A couple of days ago I met a friend for lunch. This is a change for me as I usually meet friends for breakfast which itself was a change for me as I used to meet friends for happy hour. The things we must adjust to as we get older. Sigh.

Anyway changing from breakfast to lunch meant I had to read and consider the menu. Breakfast is easy. I check out what’s at the top of the list and say I’ll have the *full in the blank* with the eggs over easy and wheat toast. The top item is always the same, two (sometimes 3) eggs any style with three (sometimes 2) pieces of bacon and sauaage, home fries, and toast. It’s just about what I have every morning whether out or at home except that on Saturdays at home I add pancakes or waffles depending on my mood unless I completely switch things up and go with French Toast, or decide to give my heart a break (it’s one of the few organs still in its original condition) and have oatmeal.

So, that top item on the breakfast menu. It’s always the same but I have to take a quick glance at the menu to see what that particular restaurant/diner calls it so I can *fill in the blank* for the server. Even the most greasy-spoon-ish diner will have some cute name for it. Grandpa Bob’s Favorite or Harvey’s Hungry Meal or The Lumberjack Special. Bob and Harvey make sense because we’re usually eating at Bob’s Breakfasts or Harvey’s Hungry House. But a bunch of places have a lumberjack meal or two and I don’t know that this spot on Earth is known for commercial forresting. It’s their places and their menus so I guess they can call ther meals whatever they like.

But I digress. Again. On this particular day I wasn’t eating breakfast out and had to get accustomed to a whole new set of menu selections. Did you ever notice that restaurants/diners don’t give lunch offerings cute names? A grilled chicken wrap is a grilled chicken wrap. I guess by lunch most of the diners have fumbled their way through a half day of work, school, or shopping and just want to eat.

I checked out the offerings and made my choice. I might have mumbled sort of out loud that I was going on the light side and order a salad. That’s when my lunch companion just had to remind me that salad does not always equal light and healthy. Especially at this spot on Earth. Around here our best selling salad whether at restaurants, diners, or at the bar during those once happier happy hours is the steak salad.

Now at those places on Earth that might recognize that you can make a salad out of a steak might just add some grilled steak strips onto a bowl of lettuce and it’s usual accompaniments. Not here. Here we take a whole steak, perhaps even a strip steak, and drop it on top of a hearty salad that by itself could serve 3 or 4, then add cheese, hardboiled eggs (at least two), and french fries. And the only dressing allowed is ranch. And never on the side. Yep. Not exactly light.

So, I decided against the steak salad and tried to stick with something “on the light side.” And I found it, right there in the salad section. A taco salad. It didn’t even come with dressing.

How much lighter can you get?

That’s what I  think. Really. How ’bout you?