Eating Our Way Through Alaska

Sexy Nerd and I spent last week as guests on the Holland America Oosterdam, sailing roundtrip from Seattle with stops in Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, and Victoria.

By the way, the name of the cruise ship is pronounced like 'Oh-sterdam', not 'Awst-erdam', like we'd been telling everyone. Whoops!

We're cruiseaholics. This was our 8th cruise in the 5 years since we got married. The first thing I did when we got back home? Kiss Pica and Biscuit and look online for new cruise deals.

The best part of taking a cruise? The food!!

Here is how each day typically went:

8:30am - 9:30am: Breakfast in the main dining room

My everyday order was juice, coffee, a chocolate croissant or two, an English muffin, a greek yogurt fruit parfait, a sliced banana with blueberries and, depending on how hungry I was, an omelet with all the fixings, french toast with strawberries, and/or a breakfast sandwich. The waiter would usually suggest I get some ham, bacon, and hash browns on the side. May as well, right?

9:45am - 10:15am: Munchies in the buffet

10:20am: Walk a lap around the ship to avoid getting fat while on our vacation. Do so while snacking on a bag of salty, buttery popcorn from the movie theater.

12pm - 1pm: Lunch in the main dining room

Lunch consisted of an appetizer, soup and/or salad, entree, and dessert. I accidentally (I swear!) ordered 2 desserts one day when the waiter misunderstood my request to substitute 1 ice cream flavor for another. The resulting chocolate lava cake topped with chocolate chip ice cream and the rocky road ice cream sundae didn't cause anyone to bat an eye.

Well, except for Sexy Nerd, but I think he was just jealous.

1:15pm - 2:45pm: Munchies in the buffet

It didn't matter that we were full. The buffet included all the things we'd been too shy/proud to order 5 of while in the fancy restaurant. In the buffet, I was free to eat all the chicken curry appetizers (so good!) that I wanted.

They also stocked an unlimited supply of meringues. Some meringues even had sprinkles! And, just when my love of meringues was beginning to waiver (around the 100 mark, I believe), Holland America came out with this:

Meringue turned into a pavlova - my favorite dessert of all time!

(Chocolate shavings added by me, because you can do that kind of thing on a cruise.)

Side note: Did you know that fresh mint makes all fruits and desserts taste amazing? I never realized that before this cruise. We need to plant this!

3pm - 4:30pm: Nap (sugar coma?)

4:45pm - 5pm: Another stolen bag of popcorny goodness from the movie theater (we never did actually watch a movie in there.)

5:15pm - 6:15pm: Dinner in the main dining room (like lunch, but somehow even better.) Many passengers lined up in anticipation of the Oosterdam opening the dining room doors, hungry and looking forward to the excellent food and service.

On our second formal night, I ordered the "surf and turf", but told the waiter not to bring me the lobster (blech!) He merrily replied "turf, no surf...two beefs!" I laughed and waived him off. There was no way I could eat two beef fillets. There was no way I should eat two beef fillets. They were both so tender and moist though. How could I have let them go to waste?

Keeping with the theme of the cruise, dinner often concluded with a baked Alaska. I bought eggs the day after we returned home so that I can keep up the tradition. Is there a medical term for baked Alaska withdrawal?

Post-dinner: Buffet madness

Post-show: Buffet madness

The Oosterdam really didn't want us to go hungry. While we were out, gorging on brownies and paninis nightly, our room steward was turning down our cabin for us.

And leaving chocolate squares on the towel animals.

By the end of our cruise, I was more sugar than girl.

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