Eyelashes and Sass

I remember precious little about my childhood; I must’ve skipped the day the good Lord passed out memory, which is probably why He gave me double doses of eyelashes and sass.  I do remember though Sunday lunches after church when my family would go out to eat at the Artillery Club.  This was a Big Deal. Huge.

I wonder if our children will look back and their Big Deal memory will be the occasions  when they actually sat around the kitchen table and took their meals at home?

This is not a social commentary on the demise of family values because we don’t break bread together.  Neither is this a message from your accountant who just totaled up how much your “travel and entertainment” expenses were over the course of the year. Rather, this is an OBNOXIOUS WARNING BELL, CLANGING WILDLY about eating out more meals than in and the havoc this bad habit wreaks on your health.  

Listen.  Restaurants are in business to do one thing:  to make you come back.  Have you ever wondered what their tricks are and why they work so well?  Just exactly what do you think they put in their food to make it taste so dang good?  

High fat, if not lots of salt, or both.  

They serve “free” breadsticks, baskets of chips or cheese biscuits before you eat (like these don’t count?), and they keep ‘em coming.  They serve you your choice of entrees, and it’s enough food to feed Coxes’ army.  They bring you a huge glass of your beverage of choice, and keep it full.  They have the nerve to ask you if you’d like some dessert with your coffee...  Why it’s a conspiracy!  :)  A few blogs ago, I talked about portion sizes.  Would you believe I’ve actually been asked if there was something wrong with my meal after practicing portion control and leaving the rest?  

So today’s blog is about taking a look at this restaurant habit.  (My apologies to my friends who own restaurants.  No worries---I’m a lone voice telling a few readers my opinion....your fortunes are safe!) I’m going to ask you to cut back, by HALF, the amount of times you eat out this week.  This means for you folks who go out to lunch with the gang from work then drive through somewhere on your way home to pick up dinner will need to start (cute) brown-bagging it for lunch.  No?  You’ll miss out on too much socially and before you know it, you’ll be passed over come review time?  Then by golly, plan on cooking dinner at home.  (I’m assuming you’re eating breakfast there too, a la blog, day 2.)

Key word here: PLAN.  I’ll help you with that if you’d like.  Tomorrow.  For now, go pack a turkey sandwich, some baby carrots and an apple.  Here’s an idea!  Start a (cute) brown-bag lunch bunch at work!