On Friday, I was pretty tired and achy and decided I would be a lazy mare and just relax. It was a nice, vegged out kind of a day, mostly spent in pyjamas. My husband has been a little under the weather, so he has been sleeping an odd pattern, and I took the opportunity to have an afternoon nap while he was snoozing.
When we both woke up, I mentioned that either Denny's or Golden Corral had a seafood special running, $11.99 for all you can eat seafood. He was very keen on that idea as he adores shrimp (prawns, if you grew up in Britain), so I did a bit of Googling and discovered it was Golden Corral.
Now, my husband really isn't that big a snob. I swear he isn't. But, GC is one of those chains that he's always looked down his nose at and so we've never visited it before. He had said in the past that it was a buffet-style restaurant and generally the clientele were from the less-affluent end of the market as you could eat as much as you like for a low price. I wasn't really expecting all that much from the experience, but as he was keen despite his previous comments we decided to go.
It was pretty much as you might expect: two and four seater tables, plastic plates and glasses, half decent silverware had it been thoroughly clean. Think school canteen or college refectory crossed with self-service buffet, and you're pretty much there. You line up to pay as you go in, and pick up your drinks at the same time (you get free refills on all sodas and water and coffee). Then you find an empty table, grab your silverware, plonk down your cutlery and your drinks and head for the buffet, plastic plate in hand. It was like being in Morrisons cafeteria, but without the charm and decor!
Husband was happy enough with his plate of popcorn shrimp and jumbo breaded shrimp and piece of baked fish, to which he added some sort of sausage and a few other bits and pieces. The seafood spectacular was basically those, some breaded and fried catfish (a very Southern food), hush puppies (seasoned lumps of deep-fried dough) and that was that. Not terribly spectacular, although it had been mentioned in the on line advertising that not all dishes were available at all venues.
I had shrimp, catfish, baked fish, a dollop of mashed potato and some sauteed yellow squash. I didn't have very much at all as I wasn't sure how it might taste and didn't want to waste food. It was actually pretty good, in fact it tasted surprisingly good! I was still hungry after that, so I tried the Bourbon Street chicken, mushrooms, cauliflower and a few sweet potato fries. The salad bar looked deeply unappetising, and to be honest ever since my uni days when I had a salad from a supermarket salad bar and ended up with food poisoning that left me ill for a week, I've avoided salads from a salad bar or buffet. I was disappointed to find that much of the food I'd been hoping to try wasn't available locally, actually. There was no Chinese food, the Mexican food was taco beef and taco shells, there was no roast meat other than chicken pieces, there was pot roast and meat loaf and that apart from pizza was about that. There was a lovely looking salmon and steak option, but those were not available buffet style and I must not have possessed the golden ticket because the guardians behind the glass wouldn't even make eye contact when I paused hopefully.
Having eaten very sparingly all day, I ventured forth to the dessert buffet and dipped three strawberries and three marshmallows in the chocolate fountain. I also snagged a piece of chocolate fudge which was amaaaaaaaaaaazingly good, and a tiny piece of chocolate brownie which was also decadently good. I shared that with my husband who is not a big eater of cakes or desserts, and he was so impressed he got his own!
We finished our meal, got in the car, drove home - and he galloped past me in the doorway in an urgent dash to the bathroom. Some time later he emerged, pale and wan, and said he'd been gripped by a sudden and severe need to visit the smallest room. He looked dreadful, but drank some water and took some anti-diarrhoeal tablets and managed to doze off. I sat up and watched a bit of television, played a couple of Facebook games, until about ninety minutes after we arrived home, when I was hit by a horrendous wave of nausea. It was so bad I dashed for the bathroom myself, thinking I was about throw up, until my stomach reversed itself and everything I'd eaten for what felt like a week exited from the opposite orifice to my mouth.
So that was my night until about six am; every time I lay down in bed, my stomach would start cramping all over again and I'd be back in the bathroom.
Unsurprisingly, I've spent most of Saturday sleeping that off and generally staying in bed and eating things like apple sauce and dry toast. As husband woke up starving in the early afternoon, I cooked meatballs and pasta with a tomato sauce for dinner, which we ate around 8:30 pm. Just small portions so as not to overload the system. So far all seems good, so whatever ailed us both likely passed as quickly as it arrived.
My tracker for the last couple of days looks pretty good as a result, barely over my allotted calories on Friday (which is a self-imposed limit) and today I'm within range, too. The exercise front has been a two-day bust, so I am planning a good long walk with the dog at Wickham Park for tomorrow afternoon, and bowling practice in the morning before that.
I'm a little ticked off as I opted to try the free week of Fitbit Premium on Friday evening, so I've completely wasted my first day of it! Oh well.
As Saturday has been an odd sort of a food day, I've planned ahead for Sunday and already have a jar of overnight oats in the fridge. This time I've added pumpkin spice seasoning to the oats and milk, a little sweetener, and a tablespoon of dried cranberries. I'll add a pot of apple sauce to that in the morning and hopefully it should be pretty good. I really enjoyed the peanut butter and strawberry version I ate on Friday morning, so I have high hopes for this batch! It will also be a handy breakfast to grab and go on a weekday morning, as I leave the house way before the time I'm ready to eat. Lunch is going to be a sandwich skinny with turkey and cheese, and dinner is going to be rotisserie seasoned turkey breast fillets cooked in the slow cooker with barbecue sauce, sliced peppers and a couple of sliced onions. I tried that out a couple of weeks or so ago and it was really tasty and good. That should make enough for dinner on Sunday and the leftovers we can pop into a flour tortilla and have with salad for Monday's dinner.
I like this planning ahead idea!
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