Keegan Wetzel

Keegan Wetzel was not the type of young man you would have pegged as a major college football player. At least not in his sweat-soaked number “48″ jersey on that hot day in the summer of 2009. Skinny, freckled, and sitting alone at the end of a row of white clothed picnic tables, he hungrily scarfed down several hamburgers just like any other college freshman would amidst a crowd of complete strangers.

It was the Blue and Gold BBQ to conclude the last preseason scrimmage of the summer, and as was customary for media members and fans, the crowd descended on the hungry football players like bargain hunters on a Black Friday sale. I had made the rounds, and was about to head home when I spotted Wetzel and remembered him from an interviewed I had done with him earlier that year. Myself a college student about to leave the insecurity of dropping out of school with matched insecurity of transferring to a school in a state 2000 miles away, I approached the spacing Wetzel with nothing on my mind save to say ‘hello.’

I did, and I told him who I was, reminding him of the interview. I don’t know if he recognized or remembered me. He seemed nice — quiet, but nice — and left in that awkward silence of two young men with more weighty matters on their minds, I quickly congratulated him on his scrimmage performance and then walked away.

It took me the better part of three years to walk away from writing about Navy football. But even before starting out as a freelance writer while a college sophomore in 2008, I had been a Navy fan all my life. I wasn’t so sure that was the case anymore when this season started. I had a sour taste in my mouth. Not only from the hassle of Sports Information Directors who didn’t understand my predicament as a freelancer, nor solely from the consuming feeling that my dream as a writer was about to expire, but also because of events surrounding the players themselves. Whispers of scandals and dismissals had really shaken my faith in the program and what it stands for. Not that players hadn’t been thrown out for cheating or drugs before — but because, when those players suddenly became young men who looked me in the eye and used my name in the postgame press conferences — their sins and struggles started to become personal. And after basing my life around a dream of becoming a college football writer and storyteller, the thought that I would have aided and abetted in some kind of lie hit me just as hard emotionally as it did professionally.

Throughout the last three months, however, something has happened on the field to remind me why I’m still a fan. Why I’ll always be a fan.

Keegan Wetzel brought his lunch. And he’s done it each and every week.

Watching this young man play has been a privilege. From the first snap in Navy’s blowout loss to Notre Dame, to last Saturday dominating win over East Carolina, Wetzel has knifed through linemen, launched himself into passes, and downright set his sights on every opposing ballcarrier. What’s more, he’s almost always managed to track them down.

Coming into the season he was the last guy expected to be the leader for a Navy team that began the season with an auspicious 0-2 start. He played sparingly in only one season before his senior year this fall, in the process battling through a concussion. This year, with the team in need of something, anything, to give it a spark, Wetzel stepped up. He has done it while carrying an impeccable record in the classroom and in the Hall, and he’s one of the major reasons Navy sits at 5-3 and is on the verge if heading back to the postseason. He’s also the major reason why I’ve remembered what it is I love about Navy –  and more broadly — college football.

It’s about the people. The young men who I have, for better or worse, grown up with. It’s about the young men who I first interviewed as a wide-eyed writer in 2009, thinking the chance to talk to soon-to-be college football players was just about the coolest thing a human being could do. It’s about remembering the excitement in their voices when they first found out they had a scholarship, or the anticipation on their faces as they donned their pads for the first time at their first summer scrimmage. It’s about the pain and exhaustion I saw on their faces as they gave it their physical and mental all during a freezing December evening practice, and the slow tear drop down their faces that I, as a humbled member of the Press, witnessed time and time again in the deep recesses of stadiums across the country after narrow losses and disappointing climaxes.

When the season began, I decided that I didn’t want to go to Navy games with my dad. In doing so, I decided to break a tradition of one of the few things we had been able to do together without fighting over something. For the better part of the year I stayed away from Annapolis on game day. I didn’t want to run into people who knew me as a sportswriter, and I didn’t want to explain how I just needed to get away from that past image of myself. Still, a part of me never stopped pulling for the Blue and Gold. Watching, and rooting from home, I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something those first several weeks.

I couple of weeks ago I figured out was that something was. I was missing the roar of the stadium when Wetzel made a tackle. I was missing the dejected looks on the opponent’s face when the formerly undersized, unknown linebacker dropped them him for a loss. More than anything else, I think I was missing me, and the wonder and excitement I had as a young man with the privilege to live out a dream, and share in the excitement and accomplishments of those like Keegan Wetzel.

Gameday Harvest Panini with Mozzarella and Beet Greens

One of my favorite local blogs, HowChow, recently opined on the best places to buy groceries in Howard County. With respect to his list, I’m going to have to add a nondescript, completely ‘white people’ grocery store to my favorite places in the county.

I shop at a lot of stores, and I love chains like Wegman’s. But I also like going to a place that offers good variety, competitive prices, and hearty bread. Being neither far away nor always crowded is also a huge plus. That’s probably the reason I’ve been loving the recent upgrades to my local Weis Markets so much.

I’ve talked about Weis’ unique ice cream flavors in the past, but this time of the year, when I find myself craving the warming effect of hearty vegetables and the simplicity and comfort of good, crusty bread, I’ve turned to Weis’ bakery department. While Weis’ house “artisan” breads don’t quite match Wegman’s, Weis does offer Old World style loaves produced by La Brea, including a deliciously rich yet tangy Three-Cheese Semolina loaf I picked up for half price last week.

That’s one of the big advantages Weis has over Wegman’s when it comes to baked good — unlike Wegman’s, you can buy “over baked” breads, donuts, muffins, and even cake slices from Weis at half the price of their original cost. And when life gives you an already reasonable, crusty Ciabatta baguette and makes it just a buck, then you’ve got yourself a recipe — literally — for a panini.

Saturday’s are the best days for Panini’s because that’s the day God made for football and food, as protected by the Constitution, the Magna Carta, and Hammurabi’s Code. Between watching my Aggies and Mids put the smackdown on UTSA and ECU, respectively, I took a look around my fridge to see what we had. Cheese was an easy choice. Low moisture, whole milk mozzarella is something I’ve begun to really appreciate over the past few months. It melts great, obviously, but it has enough milky flavor and richness to make an underrated companion for fruits like apples and pears. Here, I pair it with an assortment of fall vegetables, including grilled butternut squash, onions, and beet greens. I also made sure to add Granny Smith  apples, as well as balsamic vinegar.

After grilling the vegetables on my panini grill, I pressed everything between the thin slices of Ciabatta, grilling up the already sturdy crust until the cheese was warm and melted and the bread even crunchier than before.

Then, in the word’s of Hamilton Porter, I ‘stuffed’ it.

Not a bad way to grab  gameday lunch without having to drive to either the game, or the other side of the county, amidst a fall weekend.

Nick’s Pulled Pork

I went to high school with a rather odd fellow named Nick. ‘Rather odd,’ because, like me, he was and still is the kind of guy who can quote romantic poetry in his sleep. ‘Rather odd,’ because, also like me, he made the unfortunate decision at some point during his teenage years that he wanted to pursue a life in writing, and found self-expression to be somehow more noble than empty dreams of trying to make millions thousands.

We have a lot in common, me and Nick. And yes, I mean me and Nick. In High School, though, we didn’t necessarily recognize our similarities. Mostly, I oscillated between being rude and condescending towards Nick. In some ways we were always competing in our academic pursuits, and in others, we were just two different if not soul-searching young men navigating those ‘awkward’ years.’ Amidst these feelings, as well as the environment of an all guys Catholic school, it was only natural for Nick and I to be play the roles of the begrudging classmates.

Back then, I would have picked a number of my classmates who I could have seen myself being a future coworker to. Nick, to be honest, was about as far down on the list as one could get, right above the guy who took six years to get through a junior college and ended up becoming the next Doug Heffernon for UPS. Amazingly, five years after graduating, Nick and I work together for a publishing company. Even more amazingly, Nick feeds me  mouth-watering, sumptuous pulled pork at work.

Our teachers and alumni from our high school always told us we’d be brothers for life with our classmates. There have been times over the last few years where I wanted to believe that sentiment, and other times where I downright disowned the idea. More and more, I think I settled on it being just a nice thing people said for graduation dinners and reunion-type gatherings. But in the real world – graduated, long moved on, chasing different goals –  the idea of a brotherhood was distant and prosaic.

Then something weird happened. Out of the blue last summer, after moving back to Maryland and finding myself friendless, Nick invited me to one of his barbeques. I knew the guy had some eclectic hobbies, but I never knew my sometimes introverted high school acquaintance had molded himself into quite a pitmaster. Emphasis, may I add, on the master. I left his barbecue with a newfound appreciation for him earlier this summer, and struck that someone I sometimes picked on would extent such friendliness and brotherhood my way.

Gradually summer became fall, and I managed to not screw up enough in my part-time job to get promoted to an Assistant Editor. With part-time position about to hit the want adds, my company asked if I knew any one who’d be interested in filling it. I knew just the guy. Knowing Nick had been, like myself, struggling to break into the transitioning if not contracting world of writing and publishing, I gave him the heads up. A few weeks later he signed on. And a few weeks after that — last week, actually — Nick treated our entire office to one of his signature dishes.

Nick’s pulled pork is everything you could want. Authentic and honestly smoked, it exhibits those prominent pink rings that hang their flavor compounds within the roof of your mouth, sending wave after wave of their tempting aroma into every nook and corner of our office building. With plenty of crunchy, fatty-sweet Mr. Brown pieces and tender and vinegar infused Mrs. White’s, the slow smoked butt was adorned in nothing but a simple and thin sauce. Served up on a Martin’s Potato Bun at 7:30 in the morning, it made a wonderful breakfast. Unplanned, and coming after a sleeve of Oreos I had already downed that morning, it also made a less than optimal breakfast.

But that”s the point, isn’t it? Life is full of gifts, and for as much as I’ve embraced food as a way to show my appreciation for others while expressing my creativity, I seldom allow friends and family to give back in kind. Too often, I just don’t allow it to be part of my routine. I fail to embrace the variety of it, the unexpectedness of the moment. In doing so, I’m making a statement about my values, and that, even though I say I value friends and food, charity and brotherhood, I’m really just embracing selfishness.

The irony, of course, is that selfishness is no fun. And it doesn’t taste nearly as good as Nick’s pulled pork, and the reminder that the best tasting gifts are often the ones that come when we least expect them, and from those we least expect them from.

A Short and Recent History of Beef and Me

I did not grow up eating a lot of beef. Burgers in our house were always of the Turkey variety growing up, and a childhood attachment to chicken tenders, nuggets, and all things poultry, breaded, and fried, left me digesting very little of the bovine persuasion as a kid. Aside from a short-lived, pretensions declaration of enjoying steak between ages of 8-10, I actually can’t remember a single instance where beef was among the regular eats of my childhood.

Eventually that changed. Gradually my family and I learned that honest-to-God hamburgers were tastier — and in some cases healthier – than Turkey burgers, and that the two cities our family held ties to — Buffalo and Baltimore — provided two of the very best beef sandwiches known to cellular existence (Beef on Weck, and Pit Beef, respectively).

For as much as I like meat and specifically beef, I don’t eat much of it. It is, for the most part, a cost and convenience issue. I like to cook my own food, and a creative flair for seasonal ingredients and ever-thrifty eyes have left me more inclined to purchase vegetables and grains. Plus, I just like to snack a lot on stuff like cottage cheese and saltines, which leaves precious little time for meat.

Lately, however, I’ve been feeling like a carnivore. Credit football season. Blame the changing weather. Chalk it up to a need to just assert a Tim Allen manly grunt not seen since the likes of Home Improvement, but for whatever reason, it manifested in several recent kitchen experiments and food excursions.

I was at Safeway one day a few weeks ago when I spotted these “previously frozen” beef bones. I bought them for no good reason except that I was feeling creative, and was determined to find something to put them to use for when I got home. I ended up finding a recipe that called for grilling them and extracting the marrow. I’ve never had marrow before, and judging by the way I cooked these bones, I still don’t think I’ve had it at its best. But even underdone, the rich, sumptuously grassy fat of the marrow makes  an incredible spread for a nice slice of old world, crusty bread. A little salt and rosemary enhance the flavor with a romantic, french countryside ethos, giving a sense of satiety in a slow, savory chew. Next time I buy beef bones, I’ll make sure to cook the marrow completely, perhaps even splitting the bone to develop a caramelized crust.

We all know ground beef has gotten expensive. We all also know many grocery stores make you buy it in “value packs.” I hate that, because I really don’t need four pounds of ground meat for a quick dinner midweek. That’s why I like places like Target. They sell beef at competitive prices in manageable sizes — in this case, a pound of 85/15 for exactly three bucks. I bought it to add to a butternut squash chili for my parents one night, but saved half of it for later in the week to make hamburgers for myself.

There’s really something fulfilling and altogether cathartic about waking up at 4:30 in the morning, going to work all day, running errands, and then coming home to fire up the grill and make something for yourself, and only yourself. There’s also something rewarding about a minimalist burger. As much as I like a good, salty, gooey cheeseburger, I really like a meaty burger with fresh ingredients on a quality bun.

85/15 is like the middle child of ground beef. Many “burger eaters” swear you need the fat of 80/20 (if not fattier) blends, but I’ve yet to grill or griddle  myself a burger from ground round that is anything less than juicy and delicious. I actually think it’s just a juicy as 80/20, and when properly managed, a heck of a lot more flavorful. After years of eating Turkey burgers with more filler than your grandma’s meatloaf, I’ve evolved to just adding salt and fresh cracked pepper to my beef burgers, although I like to finish grilling them on top of thinly sliced sweet onion. I picked up some delicious potato buns from Wegman’s that have the right sweetness and squish to lend support and taste to the meat. Tomatoes,green leaf lettuce, pickles, and low-fat mayonnaise add freshness, sweetness, and relief. Of course, I have to add ketchup and mustard too, just because.

The meat is beefy and sweet, just like it should be. Oh yea, and nothing beats those juices running free. This is the main difference between beef and turkey, if you ask me. All ground meat is going to have some amount of fat, but it’s the flavor of that fat which goes a long way. And when it comes to beef, you just can’t beat those natural flavors. You also can’t beat the price of making a burger at home. The cost of ingredients averaged out, and it’s a quarter pound burger for about a buck. Try getting that from McDonald’s…

I love the Wegman’s in Columbia for too many reasons to get into here and now, but “Buffalo foods” like Sahlen’s hot dogs and Weck Rolls are a huge reason why I drive out of my way to Columbia to visit Wegman’s. Weck, for those of you who don’t know, is a kind of yeasty Kaiser roll with coarse pretzal salt and caraway seeds on top. Served up with warm roast beef and as much horseradish as your snoz can take, it’s the kind of “perfect three” of bread-ingredient-condiment that makes fried chicken and pickles or tomato and mayo just work in all its delicious simplicity.

I picked up a Weck roll at Wegman’s before the Navy game against Indiana on Saturday (helluva comeback, by the way) and had it for lunch with some deli roast beef the next day. Granted, Hillshire Farms is not Charlie the Butcher, but that’s the thing about great bread. It can actually elevate a sandwich’s other ingredients, and for someone hundreds of miles from a real Buffalonian food staple, Wegmans’ rendition of a Weck roll more than does the trick.

Long story short, I really liked beef this week. But after that weck roll and a sourdough baguette from Weis that I lunched on, I think my next two-three week craving is going to be for good bread. And only good bread.

Count Chocula

It’s that time of the year. Halloween. It’s coming. And while you anxiously await the first day of November in which you make your annual sojourn to Walmart to buy vastly discounted candy, you’ll have to spend the next two weeks settling for a cornucopia of full price scary-themed products.

For the cereal eater, October offers a chance to reconnect — or in some cases to try for the first time — the Monsters. Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry might not strike R rated horror movie fear into you, but like the heart racing cliff hanger in an actual monster movie, the first sight of the Monsters in stores leaves me on the edge of my seat every year.

Count Chocula, the progenitor of the trilogy if Halloween themed cereals, was first released in 1971, but it took me until the ripe old age of 22 to actually try it. Corn and marshmallow based, it’s known for being the cholatey foil to Lucky Charms, graced by the dentally challenged Count himself. Seriously, I haven’t seen a  one-tooth overbite like that since Conkers.

If limited edition doesn’t convince you to pick up a box, I’m assuming the seemingly unconquerable duo of chocolate and marshmallows will get you to Yet with similar cereals like Chocolate Lucky Charms now on the market year round, does Count Chocula really deserve its place as a must-buy each fall?

For me, the answer is still ‘yes.’ I start out as I always do — with a plain bowl for snacking. The standard cocoa and corn pieces are supposed to look like ghouls or goblins or something scary (bats?), but if you ask me they show a striking resemblance to the bad guys you stomp on in Mario. I go Yoshi on these guys and scoop them up onto my tongue, noticing a cocoa flavor with a medium yet hollow crunch. The cocoa flavor is moderate — not as strong as Cocoa Puffs , and by no means as rich as Krave or Mini Wheats Little Bites – but it’s respectable when eaten alone, and benefits from the sweet finish of the marshmallows, which seem to have a bit of vanilla flavor. I think the ‘mallows are supposed to represent ghosts. I actually enjoy them more than any other cereal marshmallow I’ve had, including Lucky Charms. As a snack, they serve to bind the cocoa crunch with a sweeter finish, and lend enough textural and flavor contrast to avoid completely mindness snacking.

If the combination of chocolate and marshmallows works dry, it dominates in milk. Even in skim milk, the cocoa flavor diffuses into the drink, leaving a sweet finish the end milk. The crunch remains strong even after a long soak, while the marshmallows take on a wonderful mouthfeel with a crisp vanilla flavor. While the cocoa corn pieces lose much of their cocoa flavor in milk, they remains sweet enough to keep things interesting.

There’s a reason Count Chocula comes back every year, and it’s not just because people like me enjoy reading the cartoons on the back of the box. If Swiss Miss has taught us anything, it’s that you just can’t go wrong with cocoa and marshmallows, especially when dairy is involved. What separates Count Chocula from, say Chocolate Lucky Charms, is the simple fact that Chocolate Lucky Charms’ marshmallows lack the dynamic vanilla and cocoa sweetness that the Count’s hold. While I’m not ready to proclaim chocolate Count Chocula as one of my must-have cereals to stock up on, it does warrant a yearly purchase for sure. Now, if only they could find some way to work in Candy Corn flavors, that would be truly epic.

Count Chocula

• Price: $2.50 (on sale at Safeway)
• Ranking: 8/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100% (next year)

An Ode to Pumpkin

I can remember the first time I had my grandmother’s creamy pumpkin mousse. A Weight Watcher’s recipe chalked full of trans fat laden cool whip, cloyingly artificial sweeteners like aspartame, as well as maltodextrin and cheap chemicals up to wazoo, it probably wasn’t actually healthy. I didn’t care at the tender age of 11, though, and I don’t care now. It’s good. Shittockingly awesome good.

Maybe it’s the novelty of pumpkin products which gets me every fall. Unlike chocolate or vanilla, pumpkin is one of those flavors that seems to exist only within a short timeframe of the year. Like the fleeting college football season, there’s an urge to soak it in — rather, devour it, slurp it, or lick it — while its available.

Oh, and is it ever available right now

I haven’t had a Dunkin Donuts Munchkin in years. I have no idea why. Actually, I do. It’s because I hate the smell of Dunkin Donuts and maybe, at best, go in one of their stores two or three times a year. Can you blame me when their donuts are (in my experience) small, relatively expensive, and stale? Well, we were having a book giveaway at the press library during the week and someone brought a bunch on Munchkins. I tried a couple of flavors, but the pumpkin one was the best. By far. A little dry on the inside, but chalk full if cinnamon and ginger, it had the flavor of warming sweetness which makes pumpkin taste like, well pumpkin. The cake dough fit right in with the glaze, and was every bit as good as Einstein Bros. Bagel Poppers.

Rating: 9/10

Speaking of pumpkin donuts, I snagged a box of Entenmann’s pumpkin cake donuts at the store. I can remember eating Entenmann’s ’softie’ donuts as a kid and always going back for seconds, but the skyrocketing prices of their baked goods  has made my purchases few and far between. Still, I couldn’t pass these up, and I’m glad I didn’t. They aren’t as distinct in pumpkin flavor as Dunkin’s donut holes, but as a pre-packaged cake donut, you can’t beat them. Sweet and super moist, they have a delicate crumb and a wonderfully sumptuous glaze. I’ll be buying more of these for sure. Brandeating wasn’t so high on these, but I’ve still yet to encounter an Entenmann’s product I didn’t like.

Rating: 8/10

Archer Farms (Target) used to make a Pumpkin Pie yogurt. I thought it was just OK, and lacked the richness and brown sugar sweetness to enhance the earthy flavors of pumpkin, which seems to really hate the addition of artificial sweeteners and their sometimes metallic aftertaste. The same can be said for Yoplait’s new Pumpkin Pie yogurt. It comes across as flat and artificial, with none of the warmth associated with pumpkin, nor richness nor creaminess. I wasn’t a huge fan of it plain, although, with a little whey powder, a whole egg, and some maple syrup (and canned pumpkin) it turns into a warm and frothy dessert kind of deal.

Rating: 3/10

Panera Bread is one of those places I try to avoid. I’m not really sure why. But my father brought back a Pumpkin Bagel from a Panera the other day, then went on a vacation and left it at home. Already a day stale, I decided it would be an injustice to let it go to waste. I was very, very surprised. The strudel topping was excellent, as you’d imagine. Like a coffee cake with crunchy brown sugar and butter bits, the bagel itself has a good chew with interlaced specs of pumpkin “filling” — basically pumpkin with brown sugar and spices. I didn’t get much of the confectionary chips, but I think I liked it better than Einstein’s regular Pumpkin Bagel.

Rating: 8/10

Other items to hit up before the fall ends? Aside from a scoop of Hershey’s Pumpkin ice cream and Turkey Hill’s Pumpkin Pie ice cream, you can sign me up for Einstein’s Pumpkin Scone and yes, even Dairy Queen’s Pumpkin Blizzard. What are your favorite pumpkin treats?

In-N-Out: My Favorite Cheeseburger

“Yes”

“No”

“Maybe”

“Yes”

“No”

“No”

“Yes”

These are the answers I gave my friend Jon when he asked me if I wanted to stop at In-N-Out Burger on my short vacation to Salk Lake City last weekend. You’d think I would have been a little less uncertain about wrapping up the three day trip with dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in the world*, but I had conflicted feelings about what would be my third visit to the iconic California hamburger institution.

Like a lot of thoughtful people, I have expectation issues. I used to call these food issues, but the more I’ve examined and admitted my faults in life, the more I’ve realized the anxious feelings which shadow my every move are more related to getting my hopes up and then let down than anything else. Like Pavlov’s dog I build these situations into my life where I look forward to material things only to find they aren’t sustaining or fulfilling, and like a Sunday morning after a Saturday of watching football alone, I often come to find that eating out someplace I’ve looked forward to eating out at too often leads to a feeling of “that’s it?” after all is said and done. For you economics people, think about it as an example of the law of diminishing returns.

The first time you do something – anything, really – it’s great. The second time, it’s good, but it’s not great. And after that? Never as good as that first time, with the memory of that first time always hanging back there in your mind to remind you your current experience doesn’t add up. And my first time at In-N-Out, complete with Animal style Double Double and fry amidst a packed house past midnight in 2009? Well, that was pretty damn special.

But I settled on a “yes” to Jon’s question, even though the cold Utah evening and splurge of a burger and fries on the first night of the trip really just left me wanting soup. I mean, the guy’s wife is a vegetarian, and given that the last time we had seen each other ended in a productive and memorable Double-Double experience, it just seemed logical. Besides, I had no idea when I’d get back out to Utah, and despite recently realizing that I’m quite smitten with a McDouble, I felt like I needed to remind myself what a really damn good cheeseburger tastes like. More than anything, I felt like a needed to recreate an experience before heading back to the life I slug through.

I like a lot of things about In-N-Out, from the prices to the ambiance and right on down to the Bible verses on the fry wrappers. I love the way the people who work their act and embrace the restaurant experience. The whole production is friendly and enthusiastic, with the employees showing a zest and exuberance for not only making hamburgers, but also making people happy. A lot like Chick-fil-A, yet in a some ways a lot more honest. There are no awkward “my pleasures” from the employee who really isn’t feeling it, and unlike other restaurants, those at In-N-Out will basically smile and get all your additions and tweaks correct, and they’ll do it without charging you a dime extra. This is important, because, after two previous trips of getting a carefully ordered Double Double Animal Style, I went with a more modest cheeseburger, with some modifications. Medium mustard-grilled with a grilled whole onion, as well as extra tomatoes and extra toasted bunage. The guy behind the counter even said they could even brew up a decaf coffee just for me, because a soda would have only frozen the life out of me after the previous night’s experience of Utah State’s debacle in Provo.

My burger wasn’t just good, it was great. Less beefy than the Double Double, it wasn’t the kind of thing to put me to sleep, and because of that, I think I enjoyed it more given the situation. This was the first time I really took some time to taste the bun. Its buttery – a taste I don’t experience much with a toast that keeps the whole construct together. The meat has a well seasoned, beefy-sweet flavor that’s only amplified by the fatty juices that remain after hitting the griddle. I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect medium, but the juicy patty still has enough give and release to stand above any fast burger its size.  There’s just something about that beefy flavor which pairs well with the milky, salty goo of the cheese, which I swear has a subtle lactic flavor most dismiss as “just American.” The ketchup and mustard make the whole thing sing, but it’s the fresh veggies that give the entire bite the complete textural contrast every burger lover craves. Oh yea, the whole grilled onion has an awesome, developed sweetness. Like browned bits scraped from a hot pan, there’s a certain echo of ingredients cooked together than binds the burger as one cohesive entity.

It’s my favorite cheeseburger from a taste standpoint, no doubt. Break it down to the X’s and O’s of flavor science, and you get something that works on every molecular level. But any flavor combination can be overcome through repetition. Even what “makes sense” can be supplanted by boredom and situation. Only the ambiance of In-N-Out, and what it represents for me, makes the chain’s Cheeseburger the best I’ve ever had.  

Turns out I was right to say “yes” to Jon.

I’ve eaten at In-N-Out three times, and each time has been a different, but wonderful, experience. From my first time eating in a packed house on a Saturday night after a Utah Jazz win, to a chance encounter with a mentor of mine while introducing my family to the chain on the day I moved away from Utah, the two previous experiences saw me enjoying that classic Double Double taste in the company of friends. Amidst a celebration, with something – everything – to be thankful for.

And this third time, even though coming with a more restrained order amidst a nearly empty restaurant, was still everything the previous times had been, if not more. I guess words can’t describe it. “You had to be there,” might not even do. To see my goofy self rattling through the order specifications – only to have the register dude recite them order perfectly – or to witness Jon and I huddling around his Smartphone watching college football on a 2-inch screen, you might have gotten a sense that we were just two old college buddies getting away from it all.

And you would have been right.

It struck me sitting there, slowly savoring my burger while staring at that phone and talking to Jon, that my “expectation” issues when it comes to food – when it comes to anything – are misplaced. They’re misplaced because I’m always trying to recreate something. I’ve come to realize this lingering but incomplete sense of nostalgia and sentimentalism – never, should I add, satiating – need not guide my every move in life. We, as humans, have the power to be optimists and to be opportunists. Yes, we often have “better days” behind us, but even though our current situation in life might not be exactly to our liking, it doesn’t mean we have to live trying to recreate past memories.

In-N-Out is special to me because each time I’ve been there I’ve created new memories, and I’ve created them with friends and people close to me in a different way. That’s a unique experience, and not one I’ve given myself the chance to take advantage of in many areas of my life – eating out included.

Before we left In-N-Out, I asked one of the young women working the counter if many people get burgers made to take back to the East coast. She told me they did, and they could get me a few if I’d like, provided I assembled the ingredients separately when I got back to Maryland. I thought about it, and nearly said yes. But then I thought to myself; is a great cheeseburger still a great cheeseburger if eaten alone in my office at work? Is it still a great cheeseburger if downed for the sole reason of making sure I ate enough calories at the end of a busy day?

Or is it a great cheeseburger only a great cheeseburger when the cheese and the burger matter less than the person and the place where you’re enjoying it?

I think I answered my own question when I told her, “I’ll just wait until I come back next time.”

*I mean this completely. Along with Jack’s Woodfired Pizza in Logan, Siena in Buffalo, and Ted’s hot dogs in Buffalo, New York, I’m not sure there’s anywhere else in the world I’d rather eat. Ok, Chick-fil-A, but that’s another story for another day. And I think I’ve already told it, several times.

What I Need

It was the worst week to take a Thursday and Friday off of work.

It was the most inopportune time to fly over halfway across the country.

It wasn’t profitable to visit a friend I hadn’t seen in almost two years.

It was exactly what I needed.

 

To experience the thundering of stomping feet during a nightime college football game. The youthful rowdiness and overwhelming pride in one’s school before a national audience.

To feel and experience the generosity and warmth of a young couple making it on their own.

To buy a burger and fresh-cut fries, savoring the fatty, potato-ey taste amidst a cold evening long after my usual bedtime.

 

The feeling of life I get in a 30 degree morning, running through the foothills above Salt Lake City in the light of the moon.  

The lounging around on a Saturday afternoon, sitting in a French café as I treat those who’ve opened their homes and their lives for me.

The goofy way I ask for my burger cooked at In-N-Out, as the cashier smiles and recites the request.

Saturday football watching at my leisure. It’s not the action of the four screens, but the presence of my best friend on my left.

I had forgotten how much I missed being thankful. I had forgotten what it meant to get away.  I had forgotten how much I missed the voices. The bitter morning cold. The Big Sky and the lingering sunsets. The accents and even the damn hot chocolate and caffeine free diet coke the Mormons drink. The way my lips chap up; the sight of alpine homes and kids being kids, and feeling and feeling of something just being right.

My soul, on a flight back after a vacation too short, is here and now, forever and always, walking away from home. Walking away from Utah.

Next time, I won’t wait so long to walk back.

New Orleans Ice Cream Co. Peach Melba

October skies bring with them great things. From the smell of smoking meat at a tailgate before a college football game, to hayrides and corn mazes and the Halloween decorating blitz, the quintessence of fall is one of my favorite times of the year.

The only unfortunate aspect of this time is the passing of the summer produce that delights our taste buds each year. Like falling leaves in early October, the watermelons and blueberries, raspberries and peaches all fall away as the temperature drops. And while I love apples and pumpkin, I take the loss of the peaches quite hard.

Earlier in the summer I took a gander at Turkey Hill’s Limited Edition Peaches and Cream ice cream and thought it was comparatively average. Since then, my prefered way of peach eating has been in a classic summer salad with basil and mozzarella, but when New Orleans Ice Cream Co. shipped a pint of their Peach Melba ice cream a few weeks ago, I knew I’d get one final chance to taste the South’s most sumptuous fruit in one of its classic forms.

I’ve never had the classic peach melba combination before, but I have enjoyed the flavors of peach and raspberry (although, it should be said, not combined in cereal form.) New Orleans Ice Cream adds toasted almonds to complete the pint, an altogether odd choice, if you ask me. I wish they would have added pound cake (more on this later.)

 The first spoonful starts out on a high note. It’s a creamy and smooth ice cream base, super premium but with the kind of dairy-cream freshness and bright vanilla flavor which gives an impression of lightness. The vanilla bean flavor is far from ordinary, and I find myself admiring the slowly melting cream and vanilla bean specks on my tongue. There’s an enjoyable, almost whimsical raspberry swirl which mixes with the fresh cream taste in the kind of way that makes those miniature sundae cups all the rage at elementary school birthday parties, and comes in with enough frequency and impact to lend sweetness and a bit of textural contrast to each lick. Combined with the soft ice cream and chewy, thick peach slices, each bite tastes of the classic flavors of ambrosia. There’s no whipped cream involved, but it sure tastes like it, and given those three elements, I’m inclined to proclaim it as one of the best peach ice cream’s I’ve ever had.

However, as was the case with Mississippi Debris, this flavor goes one mix in too far. In this case I’m pointing the finger at the “toasted” almonds, which, while buttery, have an odd and flimsy chew and lack real roasted flavor. There are too many of them, and combined with the already prominent peach and raspberry swirl, they detract from the vanilla base and break up the overall creamy aspects of the ice cream. I wouldn’t go so far to say I disliked the almonds, but I certainly would have loved the Peach Melba flavor a lot more without them.

The perfect peach ice cream is restrained, simple, yet ethereal –  a classic mixture of cream and juicy peaches, honoring the kind of fruit with enough complexity to make a perfect dessert in its own right. New Orleans Ice Cream Co. comes close to making the perfect peach ice cream, but comes up a little short by trying to improve on something which is, buy its nature, is perfectly and naturally delicious as God made it.

Rating: 8.5/10

Other Reviews: The Ice Cream Informant

In Annapolis

I remember a night, several years ago, when I thought I was alone. It was during a time in my life when I first started to lose myself. Running steps vigorously in the light of a full moon shining down on Washington D.C., the minutes after midnight at Catholic University weren’t spent in the silence of a spring evening.

Rather, they were spent in panic.

The panic of the throbbing, steady drum of a beating heart during vigorous exercise. The loud anguish of Fort Minor’s Bleed it Out flooding into my ears from my IPOD. The intermittent bellows of drunk students stumbling back into dorm room confrontations, only to pass out, as if lifeless, from the repeated fallacy of living for the moment.

I would run those stairs every night, pushing my body to exhaustion, forcing my mind into silence. Consumed by questions, perplexed by paths offered and potential yet to be realized, I put off the anxiety through the only way I knew how. A loud, angry, interior expression of the spirit reverberating through each mental exclamation point, until tired legs and oxygen debt found me incapable of remembering the pain of those thoughts. Again and again. Night after night.

Then one evening, a strange thing happened.

The moon was full, the sky bright. I thought I was alone, at least as alone as one can be at midnight in front of a Philosophy building. But in the exhausted silence after my breathing caught up to my beating heart, I heard a voice, and saw the outstretched arms of a skyward looking man.

After I overcame the initial shock and shook off a few, “what the fucks,” my first thought was to be embarrassed. Most kids aren’t abusing their body with that kind of exercise, much less doing so on a Friday night on a college campus more known for its drinking than anything else. But after I realized this wasn’t some drunk group of coeds intent to point and laugh at “the serious army kid,” I realized I was witnessing a man lost in the quiet peace of God’s gift of a spring night. That man, who I later realized was the President on the college, was praying. And he was praying in thanksgiving.

I was amazed. Not just at the man’s tranquil grace, but in the fault of my own daily ritual. The running, the isolation, the city itself was bringing me nothing but exhaustion, and even while I would momentarily silence my demons with each lonely limp back to bed, I was finding nothing lasting, nothing to be thankful for. I was finding, despite the silence, no quiet.

Since those days in college, I’ve yearned for quiet. Not silence, but quiet. There is a difference; silence, I believe, it the dull, absent state of existence we find ourselves in when were just too damn tired to think. Quiet, on the other hand, is a sort of serenity. A transcendental moment where there is a clarity in purpose.  That purpose being a genuine thankfulness to God, Nature, or maybe just the people and places in our lives. Not nearly as rare as we think, quiet is something we have to find, have to seek. God, and nature, can give us nudges, but only we can make that decision to look to the sky and embrace it amidst the empty promises of our daily routine. It was in breaking that daily routine early last week that quiet found me during an early morning sunrise in Annapolis.

I was tired that morning. Too tired to drag myself through the routine of working out at the gym before the sunrise, and too consumed by the stress at work to begin my day by taking that stress on in place of that routine. So I didn’t. I drove into the Academy early, walked down to the Chesapeake Bay, and took a deep breath. My gaze nudged up, I beheld one of life’s simple, quiet pleasures.

There’s something about the way the sun steadily progresses over the clouds that doesn’t just warm the air, but strengthens the spirit. The world, sleeping in the night like the wonder inside of us hides in the way we spend our days, suddenly comes to life in a dynamic move upward. It’s in that moment when the creeping reflection of the sun on the gentle ripples of the bay becomes a rush of warm light that you realize you’ve had it all wrong. In that moment of grace, that feeling of warmth and beauty, calm and serenity, you understand you were neither entitled nor guaranteed this moment. You also realize you didn’t earn it. Not through sweat nor hard work, devotion to duty, God, nor country, and certainly not through daily ritual of patience.

You are given this moment as a gift, and there is nothing you can do to take it away or to earn it, repay it, or assure it. Be thankful for what it is. Marvel in its simplicity and its warmth. What it brings you — the peace, the calm, the meaning in existance itself. And please, do please take the time to breathe slowly, smile slightly, and thank God for all the gifts in our lives. Like a fall morning in Annapolis, when the quiet of nature’s gifts conquers the noises inside our heads.