Jericho: Chicken Skin
Steph and I are back on a diet, it's day 14. We started the Tuesday after MLK. We're just low carbing it. Steph wants to do South Beach, but her book hasn't arrived yet, and two weeks in I'm not about to go back and do any kind of induction phase! We're just not eating many carbs, we're not measuring anything and eventually we'll get to the gym. I'm sure I gained back most of the fifty pounds I lost over a year ago. I haven't gotten on a scale yet for the sake of my mental health. I am serious about taking off the weight this time, and yesterday I found out just how serious I am.
I hate trying to go out to eat on a low carb diet. All of the choices you love when you are not dieting just evaporate. We don't eat out very much at all when we are doing this diet a) because everyone tends to over eat when we go out to eat, too tempting b) everything on the market is covered in bread or loaded with some other huge amount of carbs and c) when you are eating mostly meat, there's very little money for going out. But, when the main course is flame grilled, high quality steak that you cooked yourself to perfection - going out loses it's luster.
Flame grilling is much facilitated by clear weather. For those of you not addicted to the Weather Channel, Seattle is going through some record breaking wet weather. Even the most web toed of Seattle residents are looking up and wondering if it will ever end. My grill tools are getting pretty rusty. And if you think I'm mad to be grilling this time of year, I'll tell you the steaks and chicken we had two weeks ago (first eight dry hours we had seen in the last three months) were freakin' awesome!
Now, imagine a lazy, wet Sunday afternoon. Neither Steph nor I had eaten yet. Steph was suffering from a sinus headache due to all the weather hiccups. I had been up only long enough to get hungry. We didn't feel like cooking. We went out in the wet to pick up something at the store only to figure out we didn't need it once we were in the parking lot. We decided to grab some food and take it home. All of our typical options, i.e. bunless hamburgers, have lost their appeal. We thought about grabbing some of the healthier dishes at Panda Express (a.k.a. Plastic Panda) - but their parking lot was so packed, we decided on Low Carb Whoppers.
As we are driving toward BK, Steph says we should head to Granny's. The Old Country Buffet in Kent, WA. used to be called Granny's Buffet. OCB is a Temple of Carbohydrates, but if you look hard enough and bribe a few key players, a low carb meal can be had. Since it was nearly 2 PM, we thought we could avoid the lunch rush but still catch the lunch price. It's not an easy thing we were intending to do. Steph loves mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. I'm a HUGE fan of fried chicken and the dessert cart. I lamented at the time "I don't know which is worse: dieting or being fat."
We were hungry - low blood sugar is a dangerous thing, it leads to poor judgment.
Our first mistake was not thinking a little bit harder about our timing. Yes, it was 2 PM, but it was 2 PM on a SUNDAY at OLD COUNTRY BUFFET! We arrived in the middle of the Church Rush. Seemingly hundreds of people who had just sat through hours of preaching, singing and fellowshipping had arrived to drown their concerns about the fate of their eternal souls in the all-you-can-eat taco and baked potato bar. We were too hungry to leave - there was a pile of roasted chicken breasts to be had - only a few meters away. Or so we thought.
It took less time to get through the line than I thought it would, and we were seated close to the buffet. I ran off to the bar first, leaving Steph to guard the table. My plan was to grab a half dozen roasted chicken breasts, a couple of Diet Cokes and return to the table in two minutes. I dodged a few three foot tall people carrying plates loaded beyond the capacity of the plate or the person holding it, grabbed a plate and approached the vat of chicken opposite the vat of fried chicken. But, it wasn't roasted chicken. It was, um, grainy. To my chagrin, they had Shake n' Baked my chicken. Savages!
I returned to the table with a plate of fried chicken. Steph looked stunned "What's that?" she asked knowing full well.
"They used Shake n' Bake on the chicken," I nearly slammed my plate on the table. I am not a huge fan of OCB, only the unlimited fried chicken. I was quite irritated that we had to wait for as long as we did, that we were denied what we had come here for and that I had to eat my meal with 350 children who had not been allowed to talk, cry, scream or run around like wild animals for the last six hours. I was most angry about the action I was about to take.
"What are you doing?" Steph asked.
"I'm pulling off the skin. Last time I checked, I was on a diet." I turned to the grim task in silence. I figured the fried chicken would be easier to decarb than the Shake n' Baked garbage.
"Oh ... " said Steph as she got up to drown her sorrows in the taco bar. She later told me that when I returned with a mound of fried chicken, she figured all bets were off and we were about to get our carbin' on. I am usually the one who leads us into carbtation.
My anger only increased when she returned with a plate of salad and taco meat. We could have gotten that at Burger King, for the same price, less wait time, less driving and less noisy, sick, annoying people! (Read: screaming children.) I spent the rest of the meal taking it out on the defenseless bird bits in front of me. I ate the better part of a whole chicken, swallowed a medium salad and was ready to hit the road in less than half an hour. Steph knew I was ready to go and cut her meal short. I don't know for sure if she did it for my sake or because she, too, was disappointed. Either way, I was SO READY to go and am grateful to her.
On the way home, we were both bitching about OCB, the diet and our poor choice. I was struck funny, I think I even let out a giggle. "What is it?" asked Steph.
"I guess I have my answer."
"What answer?"
"Do I hate dieting more than being fat? I peeled the skin off of fried chicken. Fried Chicken!! I guess I hate being fat more than dieting."
I hate trying to go out to eat on a low carb diet. All of the choices you love when you are not dieting just evaporate. We don't eat out very much at all when we are doing this diet a) because everyone tends to over eat when we go out to eat, too tempting b) everything on the market is covered in bread or loaded with some other huge amount of carbs and c) when you are eating mostly meat, there's very little money for going out. But, when the main course is flame grilled, high quality steak that you cooked yourself to perfection - going out loses it's luster.
Flame grilling is much facilitated by clear weather. For those of you not addicted to the Weather Channel, Seattle is going through some record breaking wet weather. Even the most web toed of Seattle residents are looking up and wondering if it will ever end. My grill tools are getting pretty rusty. And if you think I'm mad to be grilling this time of year, I'll tell you the steaks and chicken we had two weeks ago (first eight dry hours we had seen in the last three months) were freakin' awesome!
Now, imagine a lazy, wet Sunday afternoon. Neither Steph nor I had eaten yet. Steph was suffering from a sinus headache due to all the weather hiccups. I had been up only long enough to get hungry. We didn't feel like cooking. We went out in the wet to pick up something at the store only to figure out we didn't need it once we were in the parking lot. We decided to grab some food and take it home. All of our typical options, i.e. bunless hamburgers, have lost their appeal. We thought about grabbing some of the healthier dishes at Panda Express (a.k.a. Plastic Panda) - but their parking lot was so packed, we decided on Low Carb Whoppers.
As we are driving toward BK, Steph says we should head to Granny's. The Old Country Buffet in Kent, WA. used to be called Granny's Buffet. OCB is a Temple of Carbohydrates, but if you look hard enough and bribe a few key players, a low carb meal can be had. Since it was nearly 2 PM, we thought we could avoid the lunch rush but still catch the lunch price. It's not an easy thing we were intending to do. Steph loves mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. I'm a HUGE fan of fried chicken and the dessert cart. I lamented at the time "I don't know which is worse: dieting or being fat."
We were hungry - low blood sugar is a dangerous thing, it leads to poor judgment.
Our first mistake was not thinking a little bit harder about our timing. Yes, it was 2 PM, but it was 2 PM on a SUNDAY at OLD COUNTRY BUFFET! We arrived in the middle of the Church Rush. Seemingly hundreds of people who had just sat through hours of preaching, singing and fellowshipping had arrived to drown their concerns about the fate of their eternal souls in the all-you-can-eat taco and baked potato bar. We were too hungry to leave - there was a pile of roasted chicken breasts to be had - only a few meters away. Or so we thought.
It took less time to get through the line than I thought it would, and we were seated close to the buffet. I ran off to the bar first, leaving Steph to guard the table. My plan was to grab a half dozen roasted chicken breasts, a couple of Diet Cokes and return to the table in two minutes. I dodged a few three foot tall people carrying plates loaded beyond the capacity of the plate or the person holding it, grabbed a plate and approached the vat of chicken opposite the vat of fried chicken. But, it wasn't roasted chicken. It was, um, grainy. To my chagrin, they had Shake n' Baked my chicken. Savages!
I returned to the table with a plate of fried chicken. Steph looked stunned "What's that?" she asked knowing full well.
"They used Shake n' Bake on the chicken," I nearly slammed my plate on the table. I am not a huge fan of OCB, only the unlimited fried chicken. I was quite irritated that we had to wait for as long as we did, that we were denied what we had come here for and that I had to eat my meal with 350 children who had not been allowed to talk, cry, scream or run around like wild animals for the last six hours. I was most angry about the action I was about to take.
"What are you doing?" Steph asked.
"I'm pulling off the skin. Last time I checked, I was on a diet." I turned to the grim task in silence. I figured the fried chicken would be easier to decarb than the Shake n' Baked garbage.
"Oh ... " said Steph as she got up to drown her sorrows in the taco bar. She later told me that when I returned with a mound of fried chicken, she figured all bets were off and we were about to get our carbin' on. I am usually the one who leads us into carbtation.
My anger only increased when she returned with a plate of salad and taco meat. We could have gotten that at Burger King, for the same price, less wait time, less driving and less noisy, sick, annoying people! (Read: screaming children.) I spent the rest of the meal taking it out on the defenseless bird bits in front of me. I ate the better part of a whole chicken, swallowed a medium salad and was ready to hit the road in less than half an hour. Steph knew I was ready to go and cut her meal short. I don't know for sure if she did it for my sake or because she, too, was disappointed. Either way, I was SO READY to go and am grateful to her.
On the way home, we were both bitching about OCB, the diet and our poor choice. I was struck funny, I think I even let out a giggle. "What is it?" asked Steph.
"I guess I have my answer."
"What answer?"
"Do I hate dieting more than being fat? I peeled the skin off of fried chicken. Fried Chicken!! I guess I hate being fat more than dieting."
posted by Jericho Brown at 1/30/2006 01:29:00 PM
20 Comments:
I was VERY proud of you for taking the skin off your chicken (things that sound dirty but aren't!). I REEEEEEEAAALLY wanted mac & cheese...saw the whole pile of fried chicken and felt like a cat who'd just caught it's canary.....mac & cheese cooooooooooooome to mama! As it turns out, my husband was being all responsible and stuff. I did enjoy my taco salad. I didn't have the salsa or the taco chips. Meat, cheese, veggies and a small dollop of sour cream is what I ate (quickly, I could tell he wanted OUT of there). I can make better and probably should have. The main thing is that Jason was the one to say no to the carbfest!
He's done VERY well for the past two weeks. Congrats dude!
So. You're a skinjob.
Nope. Skinjobs are a clone of a different color.
Dunno about that. You are about as pale as Darryl Hannah was.
mmmmmm..... fried chicken.....
I'm shocked they still call it Old Country Buffett in Seattle. It's changed to Hometowne Buffett in the Lou.
Anyway, keep up the good work you two. You'll be bean-poles before you know it.
mmmmmmm...... beans.......
We can have beans!!! Don't know as though either of us will be bean poles, healthy is all we're aiming for.
Made some fabulous meatballs last night with super lean ground beef and a little bit of ground pork, some spices. Once they were cooked, I put some no sugar added tomato sauce on them and some reduced fat cheese and baked for a little longer....YUUUUUUM with a salad!
That does sound good (and easy to make), Steph! You could write a cook book of low carb easy to make meals. It seems like most low carb cook books have complicated recipies or bizarre ingrediants. I could have used one that just re-made all (or at least some) of my favorite comfort foods in low-carb form.
I usually look at both low carb and regular recipies and come up with some combo of my own (replacing the 'bad' items).
:) Can't do the fried chicken though....it's pretty tough to low carb that one. You're better off setting a designated cheat meal and going to town on it!
Hmmm ... simple low carb meals, that replicate all of our favorite comfort foods, all in one simple cook book. Great idea, Laura!
BTW - them was some good meatballs!
I wonder what almond flour fried chicken would taste like ... not that this is a simple idea, just thinking. The best part of the fried chicken breading is the sweetness, the spicing and the fat absorbtion ... hmmmm ...
I can try that....and I can make mac & cheese using dreamfields...we'll give it a shot!
YEEK!!!! Dreamfields!!!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeviiiil ... !
I am going have to agree. That stuff does not even come close to qualifying as food. And this is coming from someone who lived in London for a while.
Yeeeah.... Dreamfeild just wasn't too good, as I recal.
I dunno, to me it comes off as a pretty close simulation of pasta - maybe you guys cooked yours too long or something. I dunno. It's not like it tastes bad, matter of fact I can eat an entire box.
It's what happens AFTER we eat Dreamfields that's the problem. That stuff gives me gas something fierce! And as for Steph - whoa, boy!
Oh man. If we ever come to visit again, you two are going to have to go off your diet for the duration of our stay. I'd like to make it home alive. :D
I dunno if it was too long or too short. What makes it feel like rubber and taste like raw flour?
Are you sure you had the same stuff? It tastes the same....just makes us both fart like mad....
I bow to your genious in making that stuff eatable.
We just had some the other night with alfredo - not bad. Since we ate an actual portion instead of a box each, farting was present but minimal.
Post a Comment
<< Home