Limited time offer? A new twist? You just can't beat the classics! 🍽️

When it comes to food, I am no adventurer. Even if I found a delicacy glowing in the depths of a cave, I'm the type to turn back and say, 'No thanks, I'll just have the steamed bun from the shop at the entrance.' Despite this, I am the one in charge of cooking at home. My wife doesn't cook. Furthermore, she is a picky eater, and her tastes are perfectly opposite to mine.

Looking at our dinner table, it's like having three small nations lined up that live in the same country but have different currencies and laws. Meanwhile, my daughter advocates for free trade. Limited time offers, new products, mysterious sauces—she's down for it all. As a parent, I find that reliable, but as the cook, it's a bit of a headache.

Since I started writing on note, I've had more opportunities to look back on my eating habits. If it's Mister Donut, it's an Old Fashioned; if it's Yoshinoya, it's a beef bowl; if it's Nakau, it's a chicken and egg bowl; if it's a bento shop, it's a nori bento; and if it's McDonald's, it's a Big Mac.

When I enter a restaurant, I might look like I'm reading the menu, but in reality, I might just be reuniting with my past self. I like new releases, and I'm curious about limited-time offers, too. But the classics have the comforting familiarity of a regular customer being greeted with, 'Oh, you're back again today.'

Sometimes my daughter offers me a bite of a new product. I accept it with the face of a researcher being handed a specimen of an unidentified creature. It's usually delicious when I eat it. But the following week, I'm ordering a Big Mac again. Being moved by something and settling down are two different things.

It's the same at home; if I were alone, I could live perfectly fine on plain yakisoba, plain somen, or plain ramen. At this point, it's less about cooking and more about slurping on a white canvas called noodles.

I sometimes look at recipes to make creative dishes for my family, but I never make the same flavor twice. That's because I forget which recipe I looked at.

With my skill level, the instructions on the back of the package are my Michelin guide, and the manual is a divine revelation. It sounds cool to call it 'returning to the classics,' but when it comes to food, I'm looking for a way home rather than an adventure.

Today, too, I spread out the world map that is the menu, pretend to be lost, and return to my usual border.

Limited time offer? A new twist? You just can't beat the classics!

……Or so I say (≖ᴗ≖ ) Heh heh heh…✨