The Dreaded Post-Swedish-Smorgasbord Food Coma

I write this blog feeling as if there is a brick in my stomach. I am suffering from the dreaded post-Swedish Smorgasbord food coma.

I have a food injury.


Last night, the gaybors asked if we wanted to go to the smorgasbord at the local Swedish restaurant.  As there is almost nothing more delightful than a well-made Swedish Pancake, our eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.  We NEVER say no to an opportunity to eat Swedish pancakes, so how could we say no to an opportunity that included Swedish pancakes at a buffet?

Here's a photo I took of Flat Stanley visiting the restaurant. I took this photo a while back for a Book de la Face friend's project.  Flat Stanley is obviously welcoming you to the mecca of Swedish food in the area. FS knows where to find the good eats.

A note about Scandinavian in the Addiverse.  Where I grew up, it was Polish and Italian--no Scandinavian folks floating around.  So, when I moved to this town in 1980, I was really confused by the lack of names ending in "ski."  I was surrounded by a plethora of last names ending in "son."  I had never eating a Scandinavian food product in my life (well, at least not to my knowledge).  I didn't know there was a difference between Swedish people and Norwegian people. I had never heard of "glogg" (a classic Scandinavian hot-spiced drink that was designed to take the bite off those cold Swedish winter nights and most certainly make you drunker than a skunk without knowing it until it's too late) and I didn't have a guess at what the hell a lingonberry might be.  Suffice it to say, my ex-husband (a true Scandinavian) introduced me to all these things, including the Swedish pancake.

Thankfully, I was able to keep my lips off pickled herring during my initiation to the way of the north. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to keep my lips off glogg.  Those in-laws knew how to make a mean glogg.  I didn't like the taste very much--I'm not a spice-kind of grrrrl--but, one had to have some glogg when hanging out with them. Hmmmm.....there is a chance I may have put my lips on pickled herring during a glogg-induced fog.  I'm not sure.

I digress.  Back to the buffet.

The wife and I do love a good buffet; in fact, it is just wrong how much we love buffets.  It's no wonder we both loved eating at the college cafeteria--we were always first in line for lunch.  Seriously. Anyways, we try never to go to buffets because they just encourage bad foot behavior--meaning, we eat ourselves into food comas.  I am a "grazer:"  I eat all through the day but do not enjoying large meals. Worse is eating large meals at the end of the day--it makes me miserable and thus I enjoying going out for breakfast or lunch more than dinner.  I try to pace myself when we go out for dinner, no matter what the food.  But, a Swedish smorgasbord!  How can anyone say no to that?

Oh.my.god.  It was orgasmic.

It was also a carbohydrate nightmare.  Those Swedes don't eat a lot of veggies--it's hard to grow veggies in the cold, dark lands of Scandinavia.  They are all about potatoes, nothing green.

I think I would have been all right had I not included three Swedish pancakes with my meal.  I couldn't stop, though. I ate my potatoes in various forms and my desserts like there was no tomorrow. I ate a salad (a waste of space, actually) and then I slapped those three pancakes onto my plate.  I slathered them with an ice cream scoop's worth of butter and waddled back to the table.  I had a tear.  That's how good they were.

I ate the pancakes, smiling all the way....and, upon completion, realized I had eaten way.too.much.  I had a food injury.  I felt rather miserable.  I shrugged it off, figured it was plenty early before bedtime and thus decided to eat a cookie.  Sure, I'll be fine in a few hours.

I was wrong.  Talk about miserable.  Most people are fine a few hours of a big meal--they have a burp and a fart and they are fine. Not me.  That stuff was like a rock in there. Even though it had been several hours since our smorgasbording, I couldn't lay down--I was too miserable to lay down.  I have a slow moving system, so I swear those three Swedish pancakes were hanging out in my esophagus--there was no room for them in my stomach and they weren't going anywhere fast.  I basically slept sitting up.  Every time I would lay down, I felt sick.

I woke up still feeling quite full, rather miserable--the brick of food remained in my stomach.  But, I wasn't bitter; in fact, I was happy.  I was still in delight over how delicious that food had been, how much I had enjoyed every little morsel.

I am enveloped by the Scandinavian food coma.  The only cure is time and a poop.  For the love of Odin, let me poop!

This is Odin, from Xena Warrior Princess.  Great story line, complete with golden apples and Reingold. I pray to him for a great Nordic movement of the bowels.

For now, I will get dressed and go to church.  Nothing rumbling in the Addiverse.

And, so I say, "Go. Go forth and find the smorgasbord."  It's worth the price of a food injury.

Swedish pancakes at a Civil Union picnic, anyone?
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