Friends are precious aren’t they – it’s almost the weekend and one of my favourite things to do when I’m in the mood to kick back and relax is to get together with a bunch of people I’m close to for relaxed chatter, a bite to eat and maybe the odd glass of wine or two. You just cannot beat an evening where you laugh till your belly aches, and I always find that good food and decent plonk is a great starter for ten.

So the question will always arise, unless we’re dining at home – what does everyone fancy to eat? Admittedly it’s one of the nicer dilemmas to have, even when I’m dieting and in the sweet spot there’s usually something on the menu wherever we end up which will allow me to keep at least a sheen on my dieting halo even if it’s not an out and out shine. But the consensus I dread..? Tapas.

For the uninitiated, it’s the informal Spanish style of eating where little dishes of food heaven arrive at the table in a steady stream and you choose a bit of this, and a bit of that…chat for a bit and then more dishes turn up, and repeat. Everybody dives in and helps themselves and the dishes keep on coming until you’ve had enough. For most people, it’s a lovely relaxing sociable way of eating which promotes conversation and sharing as you meander unhurriedly through the meal. Even as I sit typing this, I love the idea of it. In reality, it makes me bat shit crazy.

I’m in the Joey from Friends camp when it comes to sharing food. I like my food, on my plate under the sole control of my knife and fork. It messes with my head when all these little dishes hit the table and everyone just digs in. I can feel my palms getting sweaty when I see someone going in for the kill on something I fancied the look of and by the time I get to it, it’s all gone. So then I have a bit of something else but I hang onto the food envy.

If a second dish of it turns up a bit later on and I miss it again I swear I can feel the red mist descending. Best friends or no, I want to wrestle it from their hands. And if you strike gold and eat a bit of something you really enjoy, when you go back for more invariably you find that somebody else has eaten the rest of it, so all you can do it use a bit of fancy bread to mop up what’s left of the sauce and spend the rest of the meal watching the waitress like a hawk… poised, ready to pounce but with no guarantee that she’ll be back with more of the one you’re hoping for. And if you’re so busy watching for more of that one, you might miss something else that everyone starts raving about…and so it goes on.

Can you see my point? It’s stress central. And I always end up feeling a bit cheated, like everyone else got all the good stuff. Or got more of the good stuff than I did…I got olives. With so much table activity it’s impossible to tell. But how utterly ridiculous is it that I’d be so pre-occupied with a head full of stressy thoughts about whether I’m getting my fair share of the food – ‘Bitch ate the last meatball!’ – it’s not normal.

There goes the food yanking my chains again…

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