Tuna nicoise: lots of protein

The egg and the tuna make it a great choice.

Lunch at the mall: No good choices

Surrounded by Dairy Queen, Italian Kitchen, Subway (all those carbs!), China Wok, Baja Bistro and The Great American Cookie Co.

At least the sandwich is turkey, the pita chips are baked and the lentils are protein. It could be worse.

Review: No. 246 in Decatur, Ga. and Bocado in Atlanta: Bring on the fat. Yawn.

The chicken at Bocado

The chicken at No. 246

Restaurants like the hot, hot No. 246 in Decatur Ga. and Bocado in Atlanta, aren't diet hostile per se. They're just a little short on strategies in the kitchen to layer on flavor without layering on fat.

All that farm-to-table, local, Italian-ish stuff on the menu relies heavily on butter, oil or other fattening ingredients to impart taste. And in the end, rather than celebrating the ingredients, it's as if every single dish is buried deep in the folds of a down comforter of fat.

Even if you're not The Restaurant Dieter, it's got to get boring. Can't a vegetable like sweet potatoes exist on Bocado's nightly changing menu without layering in nuts, brown butter or covering brussels sprouts in a bath of EVOO? Why are all the vegetable preparations among the sides at No. 246 fattening?

This past weekend was an all-eat-out weekend for us. Helpful servers found themselves pointing helplessly to the fish on the menu -- as if that alone made something low fat. One did the eye roll and that friendly mock groan that said, "Buddy, you've come to the wrong place." He followed it by saying, sheepishly, "Our chef is French."

At both restaurants, I ordered the chicken, peeled off the fat crusted skin and ignored the fat transference vehicles such as the grits at Bocado and the bacon-and-sherry sauce at No. 246.

Bocado's beet salad

Both servers did their best. They cheerfully assented to cheese and dressing "on the side" for salads. At No. 246 it was an uninspired salad with greens, strawberries, farmer cheese and pistachios with a balsamic vinaigrette. Bocado did better with a salad of beet, orange, avocado, hazelnuts, fennel, faro and a balsamic vinaigrette. The crunchy fennel and orange, combined with just a touch of the feta, both provided a kick that made it even easier to go light on the dressing.

If you're not dieting, throw that down comforter of fat over yourself and go. Yawn.

When at the Jewish deli, indulge

My excuse: Living in Atlanta, I don't get to real Jewish delis very often, and I love these hammentashen poppyseed cookies.

I admit I had to ask the clerk at the Bagel Palace Deli & Bakery to spell the name so i could write this post.

I probably more aware of Jewish culture than many non-Jews. I studied Holocaust literature and even stumbled into pledging the traditionally Jewish Sigma Alpha Mu in college.

From my fraternity brothers, I learned to swear in Yiddish, appreciate the Jewish girls in the little sisters auxiliary (before I owned up to my preference for men) and bake bread by making challah. For Jews and Italians, it's all about the family and food. Even when it's somewhat warped.

"What do you mean we're dysfunctional? Eat something! You'll feel better!"

I swear: If you eliminated that little disagreement over Jesus Christ, Jews and Italians would be one culture.

L'chiam!

All hail the turkey sandwich

I'm old enough to remember when turkey was a once a year thing, served only on Thanksgiving. If we had meat on a sandwich when I was a kid it was bologna, salami, ham, the incredibly tanned and bland olive loaf(!) or Spam. Fried, of course.

Then sometime around the time I was in college, turkey blossomed as an every day food. Now I'm not sure what I'd do without it. I buy two pounds of Boarshead low sodium turkey breast or chicken breast deli meat a week.

If it doesn't wind up in a sandwich, I eat it straight out of the package. On the Weight Watchers Simply Filling food plan, you don't even have to track the precise amount of lean proteins you eat.

Admittedly, the turkey sandwich can get old. In my 30s, I remember losing a ton of weight on a diet that consisted of a cold turkey sandwich and baby carrots every day for lunch. Then at night --- after 45 minutes on the Stairmaster -- I'd have another turkey sandwich, this time grilled with no-fat cheese and a microwaved baked potato.

No wonder that didn't last.

Today, I eat fewer turkey sandwiches. But like a lot of folks watching their weight, it's a staple. We'd starve if it wasn't on most menus.

It's something to be thankful for the other 364 days of the year.

Weight Watchers weigh-in: up 1 pound

There was a pretty bad turn at a cocktail party. Hot spinach dip, cheese, pasta, roast beef sandwiches and cookies. We were supposed to go to dinner, but I was hungry and succumbed. Plus I missed the gym a couple days this week.

It could be worse.