The Temptation of the Little America Buffet

I have long loved a good buffet. I am well aware that this is not the most classy statement to post on a blog. But nonetheless, the sentence is true.

I come from a long line of buffet lovers. My grandmother on my mother's side was the first one I knew to truly embrace the convenience, variety and excitement of a buffet. She hosted a number of Thanksgivings at the Chuck-A-Rama when I was younger. (Talk about a dream come true for my brother Josh who only liked Jello, pizza and goldfish until he was 19.)

The tradition has continued as I've gotten older, and we now hit-up a buffet in Vegas or some national park for the Thanksgiving holiday. (From Bryce Canyon to Mount Rushmore to Roswell, New Mexico I can tell you a buffet open on Thanksgiving.)

As much as I love buffets, they can also be a nightmare for those limiting anything. You've got tables brimming with food and then there is often a lovely display of desserts. It's this particular section where I can get in trouble.

I've steer cleared of buffets these past weeks, but every summer for work I coordinate a lunch buffet at the Little America. I typically look forward to this day for two reasons. One, I love their rolls. Two, I love trying a bite of everything on the dessert table. On this day every year, I actually eat very little "real" food as some people might call it.

Well, the luncheon was this month. Upon arriving at the Little America, I headed for the dessert section. I cautiously reviewed which one to eat. I picked a new dessert concoction that looked to be filled with chocolate and peanut butter. It was awesome.

But I also just very badly wanted to know how they all tasted. So... this is where my great co-worker and friend Eric saved the day.

Eric seems to love sugar as much as I do. He's also aware of this little challenge I have going. As he approached the table, he knew I was having a hard time. I asked him to please eat a certain elongated oval pastry with yellow cream and raspberries and tell me what it tasted like. The year before they had a similar looking pastry with green cream. It turned out to be key lime and sublime. I was so frightened that this yellow one would be lemon flavored and equally as good. He took a bite and then made a face that represented mediocre. I felt great.

He then proceeded to take a bite of almost every dessert on the table and told me what it tasted like. He loved the fruit tarts, which was fine with me because I knew what those tasted like. He also liked the eclairs and other fairly common desserts. Once again, I didn't feel bad about these because I knew what they tasted like. It was the four or five new ones that worried me.

I'd point to them and he'd try them. Surprisingly the new ones he didn't like very much. I felt wonderful. Now, Eric and I might have a difference in taste, and chances are that I'd like the new desserts way more than a standard eclair (which I feel are sub par). But just knowing I wasn't missing out on something divine made me feel substantially better.

I started thinking about this little episode and I realized there was a couple life lessons to be learned:
1) Good friends are those who are willing to try all the desserts on the table when you can't.
2) When faced with a variety of options, you don't need to try them all to know what you want. Chances are you won't be able to try all the options. But sometimes the best thing to do is to acknowledge that you're having a hard time making a decision and more often than not, you'll find a friend(s) who's willing to help you out. This is usually even more helpful and a whole lot less calories than eating them all yourself.

A Sugar Tribute to My Dad

With Father's Day this Sunday, I've been thinking about my dad. He is by far one of the hardest working people I know. He's a great dentist, but his day job is not what I'm talking about. It's his leisure activities that shock me. I called my mom to see what he did last Saturday.

He...
woke up at the crack of dawn at his farm house in Duchesne,
began framing the unfinished basement,
dug out window wells that were full of mud,
installed a round of sprinklers,
replanted and weeded a massive garden,
drove home to South Jordan and went about fixing the fence.

Meanwhile, I took a run and called it a day.

One of the things I love about my dad, is that he's all about hydrating and refueling after a hard task. As he should. But during the last several decades I've known the man, he usually returns to a few classics. Below are the sugary treats that will always remind me of him.

Hostess Fruit Pies: My dad often picks up a fruit pie at a gas station after working on a project. He tends to pick the berry or the apple. When I was younger, if I was with him, I'd usually get one too. But I prefer the chocolate pudding ones. Unlike poptarts, the crust on these is even better than the filling. There's no question that these might be a form of ambrosia and I pray are available in the afterlife.


Shaved Ice: My dad is a sucker for shaved ice. He likes to ask the attendant their favorite flavor, but if that doesn't strikes his fancy, he usually always goes for the peach. He actually now has his own professional ice shaving machine. The thing weighs over 150 lbs. I'm sure there's a gallon of peach concentrate at my parents' house right now for anyone who might want one.

Chocolate Milk:He works outside a lot, especially in Duchesne. As hard as I might ever try, I will never out tan him. He manages to turn a dark shade of bronze early in the spring and only darkens over the summer. Because he's often dehydrated by the end of the day, he often will get one of those big quarts of chocolate milk and guzzle the thing down in a matter of minutes.

Rootbeer or was that Diet Mountain Dew?: If it wasn't chocolate milk, he would often get rootbeer. That is until recently. For some reason he has changed to Diet Mountain Dew. I think this is hilarious for a couple reasons. When we were little we had very little soda at my house (my mom hated sticky floors), but especially soda with caffeine. He's all about it now, and I couldn't be more supportive since I'm also a Diet Mountain Dew fan. (As a side note, my mom also chews a lot of gum, which was also outlawed at my house since it had a tendency to get in someone's hair or in the dog's fur. It seems they were just waiting for all of us to move from home to get out the Mountain Dew and gum.)

Well, any of the work ethic I may have, I totally owe to my parents. I actually thought about getting a small Hostess pie today and thought to myself I have done nothing to earn it. I run the Ragnar Relay this weekend and I told myself I could get one after I finish. Here's to working hard and refueling like my dad.

The Strawberry Slicester from Heaven and Aichmophobia

If you were to look in my grocery cart during the past decade, you would be more likely to find a fruit cake than fruit. Bizarre? Probably. Why? A fruit cake will last five to nine years; strawberries go bad in a matter of days. Fruit = high maintenance.

But I decided last week that I needed to change my fruit-buying habits and make a better effort to incorporate fruit. Now, when I typically decide to do something like this, I either make it a game (such as this little sugar bet with myself) or buy something to help me (like new socks for running). Well, this time I decided to buy myself several simple fruit gadgets. I actually picked up three, but one stood out like a shinning star. I call it the Strawberry Slicester from Heaven (SSH).

I have used the SSH almost every day this week, mainly for strawberry slices to add to paninis. (Try it. I promise it's what you're looking for in life.) The SSH also makes eating strawberries much more enjoyable on their own. I don't know if it's because of the fun of using the device or that the strawberries just look much prettier to eat.

However, I did run across a problem early on. I managed to cut myself on the SSH. Now it's actually a very safe device, but I accidentally pressed on one of the blades fairly hard while cleaning it. This resulted in a good slice of my thumb.

This was somewhat a problem. My thumb was fine after bleeding for a while. But I have a fairly mild case of aichmophobia (self-diagnosed of course), which according to Wikipedia is "a fear of sharp things, such as pencils, needles, knives, a pointing finger, or even the sharp end of an umbrella."

When I read the description, my jaw dropped to see that pointing fingers were included. I actually have had a problem with people poking me in the arm with their finger ever since high school. It reminds me of getting a shot, which is never a good thing.

Last January, I had to get five shots for a trip I went on. After the fifth shot, I was on the community clinic floor with my legs in the air with a skirt and heels on. The nurse said this would help. It totally did.

So, when I cut my thumb pretty badly, I thought, "Dang it. There goes my love for that gadget. Go breathe between your legs so you don't pass out."

But this week I read about an experiment in Palo Alto about several hundred people who had a paralyzing fear of snakes. Within three hours they were all cured. How? First they were asked to watch a therapist handle a snake at the door of a room. Then they were asked to walk in the room while the therapist held the snake. Some requested to wear hockey and other protective equipment at this point. They progressively took the participants towards the snake. Then the participants watched others with the same fear hold the snake. Within about three hours, they held the snake. From the study, they gathered that if you give a phobic a positive vicarious experience to test their inaccurate beliefs, most can be quickly cured.

So, I went and watched a couple people mutilate their thumbs on the Internet. This terrified me. But the great thing is that it made my thumb cut look like a minor flesh wound (which is exactly what it was.) I decided to stop acting like a baby and go make my panini. The good news is that the SSH and I have continued to be great friends. I encourage everyone to buy one.