KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN

KFC was next restaurant in line on Bluemound Road when The Man Who Thinks This Blog Idea Is Cool, But Doesn’t Actually Read It said he’d take me out for dinner. I had just returned from a harrowing, seriously-windy drive home from Evanston, Illinois, and I’d have accepted an invitation to eat out in our driveway culvert, if it meant I wouldn’t have to think about cooking – or anything else. Well, I did think about you all.

I don’t think I have ever eaten at Kentucky Fried Chicken. I probably won’t again either. Not that the food was awful. But... Don’t you think Bluemound must have better places at which to eat? I sure hope it does.

The lines were actually fairly long when we arrived at 7 PM on a week night. The drive-through window seemed to be constantly busy as well. The help was very cheerful – and helpful to me who doesn’t know the difference between extra-crispy and original fried chicken. I asked if they had any grilled or roasted chicken. Silly me. What do you suppose the "F" in KFC stands for?

As we waited for our order, I watched the workers filling orders in the kitchen. None of them were wearing any kind of rubber gloves. Isn’t that required of a person who is handling food? Perhaps not. They were using tongs and scoops to fill orders, but they used their bare hands to put the covers on the take-out tubs. I decided to ignore this and assume they wash their hands A LOT. The kitchen was not exactly dirty, but it wasn’t as clean as my own kitchen, which, on some days, probably wouldn’t pass health inspections either. I checked out the ladies bathroom while we waited, and chose not to use it. One stall had not been flushed (not the restaurant’s fault exactly) and the other stall had no toilet paper. There were tiles missing from the wall below the sink. Okay, back to my dwindling appetite...

I tried to order what other people seemed to be ordering, assuming the regular customers would know what was the good stuff. My not-extra-crispy chicken breast still had plenty of fat-absorbing coating on it, yet the meat was surprisingly dry. My mashed potatoes bore no resemblance to having ever been a vegetable of any kind. More like gooey, white soup. The gravy could have come from any kind of meat – or none. The cole slaw was tasty, but very sweet. The Man Who Thought He’d Died and Gone To Fried-Food Heaven decided to try Teriyaki wings. The menu said he’d get 8; he got 18! Even he could not eat all of them. The wings were coated with the extra-crispy stuff, deep fried and then drowning in the sweetest sauce you can imagine. His baked beans were perhaps the best of our items, until I looked up the nutrition information on this food. No wonder they were good: the baked beans have 220 calories and 20 grams of sugar in a single order!

Having been a weight watcher in a previous life, I occasionally check out the calories I’ve consumed – when it’s too late to do anything about it. My meal had 900 calories and The Man’s had 2060, had he eaten it all. YIKES! KFC offers 8 drink choices, but only one was sugar-free, and that one had caffeine, which I’d prefer to avoid at any time after noon, so I do not find myself staring at the ceiling, counting deep-fried chicken wings at 2 AM.

KFC's fowl is not just deep fried; it is "cheap fried." My chicken breast meal, which came with a biscuit, two side dishes and a large drink, was $6.19. The Man’s Teriyaki meal was $5.99. It’s scarey to think how this factory-farmed food is being raised, if they can ship it all over the country and sell it at those prices.

Hoping for better meals to come while I am...
Kitchenless in Brookfield