Why We Like The Things We Like: For Me, It's Always A-1 With My Steak Or Burger...Apple Turnover In The Morn...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

AUSTIN, Texas - A quarter of a century ago, it was curly fries that grabbed my attention, although I can't remember what fast food joint sold them. A warm pumpkin empanada always served as trusted companion to my black coffee. Dinner came with a catfish basket, or a box of KFC, or a plate of beef enchiladas. But those were my college days and, well, those days are gone.

These days, I'm like a child when I sit down for my still-black coffee and that apple or cherry turnover I get in a plastic container at HEB that brings us four of them, always crispy and well-filled. Crumbs cover the laptop by the second bite, but who cares - it's my morning palate joy. I'm sure you have your own. My running buddy in college, Paul Infante of Brownsville, would scarf down his Jack-in-the-Box tacos at 2 Ayem, soon after the nightclubs shutdown in Big D, those there on Northwest Highway along the take-off and landing route of the jets coming into or leaving Love Field. The last time I talked with him, he said something about still being addicted to the joint's drive-thru, only these days he is hooked on the breakfast egg sandwiches.

Anyway, I know there are serious issues flying about that must be addressed, stories with more social import than my culinary treats. I know that. But what Man doesn't stop and get off the main road every now and then? Must every Charro hat be black? No. You can lead a man to water, but he'll horse around. And it's not just men; women have their own quirkiness too when it comes to food. My ex-wife loved cheese; I can't stand cheese, any of it. She loved mayonaisse; I can't understand that crap. My daughter in NYC loves food from India; I reel at the sight of it. I could go on. And, for chrissakes, do not throw a freakin' flour tortilla my way; I find them wildly awful. Chips? I go for Cape Cod originals when siding them with a burger, corn when out for killer salsa.

As I've grown older, I've not seen great change in what I scarf down.

I'm still good for a well-done (nuked!) T-bone with a bottle of fine red wine, warm, buttered dinner rolls and a helping of barbeque beans, my own bottle of A-1 steak sauce. Pork ribs do nothing for me. I'm no prehistoric dog able to mash some pig's bones while reaching for spare essence of meat. You can have pork ribs; they're sorta the poor man's answer to beef, which, truth be told, are hard to find.

Has anyone had Navy beans? Whoever came up with that crap should have died at a young age. What a bizarre food. Navy beans? Ridiculous. And why no Army beans?

Chinese food baffles me. It's too tissue-looking for me. I look at a plate and wonder if I am not being served a pile of nerve endings or lymph nodes. Plus the stuff on the Chinese menus floor me. Everything sounds like Chicken Chung Poo or Pao Tao Wao. Those Chinese people never really tell you what the words mean, and so I conclude that it's their inside joke when unfolding the menus as you sit there like some lost moron while the carts bearing the Chinese delicacies come around and around pushed along by a woman who looks like she died last week who nods at you, never smiling.

I don't know.

Maybe the Helote eater has something. I smile when I see a woman lifting the footlong helote to her mouth sideways (see photo above) and then cross-sawing it with her teeth as if playing the harmonica, bits and pieces of the grilled, yellow-brown kernel skin raining on her chest and blouse. And then you notice she is carrying a few more in a plastic bag held tightly under her arm. Ah, the smell of helote on a wife just home from the fleamarket. Must be a kin of Viagra. Quien sobby.

So, it's almost 9:30 and I'm looking out my window. It looks like it'll be a sunny day. Little wind unlike yesterday's frigid killer. A pair of hawks circling the sky downrange, looking as if this is the day they'll luck into something tasty. Didn't mention oysters. Do they taste like mucous? I'll never know.

I'm reaching for my cup of coffee...

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