Health Food

I messed up my birthday plans with Mom's side of the family. We were going to go to Stroud's last weekend, which was sensibly close to the actual day I was born. Then I found out my brother would be out of town then and unable to join us, so I rescheduled for this weekend.

Then realized this was my ex's weekend to have the honyocks.

So instead of rescheduling it yet again, probably to where it's not even the same month as my birthday, I left the kiddos out.



Strouds is, as Rush Limbaugh once said, the stuff they scrape out of your arteries when you die. He said this before he went on the Oxycontin diet and lost so much weight.

So anyway, I got curious about their chicken noodle soup. It's always the soup of the day, because it's a chicken joint. And it was not disappointing. Big fat noodles like Mom made, a richly seasoned broth, and quite a bit of actual chicken.



I got even more curious about their gizzards and livers. I ordered a half order of mixup to find out what they were like. I pictured that incredible crust their pan fried chicken gets but on livers & gizzards.

This turned out to be an incorrect assumption. The gizzards and livers were very reasonably priced, I think a half order was $5.50 and it was by itself more food than I could eat at a sitting. Comes with gravy, too. But are they spectacular livers and gizzards? Alas, they're about what you'd get at Go-Chicken-Go except for the gravy.

But the chicken itself, it was magnificent. And I get to feel proud that I restrained myself from overeating to the point of discomfort, something I've never done at Stroud's before. But then, it's not like I didn't consume more calories at that table than I probably needed for the entire weekend.

Good eats, though, and a good time with family even if my offspring weren't on board.



Also, if you've stayed away for fear of the wait, it's gotten better. There were empty tables in mid-afternoon, something that wasn't true last time I was there in April. I think at dinner time you can still count on a wait, they were starting to accumulate by the time we left, but if you go off-peak you can get served pretty quick.

And I think we each carted off enough leftovers to make at least one full meal, and that was with my bro and his wife splitting an entree.