gotbeer
Mon, Feb-09-04, 11:23
Maureen Kilar: Do not hold my buns!
By Maureen Kilar, correspondent, February 8, 2004
http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/living/article/0,1651,TCP_1043_2632009,00.html
I wasn't especially happy when they took the fat out of cheese, and there was no real joy in life after they took the sugar out of Jell-O.
But now they've gone too far.
I want my buns back!
Always on one diet or another, I recently thought I'd try a low carb lunch and see if it worked. I was at a fast food restaurant and ordered a double cheeseburger, the Atkins way.
The young man touched the register button for double cheeseburger and bellowed, "Hold her bun!"
"Excuse me," I said to my order taker. "How many carbs does that pickle on the burger have?" He didn't know. I guess I was the first serious dieter he'd ever waited on.
I took my bunless, pickleless burger to a table and began to lunch and lose. I picked up the double burger with my hands and took a little bite. Something was missing. Buns are there for more than the rounded aesthetics; they are the hamburger handles.
I returned to the counter for some utensils to tackle this new way of eating. I tried cutting the burger into itsy bitsy pieces so I would think I had more to eat, but that old trick didn't fool me. In no time at all there was nothing more to eat. As I came to realize, buns don't just take up space, they also take up lots of time.
Without the bun, it's amazing how much cheese gets wasted sticking to the wrapper of a double cheeseburger. I scraped off what I could with the little plastic knife and fork but it stuck like tar on a bumper. They should make those wrappers stronger now that customers with no buns have to sit there and scrape the delicious melted cheese off with their teeth.
Non-dieters with their big fat buns were sitting around me watching me suck on a burger wrapper, so I said by way of a general announcement, "Waste not."
As I sat there with nothing to eat, my thoughts wandered to the Earl of Sandwich, the genius who invented slapping ham and cheese between two pieces of freshly baked, soft bread. Were he alive today, the Earl would file a class action lawsuit against Dr. Atkins estate.
I am not sure what killed the Earl, but Dr. Atkins came to his untimely demise after slipping on an icy step. There are no forensics to back me up on this, but I believe the accident was diet related. If he had followed the Earl's wise example instead of going off half-cocked and reinventing the sandwich, he would have stayed home that day, enjoyed a proper lunch and not have been in that weakened state when he fell. Just my opinion, but I don't want to be quoted.
I know Atkins is the rage and people from every walk of life are leaving their buns behind, but I am not so sure about this low-carb craze long-term. I watched a woman in a restaurant the other night moving filet mignon around on her dinner plate. She never took a bite. Then without warning, she lunged clear across the table to snarf up the crouton that had fallen off her husband's salad.
There are plenty of things besides burgers and ham and cheese sandwiches that will be impacted if this thing continues. We're tampering with the food chain here. What happens to peanut butter and jelly? And what was the doctor thinking when he chucked the roll from the all-American hot dog? Where does he expect us to put our relish and sauerkraut?
Clearly, there will be some major changes in the way we live, eat and do business. The International House of Pancakes can close up shop. It will be a sad day when we say good-bye to some old standbys like the ice cream cone and Corn Flakes. Just makes you wonder what Krispy Kreme will be selling when the Hot light is on.
As I picked up my wrapper to leave, I was ever thankful I hadn't stopped for lunch at Pizza Hut.
Maureen Kilar can be reached via e-mail at (MO8723~aol.com)
By Maureen Kilar, correspondent, February 8, 2004
http://www.tcpalm.com/tcp/living/article/0,1651,TCP_1043_2632009,00.html
I wasn't especially happy when they took the fat out of cheese, and there was no real joy in life after they took the sugar out of Jell-O.
But now they've gone too far.
I want my buns back!
Always on one diet or another, I recently thought I'd try a low carb lunch and see if it worked. I was at a fast food restaurant and ordered a double cheeseburger, the Atkins way.
The young man touched the register button for double cheeseburger and bellowed, "Hold her bun!"
"Excuse me," I said to my order taker. "How many carbs does that pickle on the burger have?" He didn't know. I guess I was the first serious dieter he'd ever waited on.
I took my bunless, pickleless burger to a table and began to lunch and lose. I picked up the double burger with my hands and took a little bite. Something was missing. Buns are there for more than the rounded aesthetics; they are the hamburger handles.
I returned to the counter for some utensils to tackle this new way of eating. I tried cutting the burger into itsy bitsy pieces so I would think I had more to eat, but that old trick didn't fool me. In no time at all there was nothing more to eat. As I came to realize, buns don't just take up space, they also take up lots of time.
Without the bun, it's amazing how much cheese gets wasted sticking to the wrapper of a double cheeseburger. I scraped off what I could with the little plastic knife and fork but it stuck like tar on a bumper. They should make those wrappers stronger now that customers with no buns have to sit there and scrape the delicious melted cheese off with their teeth.
Non-dieters with their big fat buns were sitting around me watching me suck on a burger wrapper, so I said by way of a general announcement, "Waste not."
As I sat there with nothing to eat, my thoughts wandered to the Earl of Sandwich, the genius who invented slapping ham and cheese between two pieces of freshly baked, soft bread. Were he alive today, the Earl would file a class action lawsuit against Dr. Atkins estate.
I am not sure what killed the Earl, but Dr. Atkins came to his untimely demise after slipping on an icy step. There are no forensics to back me up on this, but I believe the accident was diet related. If he had followed the Earl's wise example instead of going off half-cocked and reinventing the sandwich, he would have stayed home that day, enjoyed a proper lunch and not have been in that weakened state when he fell. Just my opinion, but I don't want to be quoted.
I know Atkins is the rage and people from every walk of life are leaving their buns behind, but I am not so sure about this low-carb craze long-term. I watched a woman in a restaurant the other night moving filet mignon around on her dinner plate. She never took a bite. Then without warning, she lunged clear across the table to snarf up the crouton that had fallen off her husband's salad.
There are plenty of things besides burgers and ham and cheese sandwiches that will be impacted if this thing continues. We're tampering with the food chain here. What happens to peanut butter and jelly? And what was the doctor thinking when he chucked the roll from the all-American hot dog? Where does he expect us to put our relish and sauerkraut?
Clearly, there will be some major changes in the way we live, eat and do business. The International House of Pancakes can close up shop. It will be a sad day when we say good-bye to some old standbys like the ice cream cone and Corn Flakes. Just makes you wonder what Krispy Kreme will be selling when the Hot light is on.
As I picked up my wrapper to leave, I was ever thankful I hadn't stopped for lunch at Pizza Hut.
Maureen Kilar can be reached via e-mail at (MO8723~aol.com)