Bored at Mass lately?

Steven A. Shaw, executive director and co-founder of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters and author of Turning the Tables: The Insider’s Guide to Eating Out, penned (keyboarded?) this essay on dining out.

His thoughts about how to have a fine dining experience could be easily tranlated into how to have a fine eucharistic experience.

You have to be willing to expend some effort. People often bristle when confronted with the reality that they have to work in order to get a good meal. They want to be served. But it doesn't work that way. Just as with any kind of human relationship from a marriage to a business partnership, you get more out of dining when you put more into it. It's like when you decide to buy a new TV. You have two choices: walk in to the store and buy whatever the salesperson convinces you to buy (or, in the case of a low-service store like Costco, pick something at random), or take control of the situation by doing some research: go to Consumer Reports online, read product reviews on CNet, check message boards and Amazon feedback, compare prices. You'd put an hour into it, wouldn't you? Well, guess what? Dinner for two at the top restaurants in the Western industrialized nations now costs as much as a new TV. And the value of participation remains high once you get to the restaurant. If you want to get the best possible meal out of a restaurant, you've only got two choices: resent being an active participant in your dining experience, or learn to enjoy it.

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