I wonder what it would be like to do a Drive-Thru getaway. I’m not talking about living a Boyz-in-the-Hood fantasy and running from an inner-city gang fight; I’m talking about running away from a Drive-Thru window after you placed your order.

I considered doing this the other day after I agreed to order a raspberry milkshake at Heber City’s renowned Dairy Keen. (Not a Blizzard from another burger joint with an oddly similar name.) I originally wanted a raspberry “yogurt”-shake—but when a squeaky adolescent voice told me they no longer offered frozen yogurt, I found myself in a difficult situation: do I order a normal milkshake, even though I don’t want one? Normal people would have opted for a regular milkshake (or would have just ordered it in the first place) but I’m not normal; I’m a girl. And as a girl, I worry about fat and calories and shoes and celebrity gossip and fitting into my jeans.

With no appetizing alternative on the menu, and three other cars idling impatiently in line behind me, I reluctantly agreed to a regular raspberry milkshake. But within seconds of that decision, I felt a pit land in my second as guilt set in: an ice cream milkshake at 2:00 p.m. on a meaningless Thursday wasn’t a good enough excuse for indulgence.

Although such reasoning is illogical and out-right silly to many, especially 15-32 males with high metabolisms, it wasn’t as silly as how I was trying to plan my getaway from the drive-thru line so I wouldn’t have to pay for 800 calories I don’t need.

But the real crime I was committing was thinking frozen yogurt is any better/healthier than the real thing.
Frozen yogurt has been a mystery to many since its inception in the early 90s. It was created to help fat people “think” they are choosing a healthy substitution when they are still feeding their bodies with loads of sugar and taking step closer to Type 2 diabetes. Although this misperception was caught on early by Dr. Atkins and comedy screenwriters (see Seinfeld episode #71 titled “The Non-Fat Yogurt”), the frozen dessert still fools many.

Anyway, I didn’t run. I paid the four bucks for something I took two bites of and then dumped it on the side of the road like a gangsta would dump a dead body. I quickly sped away without ever looking back.

At this time of year, about 4 years ago, I had just finished college and was doing the same thing I am doing now—living unemployed.

I also had just discovered the Food Network and such personalities as Rachel Ray (before she became annoying, Tyler Florence (what a babe), and Alton Brown (my favorite). As much as they could teach me for about 3-4 hours everyday, I was learning to master the culinary arts.

I begun to feel so confident about my newfound knowledge of the kitchen that I decided to test my skills and take on Thanksgiving—for my first time.

For weeks I researched turkey-cooking theories and recipes to prepare my fabulous feast. I would take no shortcuts—everything would be from scratch.

On the day of the meal, I woke up at 5:00 a.m., and after 7 hours of nonstop chopping, stirring, tasting, baking, it was mealtime. I presented a buffet of tasty dishes, which filled the room with aromatics never before smelled on Thanksgiving. I was exhausted.

I christened the meal with “dinner is served” and everyone dove in. After the crowd departed and everyone was eating their meals at the table, I noticed my cranberry-apple-sage stuffing, green beans with orange essence and toasted maple pecans, and mashed sweet potatoes with ginger and brown sugar were left unscathed. Plates were instead filled with turkey, gravy, and stuffing. They wouldn’t even try it.

And to add insult to injury, everyone was done in 10 minutes. After slaving for 7 hours, and not to mention the weeks leading up to it and my emotional investment, this glorious Thanksgiving meal—a meal I imagined would blow away all my family’s previous Thanksgiving meals—was over in 10 minutes. I was heartbroken.

Well, time tends to make you forget things, and this year, being unemployed and once again watching a couple hours of the Food Network, I thought I’d take on Thanksgiving again.

So today I was up early washing, chopping, and peeling vegetables. But by about 10:00 am, with many hours of work still before me, I remembered my family’s no-risk approach to food and realized all my work would be in vain. A wave of apathy crashed over me, and I did not want cook this meal. I thought, “No one will eat my butternut squash soup with cinnamon-sugar croutons or my stuffed cremini mushrooms with parmesan and thyme.” So I cancelled all my fancy dishes, threw in the turkey and Stovetop and went back to bed.

Well, I didn’t really pay attention to the time when I put in the turkey (Alton would have been very disappointed). A few hours later we were all gathered around ready to eat. My father stood over a golden bird, sharpening his knife for the ceremonial carving. But about 5 slices in, he hit pinky raw flesh.

Nothing is more disappointing than to see your entire family on Thanksgiving, standing around with plates in hand, while potatoes and stuffing warm and ready, only to have the bird declared “unfit for serving.” All heads turned to me and my mom said, “Jen, you said were in charge of dinner.” I had decided to go watch a movie instead. “Oops,” I replied. “My bad.”

Fortunately, we had a back-up. Last night someone gave my dad a deep-fried turkey. We were skeptical of a deep-fried turkey (are we rednecks or something?), but we went ahead warmed it up while we cooked a normal one. But when the first bird didn’t pan out, low and behold, we opened the second oven and waiting for us was a dark, crispy, finger-lickin’ deep-fried turkey to save us. My dreams as a Food Network star came true—I just pretended to cook a meal then pulled out a ready-to-eat meal out of a magic oven.

When my dad started to carve the new bird I yelled, “turkey…scene one…take two!” and Thanksgiving was back on track.

For next year, we’ve decided to take a break and go out to eat.

**So Jenny is tired and can’t think of any dating advice for this post other than it would be cool if you cooked for her. 

So I signed up for an account on MyFoodDiary.com. For just $9 a month, the website will calculate, track, and report all the food that I eat in day. It won’t eat the food for me, but will just about tell everything about it. I’ve heard about it for awhile, but I finally cowboyed up to pay the $9 fee. I entered in my breakfast: 1 sesame bagel, 1 T peanut butter, 1 T Nutella, 2 cups 1% milk. Seems like a normal, modest breakfast, right? NO! I ate a hoppin’ 811 calories! In one meal! According to my daily calorie requirement (calculated by MyFoodDiary.com based on my height, weight, age), I can only eat 500 calories for the rest of the day. Yeah right.

**So if you think you might want to date Jenny, just remember she’s trying to watch what she eats.