For dinner, this is usually the case for a Voodoo Doll. Dinner's the easiest meal to work with. You get 2-3 starches, 2 veggies, 2 proteins, and 2 fats. Just about any meal will meet these criteria, so long as you are flexible, and/or can read the labels yourself. For example, a few nights ago, we grilled up some tasty cheeseburgers, and I still got tater tots on the side, even after eating a regular bun. Why? For some reason, Roman Meal buns are about 1/2 the carbs as their Country Harvest counterparts. That may be because the Roman Meal buns are smaller, but they aren't 1/2 the size. All I can figure is either Roman Meal uses more whole grains, or less refined sugars, than Country Harvest. Either way, I like Roman Meal well enough and they happened to be cheaper, too, so the label was a pleasant surprise. So I'm not going to fuss with those ridiculous sandwich thins, which are like a perforated pita, and leaked mustard on my fingers. They didn't fool me. It wasn't a real bun. That burger, plus a salad, and those tots, left my blood sugar at a healthy 114. Good deal!
But when you're out, you don't really get to read the nutrition labels. Sometimes you might find the restaurants with their nutrition guides, but they have one flaw: they are for the meal, not per item. So it's hard to know if the reason, say, your Buffalo Chicken Wrap is over the carb limit is because of the tortilla, the sauce, breading, or all of the above. All you know is it's a "no." You can start peeling off pieces of the possibly offending starch, but that's a risky move. (For reference, see my Quiz-NOS experience, where removing 1/2 the roll still gave me a spike. Coulda been the sauce. Coulda been that roll is the most carb-loaded item on the planet. Coulda been just evil, I dunno.)
So when you're out, you have to be a bit more careful. I wouldn't order a burger AND fries when out, because I can't see the roll's breakdown, or know exactly how many fries I'm getting. (Tots are easy to count. 9 per serving.) And when you add the normal pregnancy restrictions/recommendations, such as avoiding raw fish, raw eggs, and unpasteurized dairy, (oh, and alcohol, too,) eating out gets a little more tricky. But if the restaurant is willing to, say, switch your bleu for cheddar (since bleu isn't always pasteurized, and your server is unlikely to know the source of your cheese and know whether that particular cheese was pasteurized if it is a type that isn't always made from pasteurized milk,) or leave off the aioli or hollandaise (what with their raw eggs), you are probably going to be able to pick just about anything on the menu.
Or, you could go to a restaurant where the menu states on the bottom that they won't do any substitutions, because the chef is a pretentious jerk.
Ok, well, that isn't the exact text, but that's the message.
Add in a fairly limited menu and a waiter who, when told matter-of-factly that you have gestational diabetes and would like to know how strict they are with the "policy" regarding switcheroos says, "hey, don't get mad at ME," as if you'd thrown your steak knife at him, waited for the cut to well up, and drizzle some lemon juice in that open wound, and you have a recipe for a fussy Voodoo Doll.
I won't call out the restaurant on here for a couple of reasons. One, it's local, so most of you reading this will never have the occasion to stage an angry boycott anyway, and two, a good friend of mine quite likes the place and I don't want the waiter to spit in his food in the future. But, if you like riddles, and can figure it out, here is the name:
Two words:
First word is a new show on the SyFy channel that is based on a Stephen King story,
First letter of the second word is the first letter of a kids' toy and cartoon show that totally rocked the 80's, because it's about "real american heroes,"
Followed by the name of the Jetsons's dog,
Ending with a word that rhymes with a word that means to exfoliate, or what you do to a potato.
Got it?
Ok, anyway, after establishing that they couldn't adjust a salad to remove an egg, you know, because lettuces grow in the field with poached eggs already on them, I ended up ordering a salad with duck breast on it. Hubby was ordering shrimp and grits, and we were going to share. This would have been an excellent meal if the food wasn't awful.
Actually, if I had Hubby's meal instead, I'd have been fine, because I'm a sick individual who likes soggy fatty bacon, which snuggled each grilled shrimp. I ate all of the bacon and two of the shrimp. Hubby was disgusted by watching me eat the bacon, but hoped at least I got some protein out of it, because the salad was a wreck.
Ever watch Top Chef and watch someone get sent home from a salad? It seems pretty pathetic, getting sunk by a salad, because amateur home chefs know a salad is pretty darn simple and follows a few basic rules: have a variety of tasty ingredients, have a good dressing, and don't overdress it. My sister, for example, makes her own dressing, which is fabulous, and my Hubby wants to inject directly into his veins. She shakes it up fresh, different each time, with fresh herbs, oils, vinegars, and adjusts it to fit the salad.
I'd think at a place where the chef is so confident in his creations that he prints it on the menu that you can eat it as it is served or can go jump off a cliff, they'd make their own dressings.
And I think they did. It was just awful.
For the record, I'm practically part deer. You give me a salt lick and I'm a happy camper. So when I tell you that this dressing was too salty, that's saying it was actually inedible. But I ate it anyway.
And of course, the focus of this salad was the duck breast.
I admit, if there is duck on a menu, I will order it, unless one of two things occur: (1) it's a duckling, because I don't eat baby anythings except corn or carrots, or (2) my sis beats me to it and then I want a bite of hers. Duck shows up on menus so rarely that I feel compelled to indulge. I don't remember when I first tried duck, but it started me down a road that led to quail and other less traditional fowl. Duck, duck, goose, mmm! That's the best menu ever.
I sliced a piece of the duck and put it into my mouth, and it wasn't fowl. It was foul. Absolutely terrible. I don't know what they did to the duck--it didn't taste overcooked. I can't tell you what was wrong with it and I wish I could, but it didn't taste like duck. All I can think is they imported this duck from the gulf, and I was tasting Duck a la British Petroleum, but they'd failed to use the Dawn to wash its troubles away first. (I love that commerical!)
So with salty greens and inedible duck, you'd think I'd have sent it back.
I didn't.
A waiter who is rude to a pregnant woman asking about substitutions is not the kind of man I want handling my food. The dressing was liquified sodium, and the bird was nasty, but neither would have been improved with the addition of his saliva.
So I ate my greens, ignored the duck, and did the waiter ask if the food was ok? Nope. When he took away the plate with the duck essentially untouched, did he ask if there was a problem? Nope.
Will I ever go back there?
Nope.
But I'm not worried about that tonight. We're going to a place that rhymes with "A Guard Mouse," and we're going to have a great time.
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