My wife Pam hates to cook and I don’t blame her. Pam cooked for over 40 years, nearly every night, whether she wanted to or not. I’d be sick of cooking too, if I’d had to do that.

So nowadays I do most of the cooking. When I retired two years ago, I told Pam I’d like to learn to cook. In 45 years of marriage, those are maybe the best received words I’ve ever uttered.

My cooking is working out well. I can now produce a nice baked flounder, a couple of classy soups, and a cheese soufflé — from scratch, yet — so good that the cooking channel is after me to show you how to do it.

But Pam would still rather eat out. A meal out is a social occasion for Pam. It’s not so much the food restaurants serve as the good time Pam has there.

I’d rather eat in, whoever prepares the meal. Why pay four times as much when we could eat the same food at home?

But course it’s not the same food. That’s one of the differences between eating out and eating in.

I know what I’m eating at home. Usually it’s fresh vegetables and fruits, home-made soups, and maybe a cracker or two. Not only do I enjoy that, but it’s more healthful than what I eat at a restaurant.

Pam says I could order healthful food at the restaurant if I wanted to. Of course I could, but of course I don’t, because many restaurants place a menu in my hands with full color photographs of dishes that wink at me and call my name in sultry, come-hither tones.

So I usually order one of those sexy dishes, having only the vaguest idea what’s in it. Probably something that tastes good but is bad for me. And the portion put before me is often twice what I’d serve myself at home. Do I set half of it aside to take home in a to-go box? Probably not.

My main weakness is deep-fried seafood. So I often order a big platter of it when Pam and I eat out. When I’ve consumed half the platter, I’ve eaten more food than I would have eaten at home, and all of it laden with cholesterol and fat. Then I tell myself that since fried fish doesn’t taste good after being stored overnight in a styrofoam carton in my refrigerator, I should finish the whole platter right then and there. I do, and an hour later, I don’t feel so good. But when it was going down, I was very, very happy.

I can’t get up to get something I need at a restaurant. At home, if I want more water, I step over to the refrigerator and refill my glass. If I want a second bowl of soup, it’s on the stove a few feet away. In a restaurant, however, I can’t (or at any rate, I don’t) bound into the kitchen for more ketchup or another napkin. Instead, I wait for my waiter or waitress, who often seems to have vanished into a black hole.

This is especially galling when I have ordered a cup of coffee. I’m not a persnickety eater most of the time, but I like my coffee as Goldilocks liked her soup---not too hot, not too cold, but just right. That is only possible when hot coffee is added to my cup at precisely the right moment and in precisely the right amount. I can do that at home, but no waiter or waitress does it.

Then there’s that irritating habit waiters and waitresses have of interrupting me every five minutes to ask how things are. “They were fine until you interrupted me,” I wish I had the nerve to say.

I love the notice I saw on a menu in Nova Scotia a few years ago: “Contrary to common practice, our service people do not ask: ‘How is everything?’ — perhaps interrupting your conversation and forcing you to be agreeable to them. Instead, we ask them to be frequently available and responsive to you, and always alert to the state of things at your table.” I might not mind eating out if I could always eat at that place.

Richard H. Schmidt is a retired Episcopal priest, editor and author who lives in Fairhope. He can be reached at courier@gulfcoastnewspapers.com.