
What dinner time looks like across the USA - simulate
http://www.huckmagazine.com/art-and-culture/photography-2/lois-bielefeld-photography-weeknight-dinners-usa/
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metalliqaz
I'm disappointed that my demographic wasn't represented: standing at the
kitchen sink, eating room temperature baked beans out of the can, then
sticking my head under the faucet for a drink.

~~~
madengr
Do you use a spoon or just dump directly into mouth? Don't cut yourself
licking the can. Also, could be on a sidewalk or squatter camp.

~~~
metalliqaz
I use a fork, but I rinse it off and leave it on the edge of the sink to
possibly be used later.

~~~
planteen
Your comment made me laugh. We've all been there. The worst I have ever seen
is someone who ran out of paper plates and started using phone book pages.

~~~
madengr
I always forget to bring a fork for lunch, so does everyone else, hence plenty
of plastic knives; I use them as chop sticks.

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readhn
Couples sitting at the table eating and looking at their cell phones are
under-represented! Walk into any restaurant and there is plenty of that these
days.

[https://d2v9y0dukr6mq2.cloudfront.net/video/thumbnail/DHmMj5...](https://d2v9y0dukr6mq2.cloudfront.net/video/thumbnail/DHmMj5B/young-
couple-with-cellphones-eating-dinner-at-home_njwmwrml__S0000.jpg)

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strictnein
Really interesting pictures, although I hope people realize that this was
meant to capture interesting things and not really represent the average
dinner time in the US. My two favorites are:

    
    
       "Tuesday: Alex, Sophia, Kathy, David, Claudia, Eva & Ana." [0]
    
       "Wednesday: Nathaniel." [1]
    
    

That is a huge table that family has, I mean that's really, really wide. And
Nathaniel looks like he likes to party, which I respect.

[0] [http://huckcdn.lwlies.com/admin/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/1...](http://huckcdn.lwlies.com/admin/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/150526_karademas_fam_018.jpg)

[1] [http://huckcdn.lwlies.com/admin/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/1...](http://huckcdn.lwlies.com/admin/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/140402_nat_018.jpg)

~~~
throwaway2016a
> I hope people realize that this was meant to capture interesting things and
> not really represent the average dinner time in the US

I'm not sure this is true. They may have not been meant to capture the typical
American but I know many Americans represented in this group and I don't think
it is atypical either.

Also, kudos to Nathaniel for using his dining table rather than giving into
the temptation to plop down in-front of a TV since he is eating alone.

Although, all of these photos look staged. At the very least their postures
were dictated by knowing they are being photographed.

If you go to the blog there are more photos
[http://www.loisbielefeld.com/weeknight-
dinners/](http://www.loisbielefeld.com/weeknight-dinners/)

Edit: looking at the other photos on the photographer's site, I think they
were told not to smile. And I think the combination of lack of smiles + dark
lighting contributes to the kind of depressing feel. Even for the other not-
dinner-related photos on the site.

Edit 2: OMG the second photo on [http://www.loisbielefeld.com/conceal-
carry/](http://www.loisbielefeld.com/conceal-carry/) is terrifying. Never ever
point a gun in the direction of another person you don't plan to shoot,
people!

~~~
strictnein
> Never ever point a gun in the direction of another person you don't plan to
> shoot, people!

With their fingers on/near the trigger, no less. Ugh.

~~~
icebraining
I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but maybe they are unloaded?

~~~
strictnein
I'm sure they probably are, but the first rule of gun safety is to always
treat all guns like they're loaded and there's a bullet in the chamber. Proper
trigger discipline is to have your trigger finger extended like you see in a
number of the pictures.

~~~
throwaway2016a
This. Unless the barrel is stuck in the open position and you can see daylight
through the other side, always assume the gun is loaded.

Even if you are 100% sure it is not loaded , we are creatures of habit. If you
make a habit of putting your finger on the trigger of unloaded guns eventually
you are going to do the same thing with a loaded one by accident.

If I'm handing someone a hand gun I always remove the magazine and pull back
the barrel. Because even with the magazine out, there could be a chambered
round.

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ashark
> “That being said, I was quite surprised to see a few families using paper
> plates rather than dishes. I’m keenly aware of my culture’s extreme
> wastefulness and have tried to make efforts to reduce my footprint, which is
> why I probably was more aware of it.”

It's damn tempting to do it at least a couple days a week if you have kids.
Stretches how long your kitchen stays clean-ish without a bunch of work, and
is way cheaper than paying a human to come help. Especially effective if you
couple it with frozen food that can be cooked in its own container, or a meal
that can feed 4-5 but be cooked in one pot with no cutting boards or anything
(so, something out of a box). That combo can buy you a day of zero-added-mess
in the kitchen, which is _so_ nice when you've got kids and two working
parents.

Actually, now that I'm writing it out like this, I'm thinking maybe we need to
start doing this like Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I try to consider any possible
way to solve household issues and not get stuck on particular solutions, think
about our house as an environment to help us get stuff done, that kind of
thing, but I think I've been neglecting the possibility of _generating
slightly more trash_ as a way of achieving ends. Yet I've considered the far
more expensive option of hiring help. Just a couple regular, planned days a
week of basically not using the kitchen could give us a _perceived_ lower
amount of work and an _actual_ time-the-kitchen-is-clean much greater than the
2/7 it implies. And it's cheaper and (way) more convenient than dining out.
Hm....

~~~
gambiting
I don't mean this in a bad way - do you not have a dishwasher? I've long
stopped considering them luxuries. The amount of time saved on cleaning is
enormous, especially since I cook every day, and I can't imagine cooking even
half as much if I had to do the dishes by hand afterwards. The electricity
cost is so small it's not worth worrying about, and water happens to be free
where I live, but the time saving is the biggest plus.

~~~
ashark
Yeah. They still take ~50% of the effort of hand-washing before you can expect
them to actually clean anything you put in them, in my experience—our current
one, though only a year old, is _incredibly_ shitty and takes more like 75%.
With a few kids you're running the dishwasher and putting away dishes like 4-5
times a week. Dropping that to 2-3 would be pretty nice.

Also dishwashers are _entirely_ useless for something like 1/4 of the items
that are dirtied in meal prep + eating (and it's only that low because we have
3 kids, so the dishwashable-item count is higher than for, say, 2 people,
while the non-dishwashable count is similar). There's more stuff you don't
have to do with a frozen meal and paper plates.

Admittedly, this latter point is almost a non-issue if you _mise en place_ and
Clean as you Go when cooking, but not every working couple gets home at the
same time and sometimes the spouse who consistently and gleefully uses the
above gets home too late to cook unless you want to push back the kids
bedtimes (god no) and sometimes the spouse who gets home earlier just cannot
be convinced to use the above by seemingly any means and gets really snippy
when further efforts at convincing are made, no matter how gently. At least
I'm quite sure that must be the case for someone. Ahem.

~~~
gambiting
That has not been my experience with dishwashers at all. I've had 4 different
ones so far and never had to do anything other than just swipe solid food off
to the bin,never prewashed anything. Usually use the 65C programme on them and
everything comes out super clean, there will be an odd thing that is not
completely clean but I'm serious when I say that's probably one thing in 1/10
loads.

And what sort of things do you use for prep that can't go in the dishwasher?
All knives, plastic chopping boards, bowls - all goes straight in the
dishwasher. The only things I don't put in it are my frying pans since I have
a nice Circulon set and I've already ruined one by putting it in a dishwasher.

~~~
ashark
> And what sort of things do you use for prep that can't go in the dishwasher?
> All knives, plastic chopping boards, bowls - all goes straight in the
> dishwasher. The only things I don't put in it are my frying pans since I
> have a nice Circulon set and I've already ruined one by putting it in a
> dishwasher.

Lots of utensils that are too tall to go in the silverware basket, but tend to
fall down and block the arms if you put them on the regular tray section.
Pots, pans, mixing bowls, cutting boards. They block too much water and if
they're not clean enough to wipe clean with water and a towel in ~10 seconds
the dishwasher's not gonna do anything for them anyway.

We've owned... oh, 5, maybe 6 dishwashers? All but 2 of them new. None of them
have _not_ left several dishes dirty enough in every load that you had to
leave them in to run again, or hand wash them after the machine had already
"washed" them. None have been any good at all for things that are _really_
dirty and couldn't be hand-cleaned very quickly. If I lived alone I would 100%
for sure not bother with one at all. Easily the most frustrating/useless
appliance in my house.

[EDIT] there's also the problem that anything sitting dirty in a not-yet-full
dishwasher can't be used... unless you take it out and hand wash it. Not a
problem for plates and stuff, but a _real_ problem for prep-related items.

~~~
gambiting
I'd love to know the reason why our experiences are so vastly different.
Either our cooking styles are very different, or US dishwashers are more
inefficient or I don't know what else. But there must be a reason.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
I was wondering the same. I have a very similar experience to yours (3
dishwashers in France, all of them Bosh or Siemens) and this is one of these
wonderful inventions which change life.

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jacknews
Interesting pictures, but they seem designed to convey "disappointment"

I'd be disappointed too with most of the food, not to mention the anti-social
eating arrangements, in many of the pictures.

My personal take-away (ahem) - gay couples (or maybe just friends/family/room-
mates) appear to have better dinners. Or better presentation, though in that
case I'm not sure whose.

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xexers
That's a lot of screens at dinner time... either TV or computer screens.
That's kind of sad. There are lots of reasons (and science) for why you
shouldn't have screens while eating.

~~~
jstanley
I'll bite: what scientific reasons are there for a screen to be worse for you
while eating than while not eating?

~~~
didgeoridoo
There is evidence that distracted eating tends to increase overall food
intake:
[http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/97/4/728.abstract](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/97/4/728.abstract)

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1_2__4
This is way more a artistic photo shoot than anything approaching journalism.

~~~
overcast
Yes, a lot of staged shots, and off camera lighting.

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losteverything
They are missing something: if you don't feed the darn animals first you don't
eat in peace!

Where were the pets in the pics?

~~~
tantalor
[http://huckcdn.lwlies.com/admin/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/1...](http://huckcdn.lwlies.com/admin/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/131204_brandy_john_039.jpg)

"Wednesday: Brandy and John."

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synicalx
Australia here, I guess our dinner times are reasonably similar to the US.

Personally, I'm a fan of the old stable table in front of the TV.
Alternatively, being inappropriately drunk at a nice restaurant seems to
happen more often than I'd like.

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gumby
Only pictures on unhappy looking people? Was that for artistic or for didactic
purposes?

~~~
HenryTheHorse
That's a very interesting point.

Writer-filmmaker Errol Morris has written extensively about how there are no
absolute truths in a photograph. A photograph, like art, can cover up facts,
reveal new truths and distort reality.

So when I view these pictures in a particular way, like you, I too sense
melancholy.

But seen in another way, these are little domestic vignettes, filled with
pizza, contentment, sitcom laugh-tracks, boredom and some anxiety.

The question is, how _do_ we want to view these photos? What do we want to
believe about dinnertime in the USA?

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madengr
My family is in the minority; 4 of us eat at a table. Though my son wolfs it
down to get back to Roblox. Unless mom is gone, then we revert to animals.

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rokhayakebe
A lot of pizza.

~~~
mmmpop
Pizza is great, people should have pizza for dinner all of the time.

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wink
Read the article while sitting at my computer with my dinner, what a
coincidence.

Yes, I can eat in the living room on the proper dining table, but I don't like
it. When I was living with my parents, we had a decent table in the kitchen,
where we had all our meals. Sadly my kitchen in this apartment is not big
enough for any kind of table, which is really sad.

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jaclaz
Can't say if it's just me, but I noticed that almost noone (the ones actually
sitting at a dining table) use an actual tablecloth.

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cgy1
In the first picture of Natalia and Maryann, is that a CRT monitor in the
background?

