I rarely eat fast food, junk food, or chain restaurant food, where every item – be it fish, meat, or fowl – is smothered with a gluey three-cheese melt. Sometimes I’m stuck in the boonies somewhere and TGIF is the only game in town. If so, I keep it simple and order the club sandwich – rather than the “quick-fried crusty ravioli filled with pulled barbeque pork.”

You won’t catch me at a Red Lobster or Olive Garden. The ambiance is institutional, the prices aren’t that terrific, and the food is blandly heavy heavy heavy. “Steak Gorgonzola-Alfredo” will put a lot of money in your cardiologist’s pocket. Amusingly, I saw a paid ad on Olive Garden’s home page that read, “Gastric Bypass Diet. Learn About Proper Dieting Following Gastric Bypass Surgery” I rest my case.

Discerning foodaholic that I am, I never thought I’d set foot in an IHOP until I spotted one of those discount coupons in the Sunday paper: “Order one entrée and get the second for free.” That’s an offer I couldn’t refuse. My chicken fajita tostada salad was actually pretty good, and large enough for a family of four. (If you finish the entire serving in most American restaurants, you are probably well on your way to morbid obesity. Wrap it up!) The IHOP experience inspired me to start using coupons for other low-price chains: Souplantation, Sizzler, Boston Market and Acapulco, which were also a lot better than expected.

I don’t eat a lot of burgers, but I’m told by meaty friends that In-N-Out-Burger is the best chain in the Southwest. This is welcome news, because my son and I invested $600 in two different million-dollar home raffles last year, and all we won was a ten buck voucher at In-N-Out. That better be a really good burger.

I am not a Starbucks aficionado: four bucks for self-service coffee in a paper cup is not my idea of a good deal.