The meal was a beautiful spread, one of those times you wish it weren’t shabbos so you could take a picture. One of those times that you just stuffed your face like a conveyor belt totally oblivious to all the people around you- with the only human contact being “can you please pass the…” which was always mumbled with a mouth full of food, and when you finally stopped to collect yourself you realized that you were thirsty, so thirsty that the cholent was congealing to the roof of your mouth reminding you of your worst cases of pot induced cotton mouth. So you look around and to your horror realize that the hosts have not placed any sort of drinks at the table.
Now I have eaten at enough places to realize that some people merely forget to place drinks on the table, and are reminding with pleading eyes of those like me who have stuffed their faces drinkless until they realize they need something to wash it all down.
But what I am talking about are those people that simply do not have drinks readily available until the main course. What’s the deal yo? What’s with the drink police? Some water please!!! I just wish people would think drinks were as important as the challah and napkins and were placed on the table from the begining of the meal.
They served chulent before putting out drinks? That’s pretty harsh.
…and please don’t forget the DIET soda…
At my own son’s wedding in a “well-known” hall in Monsey, there wasn’t a drop of diet soda to be had!!
My best friend ran downstairs and bought me a bottle from one of the local stores. I hid it under my table and felt like I was drinking contraband all night long….
So funny. We stopped putting drinks during the meal because we were too lazy to get up and get from from the fridge.
We once had a couple over for a meal. During the first course, the wife started urgently whispering to her husband. There was a brief back-and-forth going on, which we tried to ignore. Finally, the husband mustered up his courage to ask for a drink for his wife. Ha ha.
If you ever come over for a meal, we’ll have a little juice box set out by your place
Funny because mu buddy said watching people suffer without drinks is worth going without them for a little while.
G6: If you’re watching your weight, drink water! Maybe the hall should provide cigarettes too :).
don’t know if this is good, bad, or indifferent, but I’m a water person myself and always feel awkward when my hosts don’t serve water. drink soda and be happy? drink seltzer water and pretend it’s good (apparently that’s what some people think)? ask for some water and make everyone feel all awkward?
at people I’ve been too a few times I just jump up and fill my own pitcher…
Shua my buddy always gets up and goes to the tap no matter what and I do the same if I don’t like the drinks being served- then again it takes a lot to make me uncomfortable
My husband insists that the Drinks come out before the fish. We go through a LOT of drinks that way, but at least everyone’s happy.
He says there’s some Halacha about serving drinks first. I’ll see if I can get a source out of him later.
Diet drinks? I usually have the problem where theres ONLY diet drinks. I hate diet sodas. Worst for me (besides no drinks) is the people who put out nothing I like. I had that today actually, the only drinks were Dr Pepper and Seltzer and I hate both. I drank warm tap water all meal. And during the meal they were talking about how polluted Lake Michigan is, while I sipped my water hoping it had been filtered.
Shes a nurse, so she told a story of a patient who came in with some type of poisoning after swimming in Lake Michigan. Not fun.
“He says there’s some Halacha about serving drinks first. I’ll see if I can get a source out of him later.”
Yeah, it’s called ahavas yisroel. A frequently looked-over mitzvah.
Ugh diet cant take it. I was at someone for shabbos today and the best they had was Diet Wild cherry coke.
Wuz this about water? Drink Beer,save water!
Diet drinks should be banned- I am sure they could think of a reason.
Women drink them — Diet drinks>women>pritzus.
(not all women, of course)
If you serve diet drinks, desperate women might leap over the mechitza to take bottles from the men’s table.
You can’t go wrong when having a meal by serving coke, diet coke, and water. Every category is pleased and no one complains to themself. Just do it you cheapos. BUY IT.
I was just by an upshernish where they put all the coke bottles at the kid’s table. I could tell that it definitely wasn’t the mother of the kid who set up…who on earth puts twenty coke bottles at a table for a bunch of three year olds? Think of their teeth, man!
(My kid wanted to drink from it. I told him it was just a centerpiece)
The shulchan aruch writes that one should be careful between fish and meat to rinse one’s mouth. The rinsing should preferably be done with a liquid and a solid, hence a little drink and challah should do the trick.
Ha, I totally hear you on the drink item. I love water but some frummies only put seltzer, ginger ale and other sodas on the table, and I don’t drink any of that stuff. Sometimes I’ll swallow ginger ale out of desperation. Whatever happened to water?
When we have folks over for shabbas meal my wife always makes me go pick up the drinks on Friday afternoon, so she doesn’t have to shlep them.
Her only rule? Make it interesting, and bring a lot.
Budget permitting, I try to rock at least one sort of Ceres drink (lawd bless the 2-for-1 specials) like Youngberry or Guava. Dole also makes good cheap fruit drinks, and bottled water isn’t that expensive when you buy the bigger bottles; break out a plastic/glass pitcher, cut up a piece of lemon or two and toss them in and voila, you’ve just jazzed up your table.
Stay away from the ‘fruit flavored’ drinks, that’s just sugar water and coloring, and it tastes nasty unless you’re 6.
Ceres is the only company that makes their regular drinks kosher for pesach year round.
^^ I will definitely keep that in mind if I ever decide to keep kosher-for-pesach year round.
Sorry bro, couldn’t resist. Truth is, first I gotta work on kosher-for-pesach on pesach, but don’t tell my mom!