When I'm alone I often eat standing up -- on the go. I don't like to waste time. :)

Sometimes when I'm in a big hurry, I will just eat by the sink in the kitchen, standing up. We eat, when we can eat together, on TV trays watching TV.

No desire to stand or sit at a counter when eating. I much prefer a table, or since I live alone, eating in my chair near my iPad and phone.

If there's nowhere to sit, yeah it happens, I stand. And when I stand I usually just east whatever I cooked right out of the pan I cooked it in.

I do think it's weird to eat standing up. I think it is much better for digestion and diet to sit at a table, preferably a dining table in a dining room without distractions. I also think that dining should be done calmly and slowly - if one's attention is on things other than the meal, then one does not get sufficient satisfaction from the dining experience and may have a tendency to overeat. One of the worst places to eat is at a desk, but in front of the TV is almost as bad. I am guilty of eating breakfast at my desk, and I must say that I do not feel as satisfied when I do this. I guess the absolute worst place to eat is in a car, especially when driving.

I do not consider calm dining a waste of time - I do consider multitasking while eating to be a waste of time, however, as people are much less efficient when multi-tasking, despite whatever they may think.

We have a proper dining room and eat there when we are both at home. When I go home for lunch, I eat at the picnic table in the pergola, unless it is raining, and then I eat in the dining room. I do not like eating in the kitchen, although that is what we did when I was a child, except for family gatherings when we would eat in the dining room. I think breakfast and lunch are okay in the kitchen, but dinner should be in a dining room. If you are eating at a kitchen counter, you might as well be in a diner. On week-ends, we have breakfast in the dining room.

I tend to be much more formal when it comes to dining than most people, but if I go to someone's house for dinner, I except to sit at a proper dining table, and that can be outdoors. I think I am probably more European in my approach to dining than American. Americans can learn a lot from Europeans about dining.

If you are living alone, it is a different situation. If I lived alone, I would try to have guests for dinner. If you do not have a dining room, I think it is just sad, although I know I am very much in the minority in this feeling.

By today's standards in the U.S., I am probably the weird one. As a child, I always made sure that I had formal place settings for every meal, including all the silverware required for each course. When I stayed with friends in Mexico City, meals were extremely formal, as they had servants to serve the meals in the dining room, and no one was allowed in the kitchen except servants. This made everything much slower, but I was fine with that.

We always eat together at the kitchen table at dinner and weekend breakfast. Other than that if I'm alone I eat at the computer, or in the living room if it's not messy and occasionally I have eaten standing up at the bar between the living room and the kitchen if I'm eating something messy but still want to see something that's on TV. DH almost always eats lunch on weekends on the front porch - I rarely eat outside because I don't like to but I don't know why I don't like it.

I live alone in a small space and although I do have a dining room table and chairs, they are used only with guests and otherwise are more of a home office workspace :-) I eat virtually all my meals from the coffee table while watching tv or at my laptop.

In summer I eat most meals outdoors. But never standing up........I can't imagine that's hugely comfortable or allows for savoring the meal.

My kitchen eating area is an add on of an old sun porch, with an arch to the kitchen proper. I eat at the table for breakfast and lunch, while dad eats standing up at the counter. Drives me nuts. Dinner is eaten at the table, never in the living room either. He sets the table while I cook dinner, and once served I light the candles.

Summer most meals are out on the patio.

We eat meals at the kitchen or dining room table, always with placemats or tablecloth. When the weather is nice, we frequently eat at our patio table, again with placemats or tablecloth. Occasionally, if there is something we really want to watch on TV and it's dinner hour, we eat on trays on the coffee table. I can't imagine eating standing up-even the car with fast food sounds more desirable! Is this a habit from your youth or from being in a hurry? Just curious.

Like Lars we pause and sit at every meal no matter the menu. Three choices...a small round kitchen table, a dining table, (not formal), and a deck table just outside the kitchen. It is unusually warm today so we will have a BLTA tonight outside. I've already put a table cloth on that table. We use cloth napkins every meal and cloth napkins as a place setting. Nothing fancy as they go into the wash cycle.

I do this when alone and does DH. (one of us working late)

The only kitchen counter eating is with guests serving some appys, or a flow of pizzas coming out of the oven, or a charcuterie plate i often keep in the fridge for a quickie snack.

Often Sundays i'm served scrambled eggs in bed with coffee if i've had a rough work week. : )

No issues at all if others eat at a counter... or sink side or from a fridge left-over bowl. If i had a big island like we had in the city a dozen yrs ago...no biggie eating at the kitchen counter on a stool.

I will not work when I'm eating at my desk in my office. I may have the tv on, tuned to the free reggae station, but if the phone rings, I let it go to voicemail. Nothing, short of the Chinese space station falling on the house will interrupt a meal.

The top photo is the view from my desk, and one of the reasons I like sitting there. The bottom one is from the kitchen counter next to the sink. It's actually a better view than from sitting at the kitchen table.

Pretty view, Ricky!

Although some women here have copped to it, I've always thought of eating standing by the sink as something bachelors do. :)

If I'm alone, I'll usually sit in the kitchen. I don't like sitting in the dining room all by myself. The kitchen table is basically a shelf, which can fold down, on the back of the island. There's a small, tabletop TV on the island on a turntable, which I sometimes watch when I have hours of prep work to do, and when I'm alone, I'll watch it for company while I eat. There has to be something transformative about the show, though, so it feels like a conversation from which one is getting a view of the world, rather than audio-visual clutter. No chat shows and rarely news. Most likely a story from the DVR or even something like Pawn Stars.

When I'm through eating, I'll usually sort the mail and look at catalogues while watching the rest of the show. Awhile back, the LR TV was busted, and the little kitchen TV was in the living room. I really didn't like sitting alone in the kitchen without company, so did tray tables when I was alone. I don't really like eating in the living room, but my brain is too busy, and I find silence distracting. When I was in grad school, I'd go sit in a fast food restaurant with a diet coke to read the not-ready-for-publication articles we had to plow through by the dozen. The noise helped me focus because my own thoughts were so much more interesting than the crap I was reading, so this is nothing new. :) Having a conversation or TV show to focus on relaxes me and slows the thoughts down to a trickle, so I'm better able to enjoy my meal. Sort of the opposite of what Lars does, but for the same kind of reason. :)

When there's anyone else home, we sit at the table, and don't even put on music often, preferring conversation.

Re nappery, always a cloth or mats, or both (when I'm trying to keep a pretty cloth clean from otherwise casual dining) to protect the table, not to be fancy. The kitchen table does not do well getting soaked (it's made of sunflower seed husks in resin and they're close enough to the surface to swell and pop out if hydrated too well), so mats are a must and always out. I love paper napkins. I love being able to do whatever I want to them without guilt. :) In the kitchen I use recycled luncheon napkins and go through them like Kleenex. In the dining room, we use the big, heavy paper dinner napkins. I have plenty of cloth napkins, most of them highly washable, but none of us seem to like using them as much, so I don't waste water cleaning them unless it's for formal company.

Plllog, you sound a bit like my mother (not to make you sound old - you just have some of her idiosyncrasies). She always had to have TV in the background, and that drove me crazy, mainly because she never muted out the commercials but had to listen to her soaps during lunch. She always said that she could tune out whatever she did not want to pay attention to (She tuned out my father quite a bit), and Kevin has inherited this ability, but I have not. I am more like my father in that respect and cannot help but pay attention to whatever noise is around me, including multiple conversations, if I am on a bus. It used to bother me in San Francisco that I had to listen to so many conversations in languages that I could not understand, from Chinese to Tagalog, etc.

I always used to use tablecloths, but I love the look of my vintage walnut dining table, and so I most just use placemats now, and I have a lot of those. No dining ware or utensils go on the bare wood. I even use placemats in the pergola, and I have about four or five individual trays for taking meals outside. I ate lunch outside today, which was nice, because for once it wasn't raining. I only use cloth napkins, and I made about half of the ones we have now. I have made them in dark colors so that I do not have to wash them that often - they mostly just catch crumbs.

Ricky, your view looks like the view I had from my desk in Venice. I had a view of my front yard on Abbot Kinney. Now I have a view of the back yard from my desk at home.

1/4 dining table.

1/4 in front of two PC monitors.

1/4 in my shop

1/4 in my garden

dcarch

Ah, but Lars, there's a big difference. If there were anyone else in the room, I'd turn off the TV because I wouldn't want it to distract from a real person. :) It's just that I usually have at least two levels of thought running through my mind, and a distractor helps me relax and focus on simple things like eating, crocheting, chopping, or reading turgid academic papers, because there's only room for the outside noise and my focused train of thought, rather than three different things in my head when it's too quiet. I always have music on when I'm alone in the car, too, but not while driving with passengers. I like silence too, but it's not that quiet in my head. :)

Sitting in my comfy club chair, facing tv. A bad habit since conducive to mindless eating.

in times of heavenly weather in Houston, we eat all meals alfresco.

I know it's odd, but I dislike eating outdoors. Here in Michigan it's either too hot or too cold, or the wind will blow items into the food, or the bugs will make you crazy. I much prefer eating indoors, other than something like a tomato, warm from the sun, eaten while standing in the garden.

We do have a dining room and we use it. Elery and I eat both breakfast and supper at the dining room table, and I always have a tablecloth, although I'm not as fancy as Peppi, and don't use candles, I'm a bit phobic about fire since having a couple of house fires. We turn off all electronics, television, radio and other noise or distractions. We eat two meals a day, we nearly always skip a lunch. Elery eats a "snack" about 9 pm, in his recliner in front of the television.

If I'm home by myself, I'll skip breakfast and probably lunch. Supper will be something like eggs or oatmeal, eaten at the kitchen counter/bar, but we have bar stools and I sit down, I never stand up to eat. Occasionally I'll eat a a cookie or granola bar sitting at the computer in the living room, but it's messy and I don't enjoy it. I seldom/never watch television, so I don't sit in a recliner and watch television while eating either.

Annie

We don't have a dining room. We got rid of it to make the kitchen bigger but the kitchen isn't a "utilitarian" space and very pleasant to sit in. So we always eat in the kitchen unless it's outside.

In Europe, eating standing up is considered very bad!

After ankle surgery and a plate with pins down there, standing to eat is a total no go. I sit at my dining table. Or sometimes, weather depending, on the side porch.

My current kitchen is too small to eat in. I don't watch TV, food or no food. But sometimes I use my laptop while dining. Or read something.

I live alone, but eat all 3 meals. Usually 1-course meals. Vary up the food groups so they all get covered over a day or two. No tablecloth nor placemats unless there's company. I don't like many ingredients in "convenience " foods, so yes, I cook.

Breakfast is either eggs in some form, or leftovers from a previous meal, re-heated.

Grilled for the first time this year, chicken tandoori, and Chinese style beef short ribs, enough for dinner last night and the following 2 nights. Since it's charcoal and takes patience to get going, I do tend to grill for multiple meals instead of a single course.

Ate inside, though. It was warm out, just not quite warm enough!

Our 1920s hour was built with a dining room and no eat in kitchen and for the first 20 years we lived there we ate every meal at the dining room table. We then added on a "breakfast porch" -- a small room off the dining room that we fitted with a table and chairs (and with it's wall of windows it's great for my plants in the winter). We always eat breakfast and lunch in the breakfast porch. Dinner, it depends on what it is -- if it's more casual food, then that too is often in the breakfast porch -- if it's "nicer", then we eat in the dining room. We always use linen napkins for all 3 meals and we, too, use either tablecloth or placemats. And NO TV in the background. It goes off when we eat (although DH isn't really a leisurely eater!)

The kids eat all of their meals at the dining room table. We do not have an eat-in kitchen and I severely limit food in the bedrooms. On the weeknights where the second part of my shift starts at 6 p.m., I will often eat my food at the computer because I never seem to get it prepared sooner than that. If I have gone to the trouble of preparing breakfast or lunch, that will be at the table. Snacks, or pastry for breakfast are often consumed in the living room on the weekend with our coffee.

I would actually like to eat outside more often but thus far have not developed a system for getting everything outside efficiently, so it is more hassle than I care for. About the only time we eat with the TV on is during football season and only on Sundays (no cable means no Monday or Thursday night games). I do like to have music playing during dinner, preferably instrumentals as background noise to cover up the sounds of eating which drive me batty.

When its the two of us, or even with 2, 3 guests here, we will usually sit down at the breakfast table (kitchen). Always placemats, no television. The view is pretty, and this is a casual household. If I'm alone I do more snacking than eating an actual full plate meal, and now that I've thought about it, that can take place at my kitchen sink which also has a pretty view. The garden lights go on at dusk every day, I'm not looking into blank space after dark.

Occasionally I'll have soup in a mug at my desk which is positioned to look out onto the driveway bed, circular drive and island bed. My driveway is also a 'deer trail', they cross the intersection and come down my drive. Almost daily.

I do have a dining room with table I love. We use it (when numbering 5 or above), but typically eating buffet then, somehow I rarely do a formal seating with all food served at the table. I think it has something to do with not wanting to carry all into the dining room, carry it back ;0)

morz, my kitchen and dining room is basically one long room, about 30 feet long and 12 feet wide. There was originally a wall between the two rooms, which we removed, leaving about 4 feet of wall for cabinets and adding another 4 feet of counter/bar with a "walk through" space from one room to another taking up the additional width. So it's easy to take the food from one place to another. The bar/counter generally gets used when we are having appetizers or snacks before the main meal. When I add all the leaves my table can expand to seat 14 to 16 people.

I never grill and I find no joy in cooking for myself alone, so I don't do it often. I do not eat the frozen or convenience food items and don't care for fast food so I'll make a big batch of soup or something that can be reheated for a couple of days, or I'll eat eggs or cereal. Occasionally I'll open a pint of home canned vegetables and just eat those.

Annie

Annie, with all 4 leaves my table will seat 16 too. I don't have that many matching chairs, but I do have chairs.

The table had belonged to my BILs mother, a woman I loved and greatly respected. When BIL made a great room kitchen combination, taking out the wall between their kitchen and dining room, I happily took the formal table and think of his mother every time I use or dust it.

I was given the table, leaves, 10 chairs when I had a dining room too short to extend it with the leaves. We've moved, and I have a room where it will truly fit. Back then, I was going to have that table whether I could fully use and appreciate it or not - and now its worked out, I have the right space.

When my DD, SIL and grandchildren moved in, we quickly outgrew the small kitchen table.

Family dinner, every night, in the dining room. Breakfast, for the kids, is usually at the kitchen counter, and I eat lunch at the dining room table

From day one of our marriage and being mid west farmers we had three meals a day, breakfast, dinner and supper at the kitchen table. Breakfast was when we got up, dinner at noon, supper about 6 pm unless it was spring planting time or fall harvest then who knew what time it would be. Noon dinner was the big meal.

Then entered kids....routine pretty much stayed the same. For family gatherings and holidays we moved to the dinning room good dishes, silverware, cloth napkins. I was called Miss Fannyfine. That was okay too. We are now are in town still eat in kitchen, use dinning room for family affairs, same routine. can set 16 comfortable at dinning room table. Our kitchen and eating area is about 30 feet long, horseshoe shape cooking design and a carpeted eating area on other end. It is a nice arrangement.

We use placemats or/and tablecloths and I try to set a presentable table even just for a bowl of chili. No TV in kitchen eating area. As kids were growing up everyone had special spot at the table. And even today when they come in they sit at their spot. Winter Sunday night supper is in dinning room in front of fireplace, summer Sunday nights are on front porch.

We eat in our dining room that is open to the kitchen and maybe 4 feet from the stove/oven/micro/fridge though the room is 20x15 (lots of counter space). A lot of times meals are served from the pans they were made in since my husband does the dishes - he prefers it that way - "Why dirty an extra dish"? I understand his logic but it's not the way I was raised with 6 to 10 of us then it would have been a mad chaotic scramble. Now it is just the two of us so it works. With company we do "buffet" style in plain dishes/bowls so they can serve themselves any portion from the counter and I have given away a lot of my fancy serving things. No one seems to care one way or the other. It's the food not the presentation.

My long ago ex- delighted in filling up a dinner plate and eating it hunched over the coffee table watching TV ignoring me and the kids. I was the one who shampooed that carpet underneath and I hated it and eventually him. My new DH and I do eat snacks at the coffee table late in the evening but with plates and napkins and admonitions though he is an elegant eater where I am the messy one.

I cannot imagine eating anything over the sink except fresh peaches or sun warmed tomatoes.

BTW - it is not a good idea to eat while driving alone. If you inhale food there would be no one to give you Heimlich. I thought a few french fries on the way home would be fine/usual and found myself with total lack of breath in the middle of absolute nowhere with some half-chewed fries stuck in my gullet. Obviously I foiled the death knell (since I can tell the tale today) and gave myself the Heimlich by throwing my middle over the edge of the door. Cracked a rib but survived to tell you the tale. Think about it.

I've never felt the appeal of eating outside. Anytime I've done it (at a gathering etc) I'm just swatting flies, bees away and it's hot.

We have a kitchen with the eating area at one end. We eat all of our meals at the table. I don't 'set' the table, we serve ourselves out of the pots and dishes but always eat at the table. I've never been one to just eat a sandwich over the sink, at the counter etc.

Years ago, I remember my senior neighbour who always ate a tuna sandwich standing at the counter. She hated to cook and just ate to live. Even when I lived alone I always made a meal for myself, and ate at the table.

Once in a while hubby and I will 'treat' ourselves to eating dinner in the livingroom finishing watching a tv show or whatever. But that's not very often at all.

Outdoor eating can be very nice.

A king-size bed mosquito tent is inexpensive ($20) and almost transparent, big enough for four. No bees, flies, mosquitoes.

Add a little low speed fan and enjoy the sunset even on a hot day.

dcarch

Our dining habits are varied, depends on the season, the weather and who is about. Must admit I have become much more casual over the years.

When the kids were home dinner at the kitchen table weknights and the dining room Sunday was non negotiable. The exception being BBQ's outside in the summer.

Now with just the two of us we oft times eat in front of the TV........true confession !

In my recliner in the living room while watching TV.

Madonna

I eat alone so I always eat in front of my computer. I have to carry my husband's meals upstairs to him. Raising 4 children we always ate at the kitchen table. It usually was just me and the kids back then. I never or almost never have the television on where I am, do not like to have it on during the day, even in the background. We do have a nice dining room but only use it when we have company. Even with children I never ever ate just standing up over the sink or counter. I do enjoy eating outside, but only do that when the kids come over. Citronella candles help with the mosquitoes.

Sue

This has been a fun post to read. It has been sort of a "revealing your soul" kind. When the kids were home, we had family meals at night and that was when we always shared what was going on in our life.. I don't know how families do it nowadays,never sitting down together but always the piano lesson, or baseball practice, football practice or whatever . After my husband passed away, I couldn't stand to sit at the table and eat, so it has been in front of the tv, which I realize is mindless eating. I hate cleaning up the dishes cause we usually did dishes together. I was so used to doing all of the housework at night having worked so long, that it is hard to not stay up late,but I am trying to make the adjustment. I do eat out quite a bit because I like to be around the people since I now live out in the country and am alone a lot. Have something on--tv, radio, my Boze playing music. I found that can change your mood but if I need to concentrate on the bookkeeping, I have to have the quiet. Live in the Midwest (V. President Mike Pence's territory. } Thanks for the relaxing post. Barb

Barb, eating with the TV doesn't have to be mindless! Choose a show where you're learning something or seeing a new part of the world, or listening to a good conversation. Then address your plate as if the people were sitting at the table with you. Pay attention to your manners. Chew your food well. Mind your utensils. Savor the flavors. Start with a composed plate containing well portioned foods--don't worry about saving a few dishes, especially if you have a dishwasher. If the point of having the TV on is having company, treat the TV as honored company. Treat yourself like a respectable hostess who is eating a nice meal. Be mindful of both, and it will, by definition, not be mindless! :)

If its nice outside, I like to take my plate out on our North screened in porch that's on the side of the house. There is a patio table and chairs out there and also a porch swing. I have a preformed pond there with a small fountain and it is very relaxing to listen to the water trickle while I eat. It keeps me from mindless (meaning I inhale food and don't even really enjoy it because I'm not paying attention to what I'm eating lol) eating in front of the tv or on the computer etc lol.

Outside as often as possible- then I just sweep off the porch ;). Otherwise, kids eat at island for breakfast/lunch if Dad is at work, if Dad is home we always eat at the table as a family, and "family style" in serving dishes. I usually plate breakfast/lunch unless it's a holiday.

I tried to eat as they did in Roman days, laying on a couch outside with a bolster to lean on. My friend and I did this with our meal on a silver tray between us. I could not get used to it. In the end, we decided fruit and appetizers were ok but for regular entrees, we preferred sitting at the table with a nice cloth and flatware with our china service.

Last while while Kevin and I were visiting our sister in Austin, we ate a couple of meals in her kitchen nook/breakfast area, where she has a table and chairs for six. Our BIL has taken over her dining table with his research papers, and has completely cluttered it up to the point that the dining room is completely useless to anyone except him. He already has an office in her house (He has his own house that he seems never to use any more - it may have been taken over by raccoons) but does not appear to be content with that. She also has a living room plus a den, and the den is connected to the breakfast nook. BIL has decided that her living room is the perfect place to strew his mail; i..e. mail for his relatives who use my sister's address instead of their own so that they can send their children to a different school district. Her living room floor is now covered with mail because BIL puts it there and does not pick it up. His children are her step-children - they do not have children together, but she has adopted them as her own.

Anyway, we had no meals at her house, and it would have been nice if we could have had a family reunion in her dining room, but since that was unavailable, one niece decided that she would only see us at a restaurant of her choice, one hour before we were going to leave. Because it rained that day, we had to eat inside at the restaurant, which was so noisy that I could not hear a single word at our table. It was a very disappointing meeting, and I do wish that my sister could arrange to have family reunions at someone's house - I hate going to restaurants for reunions or parties and will not attend another one. My sister offered to make dinner for us one evening and asked us which can we wanted her to open, and so we declined. I was very sad that she was unable to use her dining room, and I only sat at her breakfast table once - to have reheated leftovers from a Cajun restaurant. While I was eating my leftover, BIL came and leered over my shoulder and asked what I was having - I assume because he wanted me to give him some, as he was acting like a puppy. Since I do not feed dogs in the house, I ignored him. I was having leftover stuffed crab and shrimp, and he could have ordered that when he was at the restaurant with us, but instead he and my sister split an order of crawfish etouffee. They only order things that they can split and therefore never have leftovers but like to graze on other people's plates, if there are any around. I do not like this practice - I do not eat off of other people's plates, and I do not want anyone eating off of mine.

This was the first time we had been back to Texas in more than four years, and I told my sister that we might go back in 2020 or 2021. If it were more pleasant to have meals with them, I would feel differently about this. We did enjoy time we spent with one nephew and one niece, however.

Your story made me sad, Lars. My small experience with Texan hospitality is that it sometimes skeeves me out because it's so effusive! Lots of company to meet--Oh, you must meet my friend XYZ! You have so much in common!--lots of gatherings, lots of food, lots of everything bigger in Texas. So it's sad that you weren't made to feel at home. OTOH, forewarned is forearmed. Perhaps the thing to plan for next time you go is to rent a furnished house for the duration, where you and Kevin can be comfortable and cook and have all the family and old friends come to see you. Then you can manage things to suit yourself. Give the ones with demanding jobs, especially, save the dates weeks ahead for the barbecue, the crawfish boil, the theatre outing, the Sunday dinner, etc., and let them figure out which they can come to, then relax into your own version of family reunion, on your own terms.

We did rent a motel room in Temple (the town where I was born and went to high school) for one night when we went to see our nephew and brother at the farm. We had a very good visit at the farm, except for the SIL (nephew's step-mother) whom no one wants to be around except my brother Mike. I wanted to stay in a hotel in Austin, but Kevin did not want to. I think it might have been better, and the hotels were not expensive. I'm very glad I got to meet with my nephew Dee, as he wants to buy the farm from us and told us that he will be able to do this probably by November of this year. That's the main reason that Kevin wanted to go. Dee did not invite us to his house either because he and his wife and three daughters had hectic schedules, and so we had dinner at a Japanese steak house in downtown Temple. I really enjoyed that, even though Mike and SIL tagged along (they invited themselves). I had a great visit with my grand nieces, none of whom knew us, and also with Dee's wife. The chef cooked the meals hibachi style with all of us sitting around, and the five-year-old grand niece loved the drama! Kevin took videos of this, and perhaps I will put one on YouTube to share here (on a different thread). Texas is heavily into beef, and so we had steak and shrimp (I had filet mignon and shrimp) and so of course the beef was very good.

Away from my family, everyone else I ran into in Texas was extremely friendly, and that helped make my trip more pleasurable.