National Free Lunch Program Implemented at Thomas' Home Cooking

Headed back to the trough for "thirds."

Thursday I snuck through a tunnel under the Eastern Bypass and tried a new place--recommended by a former friend--known as Thomas' Home Cooking. However, I was shocked to learn that, like Health Care Reform, this place was misrepresented to be a country cooking meat & three when, in fact, it is an all-you-can-eat buffet, including tea, for $6.99. I normally avoid all-you-can-eat buffets like the plague. They remind me of the training table or a commune. Who can really keep all that food fresh and who cares what falls off their plate into the potatoes? And, worst of all, buffets attract a clientele more concerned with quantity than quality which almost always eventually results in mediocre performance. Sort of like what is going to happen to our health care system eventually.

This buffet was no exception. Other than myself, every other patron was already on Medicare and looking for inexpensive, low-quality food in large quantities. I had always wondered how really fat people were able to keep their weight up because eating that much food all the time must approach something like work. The answer: All-You-Can-Eat Buffets where you can sit six feet away from the next plateful of banana pudding.  If you are really smart you can get the government to buy you a "free" electric scooter to transport you to/from the trough.

Although I had been duped, it took me so long to get there I couldn't turn back. I felt a slight pang of duty to you, our dear readers, that I decided to actually purchase a ticket to the greatest gluttony show on earth: the all-the-fattest-people-on-earth-can-eat lunch buffet. Like a good reviewer, I endeavored to try everything in small quantities which caused some of the gluttons to raise their piggy eyes above their pork ribs and wonder: What's with the skinny dog eating like a bird?

Actually, the salad bar did appear to be rather fresh although the leaves were in such large pieces that only the widest of mouths could envelope a bite. That was not a problem for most patrons whom can apparently unhinge their bottom jaws like pythons.  Thomas's offered, unlike many buffet salad bars, some decent blue cheese dressing. They also had the usual suspect vegetables: green beans, corn, black eyed peas, mashed potato and collards. They offered a few unexpected choices like fried green tomatoes, rutabagas and steamed cabbage. None were great--none were awful--except maybe the collards. They were awful. The meat selections were, of course, fried chicken, meat loaf, "Lemmon" (that's how they spell it) Pepper Wing (quite peppery and lemony), pork ribs and a surprise meat: macaroni & cheese (which is normally considered a vegetable at other places).

For the Cornbread Carp's benefit I must also comment on the cornbread: Yellow, too sweet and nothing but "butter substitute" to eat it with. But, at least it was warm enough to cause the substitute to change from congealed fat into a yellowish oil goo. Yum. They had some yeast rolls under a heat lamp that appeared to be slathered with fake butter.  "I'm a comin' Martha--it's the big one!"

As I chewed the tasteless fried chicken meat, I thought to myself about our new "Fairness in Health Insurance Reform Legislation" and how it came to be, in my short lifetime, that a majority of Americans would consider health insurance to be a civil right. I am not too old to remember that employer-sponsored health plans only came into general use because Old Tricky Dick decided to play economic God and freeze prices and wages to address inflation in the 1970s. Because good employees could not receive raises, employers began offering the "fringe benefit" of health insurance at no extra cost to the employee. Although price and wage controls failed miserably, as government control of economics almost always does, forty years later the concept of health insurance being a right is now entrenched to the point that individuals and private employers are going to be fined if they do not have or provide health insurance. Big government marches on.

We must, at least, remain vigilant against something like a National Free Lunch Program ever gaining a foothold in this country. Our founding fathers knew that there is no free lunch. Today, however, many expect others to feed them and, after all, food is an important need for all. But as small employers struggle with the added health care costs and cut salaries to provide benefits, our dear politicians in Washington may eventually again try to freeze or set wages which will tempt some employers to provide lunch as a "fringe benefit." If that becomes widespread, eventually someone will insist that we expand the school lunch program to the elderly and then to the private sector in general. My nightmare is that with national free lunch insurance, everyplace will eventually be a buffet line like the one at "Thomas' Home Cooking." I hope I am way off on this but if a National Free Lunch Program is ever desired by the majority who have forgotten what a home cooked meal tastes like, anything is possible. Sort of like "Lemmon Pepper Buffalo Wings" is possible.

So, if you actually want to go there after reading this uplifting review: Thomas' Home Cooking is located at 3701 Eastern Boulevard. If you want someone else to load up a to-go box for you to pick up, you can call in or fax in your order to 215-5116 and 5118 respectively. They are open Mon-Sat from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. (I wonder if there is a time limit on your access to the buffet line?) Sunday they run--er--herd the fatties out at 6 p.m. Whatever shall they do until their next feeding at 11 a.m. Monday?