As you may have guessed, I’ve been away the whole weekend. This time I was on a road trip – to Michigan. I will be the first one to admit that 6-7 hours in a car with a 5 year old a toddler can get a little dicey. But what’s even more challenging is finding healthy things to eat when I’m on the road.
Because we left so early on Friday morning, Scott wanted to stop for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. I am not against CB, but I’ve been there so many times that I’m barreled out. Nonetheless, he was the driver so he got to choose.
In my college days and even pre-kid days, I would love to stop at CB for their cheesey potatoes and their biscuits. But now, I have absolutely no desire to eat those things, especially for breakfast. As you know, I normally eat yogurt, oatmeal, or Kashi cereal for breakfast. I also like to incorporate some type of fresh fruit and/or peanut butter. As I casually looked at the menu, I saw “fresh fruit” and oatmeal on the menu, and thought, this couldn’t be that bad. But then I noticed that the “fresh fruit” included sliced bananas and fried apples – ugh! When did we start labeling fried apples as “fresh fruit”? This is a total Jamie Oliver nightmare.
The server came to our table and the conversation went a little something like this…
- Me – Do you have any fresh fruit other than bananas and fried apples?
- Server – No, that’s it
- Me – so no fresh berries or melon?
- Server – no that’s it
- Me – Ok, then I’ll take the oatmeal
- Server – we stopped serving oatmeal at 10 AM
- Me – But it’s only 10:10 AM, you don’t have any left?
- Server – no, it’s all gone.
- Me – Do you have yogurt?
- Server – No, we don’t serve yogurt. We tried serving it years ago but it didn’t go over well.
- Me – OMG!!! Well then I’d like an English muffin with peanut butter
- Server – We don’t have peanut butter.
- Me – What is with Cracker Barrel? You guys need to get with the times!
As this point, I was so frustruated, I forgot to ask what cereal they served. I would bet money that they didn’t have Kashi. My server then explained that, like me, she was surprised that CB didn’t have these items. But she said that the restaurants were trying to keep with the authentic country or “down home” type of food. I could see that she wanted to help me, but it was beyond her control. My husband said, “there’s plenty of things to eat on the menu” to which I replied, “yeah, if all I want to eat is CARBS!” Ugh, I was not happy. I settled for one poached egg an English muffin with jam. I wonder if they considered the prepackaged jam a fruit as well?
Cracker Barrel, if you weren’t so convenient on road trips, I would avoid you like the carb-laden plague.
Yeah, I love Cracker Barrel. We always find then on road trips. Gratefully there aren’t any in NYC/Long Island.
Road trips are the worse times to try to find healthy foods. Salads are usually loaded with creamy/fatty dressings, or bacon or such. And other healthy items are often ruined in similar ways. I will restaurants would have better options.