D2G: The Gourmet Galley Gauntlet

“Homemade meatballs and fettuccine, hold the fettuccine, and a side of broccoli, please,”  I said one evening to our waiter in the Celebrity Solstice Grand Epernay dining room.
He lowered his notepad and asked, “Hold the fettuccine? You don’t want the pasta?!” 

He'd heard me correctly.  Our D2G, (Diet to Go) had met its challenge with the gourmet (mouth-watering-want-one-of-everything) array of food we had on our transatlantic crossing.

Before you start rolling your eyes, about passing up that pasta, let me assure you we ate. . .and ate. . .and ate a lot on the cruise.  Celebrity -- perhaps even more than other cruise lines we've been on -- seemed to emphasize quality – not quantity. Although we could have ordered multiples of each meal and been served them, (that's the way it works on cruise ships) we opted for single servings; each which appeared looking like a culinary work of art (lamb shank below):


But our Diet to Go, D2G,  (see earlier posts for D2G details) made it easy to navigate through the gourmet gauntlet the culinary staff created.  All we did was to modify some little things:

• like sending away the basket of bread that appeared at dinner and skipping pastas every so often;
• skipping the 'traditional' brewskie we shared before dinner on previous cruises;
• and skipping dessert most nights and satisfying the sweet tooth with the candy we found on our pillow each night;
• ordering breakfast from room service for automatic portion control (no temptations from the Lido buffet).

What we did do:

• we drank wine – lots of wine,( more than we would have at home).  
• We ate chocolate and nuts.
• We visited the Gelateria - once - each ordering one scoop and several times drank luscious latte's at the adjacent coffee shop, Al Bacio, next door.
• Actually ate the fruit from that bottomless fruit basket they provided in our cabin
• We headed to the Lido deck's salad bars for lunch.
• And we ate huge amounts in the two specialty restaurants we tried while on board (these places have a surcharge). The photo below was taken in Murano as the sommelier advised us on the wine we should drink with our meal.

That Cote du Rhone she recommended paired perfectly with Murano’s fillet Mignon:

We dined so well in the regular dining room (like frog leg appetizers) that it was hard to leave for another specialty place but we did; and, in the Tuscan Grill, restaurant had fillet Mignon with horseradish flavored mashed potatoes (yes, we each ate some of the potato - not to mention a dessert).

While in port it was easy to get the 35 minutes a day of exercise that we needed on 'the diet' but we had nine days at sea so we made this place a regular morning stop.
  

So six-months into our culinary journey. . . we report SUCCESS: 

• Joel came back from the trip weighing 2 pounds less and I had lost 1 pound. 
• Total pounds lost: Jackie 12 and Joel 6. (We would likely have lost more had we not been traveling and 'fudging a bit' but then that wasn't the purpose of the D2G anyway).

In full disclosure, Celebrity hosted our dinner  in Murano – we paid only for the wine. We paid the full tab in  Tuscan Grill.
Those wanting to know more about the basis of the D2G, should check the Glycemic Load Diet book by Dr. Rob Thompson on the Amazon carousel on the right hand corner of the blog homepage. (More disclosure: if you buy the book from the carousel, we make 40-cents!)