{"id":97,"date":"2005-06-02T02:33:32","date_gmt":"2005-06-02T08:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2005\/06\/02\/if-burritos-could-fly\/"},"modified":"2006-02-16T02:34:46","modified_gmt":"2006-02-16T08:34:46","slug":"if-burritos-could-fly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/06\/if-burritos-could-fly\/","title":{"rendered":"If burritos could fly"},"content":{"rendered":"
Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock<\/font><\/h6>\n

Thursday, June 2, 2005:<\/b> My wife and I have yet another similar thought process. She doesn’t see it that way. I just now did.<\/font><\/p>\n

I brown-bag to work for three reasons. The least is cost.<\/font><\/p>\n

The middle is that fast food all tastes alike after not too many weeks, including ethnic fast food, and I get to really noticing the extra salt and grease. (This is why I began teaching myself to cook months after college graduation.)<\/font><\/p>\n

The top reason is lunch during the work week is its own lousy reason to eat out. I write this Brick at a fun, locally owned espresso shop. I see a professor over yonder, there’s a professor I know slightly — meaning he knows me enough to say hello and not try to remember my name — eating a sandwich.<\/font><\/p>\n

Why buy a sandwich?<\/font><\/p>\n

Shouldn’t restaurants be for dishes too complicated to make often at home or too unusual (ingredients you’ll likely never use again) to even try? Here’s a good reason: You eat out when you’re just too pooped to face your own kitchen — or to clean up if your spouse is only barely willing to cook. Restaurants as a celebration or a holiday, then.<\/font><\/p>\n

On the other end of the deli scale, paying good money for someone to doll up two slices of bread with mustard, cheese, lettuce and so forth? For the same six bucks at the grocery, you could easily make 10 sandwiches: the loaf, a brick of cheddar, a package of cold cuts (even tofu-based), a head of lettuce. And with some restaurants just as fast.<\/font><\/p>\n

At this espresso place, I go for the soups. It’ll be a style I’ve never made or an unusual set of spices. (Yes, I make soups all the time. They’re simple, just not as simple as layering things on bread.)<\/font><\/p>\n

My wife on the other hand, takes most of her work lunches at restaurants. But what she cannot stand is the new concept in Tex-Mex eateries: ordering at a burrito counter. At these, you go up to the first station in the buffet and indicate to the preparer type of beans, salsa or pico de gallo, grilled onions, mushrooms and bell peppers, and shredded lettuce or fresh spinach.<\/font><\/p>\n

She says, "If I want a burrito, I can do it at home."<\/font><\/p>\n

So we really are alike, eh?<\/font><\/p>\n

I’d disagree on the fast burrito system, however. I like that idea.<\/font><\/p>\n

In the first place, it’s a way of getting a meal out on my ovo-lacto-vegetarian diet that includes adequate protein, the beans and cheese.<\/font><\/p>\n

My spouse sees the burrito as easy as a sandwich.<\/font><\/p>\n

I disagree. You end up with lots of tiny packages of leftovers. A can of turtle beans, a couple a big spoonfuls. Clean and chop a head of lettuce for a handful. Half a tomato, quarter of a bell pepper, a glug of Picante. You get the picture. -30-<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thursday, June 2, 2005: My wife and I have yet another similar thought process. She doesn’t see it that way. I just now did. I brown-bag to work for three reasons. The least is cost. The middle is that fast food all tastes alike after not too many weeks, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body-home-street"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":98,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/11\/food-shelter-and-story\/","url_meta":{"origin":97,"position":0},"title":"Food, shelter and story?","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 24, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 24, 2005. Old School by Tobias Wolff provoked this riff. (I checked out the audio book from the library perhaps a year ago and returned it after hearing only most of the first disc, going by that's when its familiarity ended. Having\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Course of Words"","block_context":{"text":"The Course of Words","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/course-of-words\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/01\/coming-to-term-limits\/","url_meta":{"origin":97,"position":1},"title":"Coming to term limits","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, January 19, 2005. In reading in the papers about another piece of embarrassing proposed state legislation, I realized finally, after many years of consideration, a single reason to support term limits. Overall, though, holding legislators from the community through state levels to a maximum\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":102,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/11\/the-g-rated-spot\/","url_meta":{"origin":97,"position":2},"title":"The G (rated) spot","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 11, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Not tonight, dear, this is a G-rated spot Friday, November. 11, 2005. Michael Scherer, Salon.com's Washington correspondent, reported today on a hearing conducted Thursday by the Senate's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights. A writer named Pamela Paul testified, quoted as having\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":150,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/05\/voices-gone-wild\/","url_meta":{"origin":97,"position":3},"title":"Voices gone wild","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"May 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Tuesday, May 3, 2005. It is far too easy for executives of media to pigeonhole columns into commentary. Or analysis. It then needs to be consistent, which is why humor and certain other person viewpoint columns are out these days. You can't have your toothpaste\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":121,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/08\/unintentional-humor\/","url_meta":{"origin":97,"position":4},"title":"Unintentional humor","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 19, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Friday, Aug. 19, 2005: The latest innovation in Internet advertising is a boon to humor columnists. Maybe it's not the absolute newest improvement but now widespread is a customization factor: You open a newspaper Web site's article on, for example, gardening, and a couple of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Culture"","block_context":{"text":"American Culture","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/american-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":122,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2005\/08\/introduction-or-transition\/","url_meta":{"origin":97,"position":5},"title":"Introduction or transition?","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 17, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2005 Ben S. Pollock Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005. News item: Not now. \"News item\" is a decades-old method to prepare the reader for an essay or column, especially a humorous one, whose subject, or just an allusion used in it, may be borderline obscure. If it truly is obscure,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technical Difficulties"","block_context":{"text":"Technical Difficulties","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/briefs\/technical-difficulties\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}