Restaurants portions and demand

   As a person that very much enjoys trying different kinds of food, I have been to many types of restaurants over the years, being fortunate enough to have the necessary money and free time required to enjoy the many dining options that the San Francisco bay area has to offer. My experiences have included "mom and pop" places (which are my favorite), food carts and stands, as well as some more expensive places.

   I don't know what set me thinking about the idea of scarcity and restaurant portions, but it seems that often, though not necessarily always, the price of food in the pricier estblishments appears to be proportional to the size of the serving; the more expensive the menu determines that the portion be smaller.

   In general, the capitalist ("market") theory of supply and demand states that the higher the price, the less demand there will be for that good or service, but when the demand is high and the quantity is scarce, the price of the item will increase. There is also the idea in this philosophy that if the supplier of the good or service does not allow what they are selling to become too plentiful, it will be more scarce, and they can attempt to sell it at a higher price.
   This kind of rationing also has what I believe to be a psychological effect on the consumer, where they believe that the thing being sold is worth more, without actually knowing if the supply scarcity is being artificially created, or withheld. In other words, they don't know why or if something is truly rare, nor do they have a tool to determine why it should actually cost more.
   In my own life, there have been circumstances where I wanted to buy an item, and have rushed to do so for fear of the thing being no longer available, based on a determination which may be alluded to by the seller, myself, or a combination of the two. The fear that I had regarding scarcity served to bypass the more normal weighing of options and outcomes that I might normally have considered when purchasing something that I don't really need, and plays on my own particular fear of not having enough, which I experienced in many ways as a child.
   While I find the intentional manufacture of scarcity not always easy to spot when buying products, in restaurants I have a different outlook; I find the system easier to see, and once really seen, it becomes harder to be coerced by it. I order an appetizer or entree, and when it is placed on the table in front of me I am a bit shocked by how little food is on the plate. 
   It would be interesting, or rather beautiful, if I could so easily see this kind of manufacture of the appearance of scarcity in my own thinking. Perhaps I could then understand in a more visceral way that my own frequent thinking of the world as a plate with too little food on it is a trope that I have concoted, or have at least reproduced, for myself. I imagine I would find my own existence more consistently satisfying, without living in the fear that I will not have what I need, or enough of it.

On being Jewish

   As a child, I remember going to my Grandpa Morris and Grandma Jean's house for Jewish holidays, and giggling when my grandfather would recite the Hebrew prayers in his singing style, which I suppose was the way it was supposed to have been done. Although my cousins and I just thought that it sounded kind of 'funny', I believe that I was also embarrassed by it, and of being Jewish as well.
   In high school and college, I recall how I would sometimes cringe when attendance was called in class, self-conscious of how Jewish my name sounded. When I look back at it now, I was probably more ashamed of myself than my name, but I am both surprised and saddened that I should have felt that way about it, especially because a name is not something that a child or young man has any choice over.
   I was never taught to believe that I had very much choice, anyway.
   Although many of my friends were Jewish when I was a kid, as I got older, I felt increasingly 'different' from others, ethnically speaking. I know that many people would say that being Jewish is a religious rather than ethnic issue, but I felt ethnic in a way that made me uncomfortable and ashamed. It's not that I believed that being 'ethnic' was bad; it was just that my brand of ethnicity that appeared so.
   It seems that the value that I was never taught that I embodied (or should I say poor judgments that I did learn) has permeated through my beliefs about myself, others, the world we live in, and of course, my sense of Jewishness. It's interesting that I happen to call home a city where multiculturalism is so highly celebrated and valued, at least in name, as it's only in the past few years that I have come to treat my own ethnicity in the same esteem.
   Perhaps being Jewish has become more important because I no longer live in the most Jewish city outside of Israel (New York), or maybe it's just a normal aspect of aging (my Grandpa Morris, mentioned in the first sentence of this post, gave up his socialist ideas for religion as an older man). Maybe it's just that it's been really difficult accepting myself, and I'm beginning to make some inroads in that direction.

The kid that was a selfie stick

   I was walking in the Presidio of San Francisco, just south of Crissy Field near dusk, when I saw a cluster of people in the distance. The smaller members of the group, apparently children, were moving around quickly, seemingly excited at whatever it was that had, was, or was going to occur shortly. As I got a little closer, I saw that one of these smaller individuals was handed something by one of the larger ones, who had in turn moved away to join another larger member. The individual that was handed the object also moved away, in the opposite direction, creating a distance of about nine or ten feet.
   As I approached closer still, I realized that this smaller one was preparing to take a picture of the two others, who were apparently its' parents, and it dawned on me that they were using the child as a kind of selfie stick.
   Although I don't recall in years or times past thinking that one individual taking a picture of others as being unusual, in this light, location and time it occurred to me in a powerful way that this kid was more of a selfie stick for its' parents than was their child. I don't know why, but that is how it seemed.
   As I got close enough to see them I noticed that they appeared to be Americans of Indian heritage (the country, not the indigenous people), or genetically from that part of the world, anyway. Passing them, the child, who I could see at this point was a boy, called out, "maybe it's a garbage can". I inferred that he was referring to an object that he saw in the distance, and was trying, like me, to understand something that seemed new or different to him in this particular environment.
   Maybe it was that object, perhaps a garbage can,  that had caused what I had perceived as his excited wonder when I first saw him in the dusk from afar; the disorienting freedom that can occur when things appear familiar, strange and fantastic all at once.