil and vinegar.  So that brings us back to tambourines and cymbals.

Where else can an obsessively health conscious vegan enjoy a languid and long meal other than the weekly free Krishna temple buffet?  Is it possible to experience that euphoric feeling of dining out without the decadence of rich food?  We'll see.  And who knows maybe the Krishna's are really onto something.  They do seem pretty damn happy. And after all, orange is the new black.