Walking Past the Dessert Table

A few months ago Rockwell's American Grill, a local restaurant near our home, started offering a Sunday brunch buffet.  It's an amazing spread including a made-to-order omelet station and waffle/pancake station, bacon, sausage, other breakfast items and a large selection of many of the items from their dinner menu such as salmon, chicken, collards, meatloaf, etc.

Rockwell's is one of our family's favorite restaurants.  Not only are they close and the food is fantastic, they source most of their food from local, sustainable farms.  When they started offering this amazing brunch deal it quickly became a Sunday morning family tradition.

Not all of the menu items are primal, especially their large selection of desserts on the buffet.  As enticing as this array of sweet might be, I find it very easy to pass it by and fill my plate with the farm fresh eggs and pasture-raised pork.  It really doesn't require any willpower to walk away.  One of the effects of switching to a primal diet and becoming fat-adapted is that high sugar foods actually give me bad headaches.  The quality, high-fat foods taste so much more indulgent to me than the sweet stuff ever did.  It's no wonder that the Primal Blueprint works so well.  No calorie counting required.  I eat primal foods until I'm satisfied and I never feel deprived.  On the rare occasion that I want a little something sweet from the buffet, I might take a small spoonful of their warm dark chocolate ganache and use it as a dip for berries, or better yet, chocolate dipped bacon!  But today I was more than satisfied with my omelet and salad.

BRUNCH
- Veggie and Bacon Omelet (bacon, cheese, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms, squash, zucchini, artichoke hearts, butter)
- Sausage
- House salad (mixed lettuce greens, onions, tomatoes)
- Blueberries and Strawberries
- Coffee with Whole Milk

We had plans to get out on the lake today and do a little kayaing but the weather didn't cooperate.  Instead we took advantage of this rainy Sunday to have a family cleaning day.  The house was in need of a deep clean and the kids' bedrooms needed to be organized so we spent most of the day taking care of business.  Scrubbing and vacuuming are actually great core workouts if you take care to use good posture and engage the core muscles correctly.  It's not as fun as a day on the lake but it's a good way to keep active and it's very satisfying to see the results of the effort.

ACTIVITY
Deep cleaning around the house

The chill in the pre-fall air made me want something warm, so I had some green tea in the afternoon.

The original dinner plan was leftover Italian sausage but after the Japanese green tea in the afternoon I started thinking how good some Japanese or Thai food would be.  Not to mention, I liked the idea of not having to clean dinner dishes after cleaning the house today.  So for dinner we went out to Sushi-Thai, a wonderful local sushi bar that specializes in both Japanese and Thai food.

DINNER
Green salad with carrot-ginger dressing
Alaskan Sockeye salmon sashimi
Tom Kha Goong
Thai Spicy Basil Beef
Warm Sake

For the first course I had a small green salad with carrot-ginger dressing and wild Alaskan sockeye salmon sashimi.  Look at that amazing orange color in the fish!  You don't get that with farm-raised salmon.  The carafe of warm sake was perfect for the cool, rainy day.  See that small dish of green stuff in the lower left corner of the picture?  That's wasabi -- real chopped wasabi root.  That mound of green stuff that most sushi restaurants serve is actually grated horseradish mixed with green food coloring.  It's nothing like real wasabi.

The second course was a small bowl of Tom Kha Goong (Thai coconut soup with shrimp).  I wish you could smell this through the computer!  It is so warming and comforting!  This is good food!

The main course was Spicy Thai Basil Beef.  I ate about half of what you see here.

 ==================================


[edit 9/17/12:  Just adding that later in the evening I had a 4 squares of Chocolove Almond and Sea Salt Dark Chocolate as a snack before bed. (There are12 squares in a bar.)]