My #1 Want At The Buffet

At an all you can eat buffet, be it American or Chinese or Swedish, all I want is to fill my plate: half with mashed potatoes and gravy and half with tapioca pudding.

Yes. Those instant mashed potatoes with that generic brown gravy.

I'll try to limit it, because at a Chinese buffet, eating plateful after plateful of mashed potatoes does look a bit odd.

I'm in constant worry that someone will judge my plate of white food. I judge it and find it lacking. I'm at a Chinese buffet, for crying out loud. Eat some fried rice and sesame chicken.

That's not to say I don't. I start off eating broccoli and chicken and a variety of other foods, but when it's time for seconds, I want my potatoes. And I don't need the dessert bar when I've got tapioca pudding.

I only go to an all you can eat buffet once, maybe twice a year, with my family, and we always leave moaning and groaning and saying we won't need to eat for days. Unless, you know, mashed potatoes are offered.

I could manage to eat another plateful. Or two.