Eating Out

Pre-kids, my husband & I ate out several times a week, and we ate out well. Since having 2 kids, we rarely go out to eat. It's a combination of the difficulty dealing with 2 small kids at restaurant (although we're lucky that they are both well-behaved) & dealing with food allergies.

The Friday before Christmas we met my parents, brother, sister-in-law, nephew & niece for a get together on the Strasburg Train, and we stopped for a bite to eat at Cracker Barrel. We brought a meal for Maggie, but I ordered a meal & listed what I needed to avoid (I was advised to avoid what Maggie's allergic to while nursing my son.) The manager came over & handed me 2 sheets of paper listing my safe options & noted instructions for the staff to reduce the risk of cross-contamination. We were overjoyed. Cracker Barrel is definitely not our style of restaurant, but it's decent enough food & they are everywhere, so we loved that Cracker Barrel seemed like a good option for eating out. I order a burger on sourdough bread & specified that I wanted just lettuce, tomato & onion on my burger, and a side of applesauce. The server brought out our food. My 1st inkling that they didn't follow my request was that my bread looked exactly like my husband's, who had not requested a special bread. I took a bite and this bread tasted like it had been grilled in butter. Then I examined the sandwich more closely & saw mayonnaise! Thank goodness it was just me eating the sanfwich & not my daughter. The server apologized & offered a new meak, but we were running late & I really didn't trust them.

So much for feeling comfortable eating out.