|
Years ago, I started doing my best to flatten the Golden Arches, get Wendy on food stamps, dethrone Burger King and keep Jack inside the Box. Call me Don Quixote, but it was an easy choice.
I woke up and realized that a quarter of all Americans saddle up at franchise restaurants every day. Our expanding brethren spend more on Quarter Pounders and White Mocha Frappuccinos than on higher education and new automobiles combined.
My look beneath the bun and the lid was even more disconcerting. Chemists called "flavorists" create and combine chemicals to synthesize those flame-broiled, fresh-tomato and frothy-cappuccino flavors. And the best argument of all was that Special Sauce is sinking local businesses all over America. Turning their backs on the neighbors, consumers reliably flock to the low prices and consistency of franchised food. Easy money.
So it was that my wife Rachael and I set out on a decade long family reunion with the mom and pops of North America. In all honesty, the journey has had its ups and downs. And we have slipped more than a handful of times; like the time we opted for Subway over Fat Boy's Pork Palace in a little town called Franklin, W.Va., or when we happily addressed the barista at a Starbucks after 10 days of gas station coffee in the Grand Staircase region of Southern Utah.
But the high points make it all worthwhile. I'll never forget when the Green Frog Caf`E9 and "Canada's Largest Hat Collection" rose up to meet us after four days on the Alaska National Highway. We blissfully ate our thick, greasy homeburgers (standard Canadian fare) beneath thousands of foam trucker caps stapled to the ceiling.
On a stopover in Reno, Nev., Rachael and I chanced upon the finest Vietnamese food we've ever eaten, just a poker chip's throw from the buffet at Circus Circus. We were the only non-Asians in the tiny joint, had to order by pointing at items on the menu and eventually indulged in a fragrant and fresh feast. Mid-meal, I approached our waiter and asked where I could find the bathroom. He pointed to the open kitchen door and escorted me past three small women standing around steaming cauldrons, brightly colored vegetables and bubbling sauces. In the corner was a proportionately small, one-toilet bathroom.
A little closer to home, Zak's is a barbecue joint in Hotchkiss that we'll hit up anytime we're as close as Delta. The sauce, meat, potato and paper plate combination will always remain strong for us. Randomly, we once came upon a friend from Crested Butte hitchhiking near Cedaredge. "I'm actually not going straight home to CB," he told us. "Do you think you can drop me off at Zak's?" Destiny? Fate? Call it what you will.
The list goes on and on. We routinely visit an exceptional Thai restaurant secretly located in a shoebox just east of Grand Junction. We don't go to Albuquerque unless we stop off at an adobe-clad Mexican joint in Cuba. We can find excellent Chinese food in Anchorage, first class Sushi in the Mojave Desert and even know where to locate a tolerable meal in Laramie, Wyo.
Above all, we know the Durango menu up and down. We also understand that our dollar has the most power in our own home, and that the way we spend it shapes its future. And we're still rolling on that journey that began more than a decade ago, although things have gotten a little more difficult recently.
Six months ago, my 2-year-old daughter was exposed in secret to the joys of McDonaldland by her grandparents. The pull was strong. These days, we can't drive by the Golden Arches without hearing a call of "Mac-a-Donalds" from the car seat. Like parents the world over, we answer with the tired old adage, "Maybe next time."
I confess that as I burst her innocent bubble, I also have a secret longing deep down. I know that a little Special Sauce would probably go easy on my palate. And there's got to be something to a Caramel Macchiato.
But when was the last time you discovered the essence of America while sitting on a plastic bench and taking the paper off a sesame seed bun?
- Will Sands
|
