Hot SoupWhen I was kid, when­ever my fam­ily and I would go on vaca­tion I’d always order the same thing at restau­rants we’d eat at. I had my Roast Beef Sand­wich phase where I’d order noth­ing but Roast Beef Sand­wiches with a side order of fries, some­times sea­soned and some­times not. Before that there was the Grilled Cheese phase, golden brown on both sides with a huge dol­lop of ketchup on one cor­ner for dipping.

It became some­thing of an inside joke; “What will Erik have this trip? Will he suc­cumb to the same kinds of food or will he try some­thing dif­fer­ent to mix things up a lit­tle?”. Never one to dis­ap­point I’d rarely break the pat­tern of not order­ing the same thing at meal time but on occas­sion I’d try some­thing dif­fer­ent. That was then, this is now, but I’ve found that child­hood quirks stay with you, no mat­ter how much time passes.

Even to this day I’ve noticed pat­terns in what I’ll order at restau­rants and most of the time it’s just food I’ve become com­fort­able eat­ing, like Clam Chow­der for instance. Noth­ing adds to a meal — at least in my opin­ion — like the sooth­ing warmth and taste of thick chow­der topped with soup crack­ers and a dash of salt and pep­per. Even­tu­ally I might grow tired of order­ing clam chow­der with every meal but most likely it’ll be replaced with a dif­fer­ent phase.

Do you have any food phases?