Category: Food

Eat healthier at Subway

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, NoomLeave a comment

subway app

I have been going to Subway since I was a teenager when they first came to California.  I even remember my very first subway sandwich.  It was a footlong cold cut combo on white (they only had wheat and white back then) without cheese and with lettuce, pickles, tomatoes and actually I don’t remember what else.  I do remember it had oil and vinegar which I did not like and I haven’t gotten it that way since.  As they added more breads, my order has slightly changed since then, but it has always been a cold cut combo.  I think one time in the last 23 years I ordered the meatball sub, and I think one time I ordered the tuna, but those were the only two times I ever ordered something different.

Their slogan is “Eat Fresh” and they have always had a list of their sandwiches with calories, but you never really knew how many calories you were getting with all of the extras you add-on.  I mean, who wants to get out their calculator to see how many calories they are eating?  You just assume that whatever you are getting is low cal.

We went there tonight and I was looking at the receipt and noticed they had an app for ordering your sub with your smart phone.  Naturally I had to download it.  The Subway closest to us does not have the feature available where I can place my order from my phone, but I asked to be informed when they do.  It would be cool if I could just place my order from my phone and then just go pick them up.  In the meantime, I can see how many calories I am eating.  This is tonight’s sub.

12 inch cold cut combo

Tonight I got a 12” Honey Oat Cold Cut Combo with Provolone toasted with lettuce, light mayo, cucumbers and olives.  That’s it.  That sandwich is 1040 calories.  Keep in mind we buy the footlong and only eat half of it for our meal and the other half for the next meal, so whatever calories it has, divide that by 2.  So 520 calories isn’t that much right?  Well, wrong actually.  Check it out,

12 inch 9 grain wheat turkey

If I changed my order to a 12” Turkey Breast and Black Forest Ham on 9-grain Wheat, no cheese, no mayo, with lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and olives, it goes down to 580 calories.  Now, I can split this up into 2 meals like I typically do and my calories will be cut in half.

I have been eating the cold cut combo for 23 years.  I think it’s time for a change, don’t you?

Valentine’s Day is a legitimate cheat day

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, HolidaysLeave a comment

cupcakes

Since my diet (new healthy lifestyle) began, I have completely sworn off candy, cakes, ice cream, cookies and anything that has a lot of calories and sugar.  I have made adjustments though so I can eat certain sweets as long as they are made out of healthy ingredients like oatmeal, fruit and peanut butter.  I normally have to cover my peripheral vision when walking through the seasonal, ice cream and cookie aisles at the grocery store to avoid temptation, but I have a mental block in my mind that I simply don’t want to eat junk, so I can look at it and not care about it.

Valentine’s Day was yesterday and I went to the store with the intention of buying some junk food because one day is not going to ruin my weight loss progress.  I didn’t find anything that I liked, so I bought the Valentine’s Day disposable cupcake tins with cupcake paper cups with hearts on them and some cupcake sprinkles.  I went to the cake aisle and I was going to buy the sugar free cake mix and frosting, but they we’re both sweetened with Splenda.  Most people would grab those because they have less calories, but I didn’t because Splenda gives me mad cramps in my stomach and I just can’t handle that.  I bought the Duncan Hines white frosting with a packet of Strawberry Shortcake flavor to mix in and a box of Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix.  That made 24 cupcakes.  I gave 1 of the trays to our tenant because they have 3 people living there, so they each got 2 cupcakes.  They were thrilled.

Besides eating cupcakes all day long, which I only had 6 (YIKES I know, right?), I also ate some chocolate covered strawberries which I had to skewer and freeze so I could dip them into Magic Shell chocolate which hardens when it comes in contact with something as cold as ice cream or say frozen Strawberries.  Those were good.  We actually still have a bunch of them in the fridge.

Of course I wasn’t a bad boy all day, I had my regular healthy bowl of cheerio’s with 1 banana and some soy milk for breakfast and my weight watchers frozen dinners for lunch and dinner.  I am allowed to have 3 snacks throughout the day, so I exchanged my healthy snacks for the cupcakes and the chocolate covered strawberries.

My day wasn’t a total bust, I only went over my calorie budget by a little, so I technically still had a good day.  I weighed myself when I woke up and my weight didn’t go up, it actually went down.  Although it will probably take a day before the cupcakes kick in, so I will just have to be extra good until my next cheat day which will be my birthday.  I don’t plan on cheating at all during Easter since I don’t celebrate it despite how much I love Cadbury eggs lol.  I will resist temptation since I have a mental block on it.

The best sugar-free Strawberry Jam is homemade

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, Health, RecipesLeave a comment

homemade peanut butter and strawberry jam

I have been eating peanut butter and jelly/jam since I was a kid, as most everyone has.  We normally buy whatever is the cheapest because of how pricey they are these days.  It never crossed my mind until recently that I could actually make something that I have enjoyed all of my life and it would be not only cheap, but low cal, sugar-free and actually taste good.

I’ve been making my own peanut butter for the last week and it’s been fine, but I didn’t make the strawberry jam until yesterday.  It has sat in our pantry for the last 24 hours because, well, the person in the instructional video said to give it 24 hours lol.  Also, I was kind of afraid of how it might taste.  Why?  Well because I have bought sugar-free strawberry jam and they don’t taste good… at all.  I mean, they’re okay, I guess, but they aren’t great.  When we came home from the movies today I had myself a half of a sandwich, just because I was curious and I was pleasantly surprised that it was actually good.

So I got the recipe from the Ball website, but I had to go to SparkPeople to type in all the ingredients and servings to get the calories and it came up to 2.3 calories per 1 tablespoon, that’s if 1 8oz jar has 16 tablespoons, which according to my food calculator it does.  Although the recipe says that 4 cups of strawberries makes 6 jars, I did the half recipe to make 3 jars and it actually only filled 2, so I had to adjust it for that missing jar and the calories only went up to 3.4 calories per tablespoon.  So at least when you look at it from a caloric perspective, it’s basically just a big bunch of nothing, so eat all you want.

The recipe calls for 4 cups of strawberries, 1 cup of unsweetened white grape juice (which I couldn’t find, all the store had was light which is what I used to calculate the calories) and 3 tablespoons of pectin.  That’s it.  If you made that recipe you’d end up with 4 jars, even though Ball says 6.  4 jars makes 64 servings.

Yesterday I was thinking that perhaps I made a big mistake and that it’s probably not going to taste good at all without any sugar and that I would make the sugar recipe, but it actually tastes like real strawberry, and that is all you can taste.  Real strawberry jam with a ton of sugar is good and all, but you’re not eating strawberries since half of it is pure sugar.  You might as well pour sugar onto your bread.  At least with this recipe you are getting the strawberries.  And you can make it as chunky as you want, or if you don’t want any chunks you can just mash it all up.  Either way it’s the way you wanted to make it.

So yeah, I will never ever buy peanut butter and strawberry jam ever again for the rest of my life.  I am even thinking about making strawberry and banana jam, see how that works out lol.  Can you just imagine how good that would be?  If you figure that the recipe calls for 4 cups of strawberries, just use 2 and 2 cups of bananas.  Mash most of the bananas up, but then cut half of one of the bananas up so you get some chunks.  Although I haven’t tested that theory, but you bet I’m going to lol.  When strawberries aren’t in season I’m going to make some other jams, like maybe peach, apricot, blueberry, blackberry… and whatever other fruits they have that would make a good sugar-free jam.

I love it when I have good ideas that work out.

Light Strawberry Jam – Ball Recipe

On By Michel McDonaldIn Canning, Diet, Food, HealthLeave a comment

strawberries

I have been on a canning kick lately.  I’ve made my own homemade peanut butter and homemade applesauce and those were a success.  But now for the hard part, sugar-free or low sugar strawberry jam.  As I was Googling the recipe, the first thing in the results was from the Ball website.  It only has 3 ingredients.  Strawberries, Unsweetened White Grape Juice and Ball® RealFruit™ Low or No-Sugar Needed Pectin.  That’s it?  Oh well besides 6-8 oz preserving jars of course, which I have.

light sugar strawberry jam nutrition facts SparkPeople has a wonderful recipe calculator which you could use to find out how many calories go into any recipe.  I went there, added all 3 ingredients.  I figured out with an app on my phone that 8 oz is equal to 16 tbsp.  So I went to my calculator and multiplied 16 tbsp by 6 jars and I got 96 servings.  I went back to SparkPeople and typed 96 servings and my jaw nearly hit the floor when it said that each 1 tbsp serving of this jam is only 2.3 calories.  How?

I wanted to make my own sugar-free Strawberry Jam because of how expensive it is in the stores.  Have you seen those prices?  People who are diabetic can’t get a break anywhere.  If you have a special diet, you are going to have to pay a heavy price, and I just won’t do it.  I can’t recall the exact price, but a little 8 oz jar of sugar-free strawberry jam must be like $5 or $6, somewhere around there.  With this recipe, all I need are 2-1 lb baskets of strawberries which is basically what the recipe calls for, 4 cups worth, and right now they are 2 for $4.  So right there I’ve already saved money with just that.  Basically, I bought 1 jar and I am getting the other 5 for free.  Of course I am not counting the pectin which I already have, but that is only 3 tbsp and I’ll need 1 cup of the white grape juice.  If you think about it, the 3 tbsp of pectin and the 8 oz of white grape juice makes up and maybe another 50 cents for that 1 jar.

Why didn’t I ever think of doing this before?  I mean, how can I ever buy strawberry jam again for the rest of my life knowing it is this easy and basically has no calories?  All your calories in a regular jar of Strawberry Jam is from the sugar and high fructose corn syrup or whatever the heck is in your jam.  All my calories are basically from the strawberries and the grape juice and that’s it.

Do I even need to convince anyone besides the price and very extremely low calories?  I can’t wait to make this.

My Homemade Peanut Butter

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, Health, Noom, RecipesLeave a comment

peanut butter

Peanut butter seems to cost a lot of money these days.  Don’t you wish you could make your own at more than half the cost?  Well guess what?  You can!

Today I bought a box of small mason jars and 2 tall 16oz jars of Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts.  I was looking for no salted, but all they had were dry roasted, honey roasted and some other flavor that was spicy.  Dry roasted was fine I guess.

I added 1-16oz jar of peanuts to the food processor and blended the nuts until they were in chunks.  I added 2 tablespoons of peanut oil and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt.  I blended it until it was smooth.  Although, it was very dry and I decided to just add a touch more peanut oil to make it more creamy than it was.  I probably went overboard because it did get creamier, really creamier lol.  Next time I’ll just let it blend until it gets creamy on it’s own.  My partner tasted it and he said it needed more brown sugar, so I added 2 more tablespoons.  It did make a difference.

I like these little jars because if I want to make some peanut butter cookies, 1 whole jar is basically 1 cup, enough to make 1 batch of cookies.  Next time I go to the store I’m going to buy the bottling kit so I can start making my own jams and applesauce.  I could literally go crazy bottling jams and applesauce, but at the same time I know what’s in them so I know that I am eating healthier and saving a ton of money.

My Homemade Pecan Butter Cookies

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, RecipesLeave a comment

pecan butter cookies

I have been slaving in the kitchen cracking pecans from our pecan tree so that I could make 2 things, pecan butter and pecan butter cookies.  I had collected almost 16oz of pecans.  It didn’t work out as I had planned, but I made it work, sort of.

I added the pecans to the food processor and just obliterated them until they were like sand, and it literally looked like sand on the beach.  I added the peanut oil and brown sugar and blended it some more, but it wouldn’t get soft like peanut butter.  I left it in there for quite a bit too.  I haven’t used our food processor in ages and it’s as old as our relationship is, if not older (which is going on 19 years if you don’t know).  It was starting to give an electrical smell so I was afraid of overdoing it.

The pecan butter didn’t want to become smooth at all.  I tried adding more peanut oil, but it didn’t seem to make a difference, so instead I just went on with the cookie ingredients.  Since it was enough to make 2 batches of cookies, I added 2 cups of sugar and 2 eggs and blended it until it was like dough and took it out.  I cut half of the dough and put half in the fridge wrapped in Saran Wrap and the other half I cut up into squares that I could roll like into balls to form the cookies.  I didn’t get 36 cookies, some were too big and some were too small.  I wish there were a mold that would cut the dough into 36 squares so I could get even cookie sizes lol.

The cookies came out really sweet, I mean too sweet.  They are good, just really sweet.  I didn’t expect that to happen.  I mean, the peanut butter cookies are sweet, but not that sweet.  Also, the dough was really dark, but the cookies came out a lot lighter.  Oh well.

Pecan cookies are certain not something I would ever try to do again, same with the pecan butter, so this was an experience that I will remember for as long as I live.  The lesson, leave the pecans for pie…

No Flour Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

On By Michel McDonaldIn Food, HealthLeave a comment

gluten free no flour peanut butter cookies

Did you know you could make peanut butter cookies with just 3 ingredients?  1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar and 1 egg.  That’s it.  My mother taught me how to make homemade peanut butter cookies when I was a teenager, but I don’t even remember what the recipe was, but it did involve a lot of ingredients.  They were really good, but these are better.  And the fact that they are gluten-free is even better.

So here is the recipe.  Combine 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar and 1 egg and mix until it’s like a dough and the peanut butter isn’t sticking to the bowl.  Make 36 balls and smash them with a fork and bake them at 375F for 9 minutes each.  That’s it.  No muss no fuss.  They are 67.9 calories per cookie.

But… if you want them to be healthier, make your own peanut butter.

If you have a food processor (if not a blender would work), add 1 cup of unsalted peanuts and grind it until it’s chunky.  Add 1 tbsp of peanut oil, 1 tbsp of packed brown sugar (or any sweetener that you prefer) and 1 tsp of salt and blend it until it’s as smooth as peanut butter.  Then add 1 cup of sugar and 1 egg and blend it some more until it’s like a dough.  The calories go down to 62 calories per cookie.  That’s not a lot, but it’s something, and at least you know what went into your peanut butter because you made it.

Look at your store bought peanut butter, look at the list of ingredients.  It has high fructose corn syrup and more corn syrup.  That is what you aren’t putting into your peanut butter cookies and that makes it healthy.

Want your cookies to have even less calories?  Replace the peanuts with pecans and your cookies go down to 52 calories per cookie.  I created this recipe for the SparkPeople website for No Flour Pecan Butter Cookies because we have a pecan tree that drops a lot of pecans.  Instead of wasting them, I’m going to make pecan butter and pecan butter cookies out of them.  I’m not sure how they will taste because I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m looking forward to trying it this week.  I will blog about it with a picture.  If it doesn’t work out then I will blog about my failure LOL.

Homemade Peanut Butter & Strawberry Jam

On By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Food, HealthLeave a comment

Now that I am starting to eat healthy (and I hope it sticks this time), I am starting to open my eyes to something that never even occurred to me before.  Why am I so fat?  I mean, when I was a kid, I ate the same things that I eat today and I wasn’t fat then, so why now?  It’s not an overeating issue because I can eat a healthy portion and yet I can’t lose weight easily.  Well, now that I am eating healthy non processed foods, I am finally starting to lose weight.  Why is that?

Here’s the thing.  We’re all hearing all this stuff in the news about what they (food producers) use to make and preserve all of the food that they sell and all of the pesticides that go into the plants (corn) that they use to preserve and sweeten our food.  What is a pesticide?  It’s a poison.  We are knowingly or unknowingly putting poison into our bodies.  Have you seen the size of chickens today compared to chickens 20 to 50 years ago?  They were very tiny back then, now they are fat and they grow really fast.  Why is that?  Because they are injecting growth hormones into them to make them bigger.  We are knowingly or unknowingly putting growth hormones into our bodies by eating those chickens.  They are injecting those into the cows and turkeys too.  Nothing is safe.

I haven’t really done any research so I can’t verify everything I just said because I don’t know for a fact that that is what is happening.  But it’s a good question as to why we are getting so fat all of a sudden compared to so many decades ago.

Pardon me, let me adjust my tin foil hat… there, that’s better.

What does that have to do with homemade peanut butter and strawberry jam?  Here’s what.  Look at the list of ingredients that are in a jar of Jif Creamy Peanut Butter and Knott’s Berry Farm Strawberry Preserves.

pbj jars

I apologize that the Jif label is ripped conveniently on the part that I wanted you to read lol.  It was already like that when I bought it and I have no idea what it says, but it doesn’t matter because it already has too many ingredients which proves my point.

Let’s look at the ingredients though.  Roasted peanuts, hydrogenated vegetable oil, mono and diglycerides, molasses, sugar and salt.  What problem do I have with those ingredients?  Well, for one, you can make your own homemade peanut butter if you have a food processor or a blender by simply blending a jar of unsalted planters peanuts until they are in chunks, then add 2 tablespoons of peanut oil, 1 tablespoon of salt and 2 tablespoons of molasses or brown sugar or whatever sweetener you want, or you don’t even need to add any sweetener if you don’t want to or if you are diabetic..  That’s all you need.  You can add some cinnamon if you want, but that is totally up to you, but at least you know what you are eating.  Watch this video for a tutorial on how to make it.

Take a look at the ingredients in the strawberry jam.  Strawberries, high fructose corn syrup, more corn syrup, sugar, fruit pectin and citric acid.  You can make your own strawberry jam and even store some in your pantry if you follow the instructions in the video below.  All she uses is strawberries, sugar, pectin and lemon juice which is your citric acid.  That’s it.  No high fructose corn syrup and more corn syrup.  That is just so unnecessary.

 

I am going to start making our own peanut butter and strawberry jam from now on.  Have you seen the prices on those at the store?  We don’t buy them too often because of how expensive they are.  It only just occurred to me that I could probably make these things a lot cheaper, and now I see that is true.  Of course I don’t plan on going crazy jarring food, but it doesn’t hurt to make a few jars of this and that every few months or whenever you run out of things.

One of the homemade things I made recently is homemade applesauce.  All I did was peeled an apple, chopped it up, put it in a little pan with a little bit of water and let it boil until the apple was soft.  I crushed it and mixed some cinnamon and a tiny bit of brown sugar and viola, applesauce.  You don’t even need to add the brown sugar because it’s sweet enough on its own, I just wanted the extra sweetness of the brown sugar.  I am seriously considering buying a bag of apples so I can make many jars of applesauce to keep in the pantry.  I don’t eat enough apples because I don’t particularly care for them in their solid form, but I do love applesauce.

So there you have it.  You can make your own healthy PB&J and it’s way cheaper than buying jars at the grocery store.  Not only will you save a lot of money, but you know exactly what you are eating.

Avon Sugar Cookie Dough

On By Michel McDonaldIn AVON, Diet, FoodLeave a comment

My cousin Tabitha Vavrick sells AVON on the internet and in September I bought these Halloween cookie cutters.  They were very inexpensive and I love cookies, so I bought them.  I posted on Facebook that I was going to make them with Sweet N Low instead of sugar because of my blood sugar issue, but people warned me against it and told me to use Splenda instead, but I can’t use Splenda because it gives me the worst stomach cramps.  They told me to use Stevia and that it turns out gives me something I won’t discuss here since we are talking about food lol.

I decided that I would just go ahead and use sugar despite my problem with being a diabetic, but those same people warned me against using the recipe that came with the cookie cutters.  I don’t know why I let people talk me into alternative things.  They told me to find the Paula Deen sugar cookie recipe, which I did and I made and the cookies were awful.  I mixed all of the ingredients right and they just didn’t taste very good.

That was a month ago and a few days ago I wanted to try it again, but this time using the recipe that came with the cookie cutters.  I did it, and it was wonderful.  I don’t mean to give any secrets away by posting this recipe card, but they sell other cookie cutters that don’t even come with a recipe (their 3D Christmas Tree cookie cutters) so I figured that if someone bought that, they would want a good recipe, and this one is the best.

I have had sugar cookies my entire life and they don’t taste like this recipe, probably because the recipe that the professionals use has sugar on top of the cookies and these don’t.  That makes the cookies sweeter, these don’t need that extra sweetness because they are awesome on their own.

You could decorate them if you wanted to, but that would just add more sugar to it and I’ve tried coloring cookies before, it’s not good lol.  The cookies taste awesome alone without any extra sugar on top.

If you wanted to buy some of these or other cookie cutters, buy them from my cousin Tabitha Vavrick.  They have some great prices on a lot of their products.

I can’t wait for December so I can make the 3D Christmas Tree Cookies with this recipe.

The Golden Corral

On By Michel McDonaldIn Food, RestaurantLeave a comment

Darrin has wanted to go to Golden Corral ever since they opened their doors last year, but we just never made it.  We tried to go there a couple of times but their line was so long outside the door that we just said screw that, and then we would go to either a chinese restaurant or Hometown Buffet.

Last night as I was about to prepare dinner, I emailed Darrin asking him what he wanted.  I gave him choices, Beef Ravioli or lasagna.  He emailed me back saying neither, he wanted to go to Golden Corral.  I was a bit irritated because I knew we would be standing in line outside for at least half an hour or longer.  Fortunately there wasn’t a line at all so we only had to wait 10 or 15 minutes to get to the cashier.

We have never been to a Golden Corral so we weren’t sure how things worked.  At Hometown Buffet you pay for your dinners and drinks and then get seated and go get your drink and food.  At Golden Corral you get your drink before you even pay, then they seat you and you don’t even have to get your own drinks, your waitress does that for you.  All you need to worry about is getting your food.

The only thing that irritated me was the cashier.  They have signs posted all over the place that said that it was 2 for $20 Mon-Thurs after 4pm and then under that “the whole restaurant.”  OK when you read that, what goes through your mind?  Food, dessert, drinks etc. right?  WRONG!  They charged us for drinks,  $2 each in fact.  That is a bit misleading and so I mentioned it to Darrin and made him ask the cashier and she started laughing at us.  That put me off because I don’t like being laughed at and that was a legitimate question.  I feel that it’s false advertising because the drinks are in the restaurant, so why wouldn’t that be included in the deal?  She told us “nice try” and we shrugged it off.

The choices of food at Golden Corral were vast.  They had this long salad bar that seemed to go on forever, across from that were the cooked foods where you had to stand in line for your steaks which you have to wait to be cooked.  Their steaks were so frickin’ good too.  I mean, can we talk?  Their steaks were so good that if it were possible to have an orgasm from eating meat, we would have been screaming “OH GOD, OH GOD” at the top of our lungs while pounding on the table with our fists, that’s how good it was.  I didn’t want to stand in a long ass line to get steak, but Darrin gave me some of his.  He on the other hand kept coming back with more steak and I didn’t understand how he was getting them so fast.

My first plate was a salad and oh my goodness, the thousand island dressing was so good.  I have never had thousand island dressing that tasted like that.  I love Bob’s Big Boy thousand island, but golden corrals was even better, and that’s saying something.  Next time I want to try their ranch.

My second plate had fettuccine alfredo.  Again, orgasm.  Their alfredo sauce was so freakin’ amazing.  I also had some bourbon chicken, I don’t know the exact name but oh my goodness, it was so fantastic.  I was in awe of the flavors that were dancing with my taste buds.

I went back for another plate because I am a glutton for punishment and of course I got more bourbon chicken, macaroni and cheese and a slice of pepperoni pizza.  I just had to have all of these flavors in my mouth all at once.  I knew my stomach couldn’t handle all of the food but I was just too curious.  The pizza was better than Pizza Hut and Dominos combined.  I kid you not, it was amazing.

I was already full by the time I finished eating my three plates, but I wanted dessert.  I went to stand in line for the desserts and I noticed a machine that was supposed to squirt batter into grease to make these little mini donuts, and there were these arms that were supposed to flip the donut so it could cook on the other side too.  I didn’t actually see any donuts being made because it didn’t have any batter in it because their donut bowl was already full, but my mind was blown away.

I grabbed a slice of chocolate cake and put 2 marshmallows on a stick and dipped it in some chocolate.  Speaking of which, they didn’t have a chocolate fountain like in the commercials.  I asked the waitress about that and she told me they were missing a part so it wasn’t working.  That was disappointing, but the taste of the chocolate on 2 marshmallows that I put on a stick made up for that disappointment; it was AMAZING!

They have really put Hometown Buffet to shame.  In fact, I have noticed over the last few months when we go there that they are always empty.  I mean not empty empty, but when we go there, we don’t have to wait in a line, we just go to the counter and pay for our meal and we don’t even need to wait to be seated because there is usually plenty of seating, and now I know why.  I guess when Golden Corral opened up, everyone abandoned every other restaurant in town, and with good reason.

We went to the Golden Corral on Ming Avenue here in Bakersfield and our waitress was Denise, and she was the sweetest waitress.  When the manager told us to come back, I replied “Oh we will, you can count on that” and I meant it.