The dreaded DIET

First off, no, I have not weighed myself.  To be quite honest, I have not been on a scale, besides at a doctor's office, in possibly more than a year.  I just didn't care to know how much I weighed.  I remembered that about a year ago,  I did weigh around 160 pounds.  I'm a lightweight, I am 6 foot tall exactly and I eat a lot of food without really gaining weight.  My family is an incredible metabolism which is important because through that, I am able to take in as much as 5,000 calories in 24 hours and not feel sick, bloated, or even full, much less gain an ounce of weight.  While all of this is said and good, within the past year, my 1 inch of noticeable gut/belly fat, has increase in size. 

Now, I do all of the cooking at home and while my wife was on weight watchers and lost a huge amount of weight enabling her to look hotter than Salma Hayek and Marilyn Monroe combined, I possible only ate more junk food than I normally did, adding useless weight onto my body.  It was mid-Summer of 2013, which I had asked my brother-in-law's body building trainer to start on me.  It was no secret that I was a 160 pound weakling.  I know that I probably weighed about 130 pounds when I first met my wife and she tells me stories that her family first thought I was sick and anemic.  I know her mom used to wonder if I could even help her with carrying groceries because I looked so weak. 

I never did any weight training or body building as I viewed it in a negative light thanks to my younger brothers.  When I turned 16, on a whim, and partially because I was a huge Mortal Kombat fan, I signed up to take Kempo Karate.  It wasn't required for me to live so it wasn't paid for by my parents and instead I had to pay for each and every lesson and everything that went with it.  So, as a teenager, still sharing a room with my younger brother, he began to feel threatened.  I mean, he was a younger brother who was always more aggressive than myself and my other two brothers.  I'm sure he saw his older brother as even more of a threat now that I was learning how to defend myself.  So, my younger brother started to weight lift at age 14.  He worked as hard as he could and as long as I did karate, he worked out.  When I got to college and was finishing up, he had gotten a job in a gym and was taking karate lessons from someone who claimed to have the ability.  (Much like taking karate lessons from someone who had watched a Chuck Norris movie.)  I had learned in karate classes that the damage that could be done to people was done through speed and concentration, rather than brute force.  Also, with my younger brother routinely trying to beat me up and me able to defend myself using my new found skills, probably irritated him even further and pushed him to work out more.  He talked my youngest brother to work out with him and within that time frame, he and my youngest brother had done some sort of exercise incorrectly enough where they both had hurt their backs.  It was bad enough that they were both told that they couldn't work out anymore.

Mind you, that my younger brother was the very epitome of body builder stereotypes.  During the summer, I remembered him waking up around 7am, leaving for the gym and then coming back around 4pm, eating 3 cans of tuna, drinking a large cup of milk mixed with whey protein and then changing his clothes to go to a nightclub and drink and come back home around 2 or 3.  Even when I was married and came back to visit my parents, he would still be there, downing can after can of tuna against my warnings of how it might not be real tuna and packed with great things like aluminum lake or mercury.  But it didn't phase him.

Now, enough about him. 

So, about last year in summer, I started working out, during my extra free time at my office.  I was instructed by a former Mr. Missouri.  I started off having to struggle to lift the 45 pound bar as a bench press and I remembered how tired I was after that.  Since then, even as recent as this past Tuesday when I worked out last, I was able to do many lifts of 40 additional pounds onto that 45 pound bar.  May not seem like much, but for me, it is great.  Not only that, but for the first time ever, I have been able to lift and carry my wife for long distances: like around the house. So, while the body building has helped me get stronger, I have not burned as many fat calories as I would liked to have done so.  I still weigh 160 pounds, today, but some of that is muscle and some of that is fat and I really need to get rid of that fat.  I don't believe that I am at a risk of a heart attack or any diseases for that matter.  I am so far from obese that it isn't an issue.  But, I love food and I always go for the unhealthy stuff.

Bacon and donuts are my two favorite things.  I love bacon and always loved bacon from the time that my dad would cook it in a pan, every Saturday morning for our breakfast.  It has a comfort level for home, warmth and taste.  I have made bacon, bacon brownies and even bacon ice cream.  I have used bacon in every dish just to try.  I even had my own jar of bacon lard, kept in the refrigerator.  Donuts are perfect and again, stem from a comfort level as when we were kids and my dad would take us over to a spot near our house called the Donut Drive-In.  At the time, it had a big wooden sign with red letters and lights on the side of it which lit up like a marquee.  They had a window in the back of the tiny building, where it had once been a drive through and had moved to just a view of the old gentleman making donuts from scratch.  We would get donuts from there and then go out back and watch him make more.  The world was different then and so was my body. 

Thanks to this internal drive and want for sweet things, I see myself gain weight in areas that I didn't know existed until now.  While doing the body building has added muscle to areas of my shoulders, back and arms, which never existed until now, a 45 minute session does not burn enough calories to clear away the fat.  Maybe 300 calories gets burned, because it brings me to sweating about every time.  Also for the first time this week, I have been counting calories.  I used to do it as a joke: eating a whole box of Little Debbie brownies at 340 calories a brownie and eating 12 would let me have 4,080 calories, as a snack, not a meal.  after that snack, I would still eat other meals like breakfast, lunch and even dinner.  I wouldn't gain that extra pound or anything else and it would just slowly seep onto my body over the course of many, many days or a week.  But what gets me now, is that the decisions in the past, like that, can be compared.  Tuesday I had about 3,000 calories by end of day.  That included donuts for breakfast, potato chips as a snack, a burger on a pretzel bun with mustard and mayo, a glass of protein shake and a dinner later that day.  Snacks included anything from granola bars to some chocolate chips I snuck in because I love chocolate.  Yesterday was the first day of my diet and while still doing the same things as I normally do, I was able to stay below 2,000 calories and still be full.  It was also one of the first times I have had a salad as a primary food source and also a bowl of fruit as a dessert. 

Well, then today I weighed in at about 162 pounds.  While I am still working out, at least 2-3 times a week, I find myself interested in losing about 5 pounds, maybe.  I mean, I am working out enough to help strengthen my arms and core, but find myself unable to see past my belly fat when I look in the mirror.  Do I want to look like a male model? No.  But I would like to see this gut go away.

So, what does that mean for me?  Well, as one with a degree in holistic nutrition, that means I really need to stay away from sugar and fat.  Yeah I know, healthy fats are okay, but those sugars and other fats need to be kept low.  I want to try to exercise a little bit each day and figure that even if I only walk 30 minutes a day, for the whole week, that burns an additional 1,260 calories from what I am normally doing.  And I don't live an inactive life.  I am always walking around the house cleaning up, doing laundry, doing dishes, taking the dog out and walking around the office and so forth. I haven't counted my steps but it would be interesting to see how many steps I do take in any regular given day.

Still now, the hardest part is not going over to get sweets.

From the Golden Arches

So, as my son was eating his once a month Happy Meal, he asked me where hamburgers came from and to be honest, I didn't know.  I thought that there is a place in Germany named Hamburg and it was thought of at one time that frankfurters came from the town of Frankfurt, so perhaps hamburgers came from the town of Hamburg.  But, having some remedial knowledge of other cuisines and cultures, I find it highly unlikely that a town in Germany was the only place in the world where someone had the idea of making a ground meat patty and placing it between two layers of bread.  However, what we call a "hamburger", being ground beef and placed on a yeast risen bread bun, may only come from a culture that A: has cows as one of their food sources and B: has access and use of yeast to rise their bread.  These two factors rule out the possibility of Asia and Africa as being sources of the origin. I also refuse to believe that much of anything traditional such as a hamburger, was really invented in America, like ice tea...

Still, most places, including the Library of Congress, do believe that a man in Connecticut in 1900 was out of steaks at his shop and instead stuck the ground up pieces and trimmings of his steaks together to create a hamburger. While that may be the first time this meat item had shown up in America, it isn't the first time it was ever invented.  (In fact, like the creation of Buffalo Wings, I doubt the above claim.)  Although a Governor in Oklahoma, claimed that the first hamburger on a bun was eaten in Tulsa in 1881.

But what about other parts of this meal?  What about French Fries?  Well, let's get one claim out of the way that it either was invented in France or Belgium.  Both countries claim to have invented it.  The fact we know, is that potatoes are native to Central America and therefore, did not show up anywhere else in the world until after 1735.  What is interesting though, is that Spain, would have been the first European country to get the potatoes and therefore could have had the ability to invent the French Fry.  It wasn't until Thomas Jefferson was at a dinner at the White House, where he was served a dish called French Fries, which meant "potatoes served in a French manner".  This part makes sense because it was the French who helped America during the Revolutionary War, so of course it would have been France who had had close relations with America and therefore if any cook from a country would have delivered fried potatoes first, it would have been France.

So, we doing alright?  Is your mouth watering yet?

Now, while ketchup seems to always be paired with hamburgers and fries, remember this: tomatoes are native of the Americas also, so no other place could have tomatoes before the 1730's as well, like potatoes. In fact, the earliest mention of tomato ketchup, was in 1801.  Things resembling ketchup, without the tomatoes, had existed in India and China as early as the 1600's, but the tomatoes are New World products and this means that ketchup is as well.

I think the last thing that goes well with hamburgers, may have been the oldest one yet.  Mustard, is historically connected with the ancient Romans, who created a spread grinding mustard seeds with grape juice vinegar and then cooking it to give it a musty taste.  A recipe has survived from the 4th century.  It is amazing that we still use the same item today on our food.

 

Some restaurants do it while others do not.

What I am speaking of, is how a restaurant handles their favorite, every day and regular customers.  I know from personal experience and managing a restaurant, that you want to treat your regular customers even nicer than you would a new customer but should refrain from doing so.  You still want the new customers to become regulars and because of that you need to make sure that everyone is treated fairly and equally.

This past Saturday, I went with my family to Schottzies Bar & Grill. I chose this location for our lunch, partly because it has always been there and I have never been in before and because Andrew was there for his show: Bizarre Foods America.  Although I know that the routine practice for the producer of shows like this is to call ahead or meet the owners and staff and set it up, so these restaurants look packed and everyone is so friendly and so forth, I still wanted to bring my family in and try some food.  So, it was my first time.

The building is easy to get to as it is across the street from Olive Garden and it is sandwiched between two streets so you can access it either way.  We opened the door and walked inside.  It was cold, dark and we noticed about 7-8 televisions all playing different channels.  There was enough going on that someone who was ADD would go nuts.  There were two visible servers: one sitting at the bar chatting with some regulars and another sitting on a chair by the far door.  The bartender was chatting with the 4 people at the bar, with the server and there were 4 other people at two tables ordering food. My wife and I picked a table and sat our kids down, ready to be served and try the food.  As soon as we sat down, the waitress who was sitting at the bar chatting, noticed us, got up and came over.  We ordered our drinks, which on the menu were 2 Sprites, a Mello Yello and an iced tea. What I think was odd, is that after seeing the bill, when we were finished, three out of four of the drinks we had ordered were not the drinks we had received.  I know it may sound like that big of a deal to some, but it leads way that not only is their website out of date, but the menu is also.  Instead of Sprite, we were given Slice and instead of Mello Yello, we were given Mountain Dew.

So, after our drinks came, which would put us at about 5 minutes after we had sat down, we had ordered our food.  I didn't have the guts to order a brain sandwich.  I'm sorry.  I know that this restaurant is famous for it, but just wasn't feeling like it so I didn't do it.  We ordered the Appetizer Combination Platter and the Fried Chicken Livers, we also ordered a pepper burger and a Buffalo Chicken pizza.  Then we waited, and waited and waited.  While we waited, we watched the table behind us get their food, eat it while chatting, pay, leave and then a father and daughter sit there and order and get their food.  We watched another table get their pizza, eat half of it, ask for a box and a check and pay and leave.  We watched a table of three come in, order food and get their food.  We watched a group come in of 3 adults and 4 kids, order their food and get it.  We also watched a man walk right in from the door, say hi to everyone as they all acknowledged him and chatted with him.  He sat down and within minutes had a pizza delivered to him so he could eat that.  We waited 40 minutes, with my kids complaining about how long the food was taking.  We had to flag a waitress down, ask her to check with our waitress, who was no where to be seen, and see how long our food was going to be.  It was quite apparent, that we were being ignored.  Everyone that was there, besides us, were recognized by one of the two servers or the bar tender.  They would chat for a few seconds and then get their orders done.  Now, 40 minutes after we had walked into the door, when I did flag down our server and she came over, I asked her how much longer our food was going to take.  She responded with "it will be out any second", which is restaurant code for "I screwed up and I have to tell the cooks to do it".

We got the appetizers, 45 minutes after we walked in the door and sat down.  Our appetizers, this Combination Platter, was so hot that the filling inside of the toasted ravioli had burned the inside of my mouth.  Having an appetizer tray, with mini tacos, chicken strips, cheese filled bread sticks, and toasted ravioli, come out that hot after 40 minutes from ordering, meant that someone forgot our order and just cooked it.  On top of that, everything tasted like it was frozen at one point and then just heated up.  A miserable tray. Nothing on the tray, in my experience, takes longer than 6 minutes to deep fry and cook.  The cheese filled bread sticks, probably take 5 minutes in an oven, the mini tacos, toasted ravioli and chicken strips probably only took 3 each.  I would give the combination try a 2 out of 5 stars meaning that it was okay, but I would not order it again.

My ordered appetizer, was the fried chicken livers and they came at the same time.  The first bite, if you could get to it, was tasty, with the white gravy.  The problem was that not only were these big chunks of liver, but they appeared to have been quadruple breaded and then fried.  I mean that the breading was so hard and crunchy that they were almost as hard as a jawbreaker.  They were no colored light like other people's pictures on websites and in their reviews, but ours were almost a mud brown, like they were over cooked.  I would give these a 1 out of 5 because after trying to eat the first one, I don't know how I would tackle eating another one.

Another 10 minutes after the appetizers came out, we finally had gotten our main courses.  Here is the thing, they were also piping hot.  A burger, drenched in black pepper and cooked to well-done when I had asked for medium, can be cooked well within 10 minutes.  The pizza, which was a 14 inch thin St. Louis style pizza and crust, should not take more than 10 minutes either, especially when the chicken was cooked ahead of time. So, we got our pizza, like it just came out of the oven and was so hot that if you held it at an angle, the cheese would drip off.  When cooled, it was okay.  The breaded and fried chicken, was a tad spicy, but seemed like it was frozen at one point.  So, the chicken was overly cooked, the pizza crust was just right and the onions were under cooked.  My wife and I thought it was a bit strange that when we had ordered the pizza, our server didn't ask if we wanted the chicken to be breaded or grilled, as indicated on the menu. However, we received the breaded chicken, which suggests that if the server doesn't ask and you don't tell them, you will get breaded chicken by default. I'd give the pizza a 2 out of 5 as it was okay and I wouldn't order it again.

The burger had some good flavors: the pepper crust was nice, the pat of butter on the patty was a nice touch, the onions were fresh, the thick slice of tomato was deep red and tasted like a real tomato and not a gassed one and there was a nice large leaf of crisp lettuce.  It looked good but do you know what happens when you mix a lot of pepper and a dry and well done burger together?  "Bleh".  I mean, maybe it wasn't entirely "bleh", but it was really close.  When you use the white gravy from the fried chicken livers and dip your overly peppered well done meat into it and it tastes better than before, then you don't have a very good product.  I understand that they had a little anecdote about the peppered burger stating that it was "Not for the faint of heart!", but it tasted of nothing but pepper.  You could have taken anything, rolled it in the pepper coating and placed it on a bun and it would have been like the same thing.  All I tasted was fresh vegetables and pepper: like a salad.  I'd give the burger a 2 out of 5 as well because while it was edible, I would not recommend it to anyone.

So, overall, the food wasn't what I was expecting.  I have always known that this bar and grill was there and thought that it had to have some decent food, in order to stay in business this long.  I guess it relied on the "brain sandwich" to keep it in business because from what we had of the other food, there is no way that food can keep this place afloat.  I can see that out of the online reviews currently existing, on Yelp.com, out of the 8 of them, none of them rated this place 5 stars.  They have some 2, 3, and 4 star reviews.  The reviews would suggest that if you come in the evening, you would have great food and service.  However, the original title of this is about regular guests and it is very true now.  You see that while we were there, we watched people, who were called by their names, by the servers, get their food faster than us, and get friendly service.  I mean, I actually had to flag the second server, not the one who was taking care of us, in order to have her check with our server and see how much longer our food was taking.  People who had just walked in, were greeted within seconds and then asked their food and drink order.  I kid you not: the people to our right, walked in about 20 minutes after we did and then before our appetizers had come out, they had food on their table.  My wife and I 100% agree, that had we been someone who had come before or even just once a week, we would have had excellent service.  In conclusion; I cannot honestly suggest or recommend that anyone ever go to Schottzies for food.  It was not kid friendly, the food was not fresh, it certainly took about 45 minutes to deliver us something that takes 6 minutes in a 385 degree fryer and the service was almost non-existent.  It was almost as if they would have been happier had we not eaten there. I'm sorry Schottzies, but you are a big loser in my book.  You not only pissed off a small family on their weekend but a food writer.  Good luck with that.