Shop and Chomp
I officially said to hell with dieting last week. Call it a coincidence, but the day before I went to see The Day After Tomorrow, I finished reading the 1995 Graham Hancock book Fingerprints of the Gods. Hancock suggested that at the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012, the modern world will probably end, flooded and icy — just like The Day After Tomorrow‘s scenario! By my calculations, that gives me about eight years before I go into permanent deep-freeze — like those wooly mammoths 10,000 years ago — flash-frozen while I’m still chomping a double cheeseburger.
With no culinary limitations, I’ll never have to go hungry again — even when I’m shopping. After all, it’s getting easier and easier to find retail outlets that offer at least some kind of prepared food. Just the other morning, I made a quick dash into my neighborhood Price Chopper for some forgotten necessity, and I noticed that the folks behind the deli counter were offering a really cheap breakfast deal from 7 to 10 a.m. For $1.49 — nine pennies more than the price of a dinky cup of coffee at Starbucks — I got a scoop of scrambled eggs, two strips of crispy bacon and a biscuit.
It wasn’t a great breakfast (the biscuit was so dry, it could have been petrified about the time those wooly mammoths bit the dust), but it was a bargain. Ditto the java: A small cup goes for 49 cents!
The next night, I drove over to Wyandotte County to look for a sofa at the Nebraska Furniture Mart. Since I had brought along my perpetually starving friend Bob, we took a shopping break to have a quick dinner at The Courtyard Café, a combination coffee bar and snack shop located just a few steps from the music and DVD selections.
The Courtyard Café, operated by hands-on owners Pernell Dye and Matthew DeLeon, tosses together elements from Starbucks, Panera Bread and no-frills airport terminal “restaurants.” We sampled one of the pasta selections; the fettuccine Alfredo with vegetables arrived draped in a watery sauce that tasted canned, and the only “vegetables” on the noodles were chopped carrots! I really liked my grilled “Smoked Pollo” panini sandwich, but it was one of a dying breed; paninis have been dropped from the new menu.
The desserts looked gorgeous, having been imported from places like The Cheesecake Factory. I ate a big slab of Belgian chocolate cheesecake without a shred of regret. Baby, I’ll be well-insulated for the day after tomorrow.
