Douglasville Diner ~ Douglasville, GA

  We did not expecting anything too spectacular as we went to breakfast at the Douglasville Diner. I am not sure why we felt this way, but maybe it was the lingering unpleasant taste in our mouths from the previous inhabitants of the building.

Douglasville Diner has a vast menu with everything from breakfast food, Italian, Greek, American, Seafood, Salads, Appetizers, Wraps, Melts, and a Paul Bunyan(ish) dessert menu.  Large menus can be problematic. The execution of the menu by the kitchen staff is only half of the potential trouble. The second half is the service staff knowing said vast menu. However, I will regress and speak of that at another time.

 Open from 7:am until 12:00 Midnight is a grueling schedule to keep. I hope that they can pull it off in the long run. Douglasville has needed another decent breakfast spot for quite some time now. Do not under estimate the impact of pancakes on a culture. If run correctly, Douglasville Diner could potentially change Douglasville into a new center for higher learning. Who knows? If the omelets and hash browns are perfect day-in and day-out, Douglasvillites may invent a car that runs on smog. Lord knows they need that gadget soon living this close to Atlanta.

Lemon Mousse Cake

Yes, we ordered cakes at breakfast...again. I do not know why. What, it looked delicious OK?!

We ate cake only after devastating a "Douglasville Platter" (pancakes, sausage, bacon, and eggs) and an omelet stuffed full of spinach, Feta Cheese, and mushrooms. The hash browns were spectacularly and elegantly straightforward (that is a compliment). The pancakes were light with a hint (and a strong nod) of vanilla. A discussion of whether the pancakes originated from a mix or not ensued after a few sloppy bites. I stand by my "from a mix but modified" theory. My partner (who possibly has the best taste buds known to man) says that the pancakes are from scratch. She also smelled them. Her sniffing the pancakes gave her an unfair advantage (because she has the nose of a Bloodhound). Trust me on that one.

  Eating cake at breakfast requires extra cups of coffee. The coffee, by the way, was better than average. There is always time for additional coffee according to gf.

  Let's review the qualifications of a diner:

• Open early, check. 
• Open late, check. 
• Must serve breakfast, check. 
• Must brew great coffee and "coffee food" (e.g. cake), check. 
• Must serve hamburgers and kid food, check. 
• Must offer something different (e.g. Italian/Greek fare), check.

Tiramisu  Cake

Alpine Bakery in Atlanta is the source of all of this cake madness. I finished several bites of cake and boxed it up for the varmints at home, as I do not need to eat sugar. I admit that this breakfast was not the healthiest that I have had in recent history. However, I refused to smear the hydrogenated-butter-spread all over my pancakes, neither did I pour the high fructose corn syrup on them. Questions about the ingredients of the sausage, pancakes, and the dessert cakes were never asked. It is an American diner. I expect to be poisoned.

  Give Douglasville Diner a moment or two to settle in and get over their opening pains. I am sure that they will be fine as long as they deliver what they promise.


Update: Douglasville Diner is Closed.
Click here for details. gf

Thanks for reading,

gf

Lemon Mousse Cake

Tiramisu Cake

Cake Display

Outside dining / smoking section

Barbecue Review

  I stumbled on this video and thought it was relevant to my summer BBQ theme. This pretty much sums up the whole Deep South barbecue deal. Floridians I am truly sorry about the Southern reference.

Enjoy.

gf

Bacon or Sausage?

I have been reevaluating what I eat of late, and questions like "Bacon or Sausage?" randomly pop into my head. Inspired by a favorite youngster; I decided to follow her into the land of eating no sugar. This decision of course had to include three other substances. High fructose corn syrup, chemical sweeteners, and hydrogenated oils were part of the purge as well; because, as I had studied briefly, they were all poison.

These decisions made changes to my diet that I did not clearly envision at the time of the decision making. Sugar in America is king. I did not realize that everything had sugar in it. Bread was out of the question; doughnuts were a memory; cake was a bad dream. Then I continued with the label reading and found that, in America, if sugar is not in food it has been replaced with high fructose corn syrup. Most likely, if it is processed food, and it has neither sugar nor high fructose corn syrup in it, it has other nasty chemicals and hydrogenated oils.

This food enlightenment was actually easy to execute. I could eat meat and vegetables mainly. Fruit is good, but one must be careful. Not eating the average American bowel clogging foods, and eating too much fruit, will send you into a state of "over fruiting", which requires more time than necessarily desired on the pot. Initially the craving for bread and sweets was easily deterred through eating fat. Bacon and butter were my friends. I know that this sounds bad, but I figured that they were not on my poison list. Pork and fats are on another list. I realize they are not foods that should stay in my diet but I used them to curb my sugar/sweet dependence.

It has been over four weeks of no poison eating. I took a survey from employees, who all have an opinion, about eating pork (and usually everything else). Somehow, the conversation morphed into carbohydrates instead of pig consumption. Once I got past the whole "Carb" deal we were able to get some good feedback. Here is the unofficial accordingtogf survey.

1. Pigs do not sweat. That is why they are salty and taste so good.
   
2. Bacon is empty food, it is just fat.
   
3. Sausage usually had sugars added to it.
   
4. The Old Testament in the Bible forbade the eating of pork.
   
5. Pigs are dirty and eat anything.
   
6. Pork raises blood pressure etc and is bad for the heart.
   
7. Every Doctor recommends that you stop eating pork if you have health issues.
   

I figure seven is enough. It is also a good Biblical number.

Eating like this is fairly boring. I have decided that it is neither bacon nor sausage moving forward. Red meat is next on the chopping block, but I am not sure if one can live on fish and chicken alone. Broccoli has been the annoying choice of vegetable too many times. What is the obsession with broccoli? It must be cheap to grow; we Americans like to eat cheap food and food that is void of nutrition. I often walk through the grocery store and look into a shopper's basket; then I compare the basket to the shopper's shape. Here is a quick accordingtogf breakdown:

1. 80% Coke products, chips, and processed boxed foods 18% Processed Meat 2% Dairy = Morbidly Obese
   
2. 50% Coke products, chips, and processes boxed foods 25% Processed Meat 23% Chicken/Meat 2%Dairy =Obese
   
3. 40% Coke products, chips, and processes boxed foods 25% Processed Meat 23% Chicken/Meat 2%Dairy 10%Vegatables =Overweight
   
4. 30% Coke products, chips, and processes boxed foods 25% Processed Meat 38% Chicken/Meat 2%Dairy 5%Vegatables= Husky
   
5. 10% Coke products, chips, and processes boxed foods 5% Processed Meat 35% Chicken/Meat 5%Dairy 45%Vegatables= Normal
   
6. 25% Chicken/Meat 5%Dairy 70%Vegatables= fit
   
7. 5% Chicken/Meat 1%Dairy 90%Vegatables 3%Bottled Water 1% Toilet Paper = Weird/Thin
   

Eliminating the junk we eat starts with the junk that we buy!

Eating in this day in age for the more or less wealthy has become an activity instead of a necessity. Back when we had hair on our palms, we ate out of necessity. There was no luxury eating then, save when an elephant was snared. Even then, we could not keep that red meat too long before it rotted, or some Saber Tooth Tiger took it from us. Red meat was definitely a luxury and a rare meal. Chickens we could probably catch and breed. I have discussed this with my wife, but I don't think the neighbors would like chickens in the back yard. I am also unsure of my ability to raise chickens. There are many chicken questions that need to be answered before I attempt to be a chicken herder.

Fishing was the best option for dinner most likely. Being clever with a bow and arrow definitely helped in the dinner menu. Any berries, nuts, fruits found when scavenging about would have been eaten. Boxes of pre-made macaroni and cheese, and Lay's potato chips, however, were hard to come by. Eating has become an obsession for modern man. When the big asteroid hits, this will all change. I just hope we remember how to make beer and Bourbon. Bourbon has no Carbohydrates fyi.

I am going to continue not eating poison, and now I will not eat pork (so much). I have lost one belt loop and seventeen pounds in about a month. I have been exercising fairly regular except for this morning, as I decided to finish this blog. I feel fine and I do not crave sugar or bread anymore. I ate a strawberry yesterday and almost got a sugar high. I suppose I will update this story occasionally, but I do not think that the accordingtogf board of directors would approve of turning this into a weight loss blog.

gf