Food Thoughts I

There is a universally observable phenomenon, exacerbated in groups, that occurs with travelers of a certain age: a person or group of people will, at some point, begin talking about some food that is not immediately available. I have seen this happen on trips as long as 4 or so months and as short as 16 days. Usually the food is Chipotle. People get really worked up about Chipotle. In this spirit, I will now present a list of foods that have, over the past few months, preoccupied my mind and haunted my dreams.

1. First, foods from the snack bar type thing at Colby College, which is called the Spa:  The quesadilla: basically your standard white-flour tortilla with the perfect amount of little brown circles on the outside, crisper on the edges and positively stuffed with shredded yellow-and-white cheese, this one actually needs to be further divided into its three principal variations. First, the classic quesadilla, as described above: this is a slim item, an ideal to-go food that can be folded up into six triangular slices and tucked into the big pocket on the back of your bike shirt for a 20 – 40 mile ride. Second, the vegetable quesadilla: with all those onions and peppers, this one’s closer to a salad than a snack food—great for brunches. And last, the buffalo chicken quesadilla. Here’s your heavy hitter. This dilla is packed with tender, artisanally-shredded chunks of white chicken bathed in buffalo sauce, baked in among the cheesy-ether that holds everything together. Each one comes with a small paper-serving cup filled with salsa and sour cream. They will try to give you bleu cheese with the buffalo chicken quesadilla. Insist on sour cream.
2. Cheese fries: Take those bowling-alley cheese fries you’re thinking of and get them out of here. We’re talking about a piece of art here. At their best, these fries are curly fries, not those large diametered-ones that pass as curly fries but the authentic article, tight little curls wrapping the fry around itself like a tiny potato slinky, dense but fully exposed to the frying oil all the way around. Take these, and use some of that aforementioned yellow-and-white shredded cheese liberally, put the whole thing in the conveyor-belt oven contraption, and you’ve got a perfect study break.
3.  Breakfast Sandwich: You know the drill here: basic components are a bagel, an egg patty, cheese, and a meat. You want an everything bagel to get more out of your dollar, naturally. You ask for the egg, you ask for the cheese, no problem. But here’s the crucial moment.  The menu tells you that your options for meat are Sausage, Bacon, OR Ham. This is a false choice. You can, in fact, ask for sausage, bacon, AND ham. They are not restricted by what the menu says. They may not ask you to babysit their children anytime soon, but they will make the sandwich.

Second, foods from the greater Waterville area:

1.  The Caveman Pizza from Grand Central Pizza: this is a pizza covered in a sinful amount of meat.
2.  The quesadillas (steak, chicken, or vegetarian) from Buen Apetito: this is your favorite quesadilla’s favorite quesadilla, just a real student of the craft, and comes with enough refried beans and yellow rice to sleep in, which you will want to do after the enormity of the quesadillas themselves. And I of course have to mention their endless supply of tortilla chips and homemade salsas, which have the same effect as the Lotus flowers in the Odyssey, and I would recommend that you have a sturdy person with you who can carry you out when it’s time to go.
3.  The Chicken Pad Thai from Pad Thai Too: A big old mess of Pad Thai, which you can double (or “Colby size”) for like three dollars. People from big cities like to say that this is not very good Pad Thai, and that is because they are elitists.

Third, foods from home in New Jersey:

1.  Pizza from the Village Trattoria: I will focus here on what I consider to be the crown jewel of the Trattoria menu: the buffalo chicken slice. The crust is neither thin nor thick, and its texture and taste complement each other so perfectly that if a person with no sense of taste and a person with no sense of touch, who had never met each other and were in fact in separate states at the time of the experiment, were to eat slices from the same pie at the same time, they would use the exact same words to describe it. The chicken gets plenty of buffalo sauce, and then a little more is splashed around for good measure. I play a fun game with the person I order from, in which I tell them that I want the slice with the smallest amount of bleu cheese possible, and he nods, turns around, and thinks to himself what’d he say? Something about bleu cheese? I’ll grab this slice, it’s got plenty, and I’ll throw on some more just to make sure.
2. Burrito from Chipotle: I’m no better than anyone else. I want one of these. Mine’s going to be on a whole-wheat burrito, brown rice, black beans, the shredded beef, cheese, sour cream, hot salsa, guacamole, onions and peppers, done.
3. Hamburgers and fries from Five Guys: So you have your grease-bespotted brown paper bag, and inside, under an amount of fries technically called “large,” which in this reporter’s opinion is like calling Usain Bolt “pretty quick,” you will find a foil-wrapped object. Open it. In your hands, you hold a double burger with melted cheese and bacon, sautéed onions, jalapeno peppers, and ketchup. You will not finish this meal, but the glory, my friend, is in the attempt.
4. Bloomin’ Onion from Outback Steakhouse: This food item, a photo of which is my current phone background, is a delicacy along the New Jersey Route 22 corridor, and consists of an onion that has been cut across its equator and then delicately cut along its longitude lines and peeled back layer by layer until it resembles some rare flower of the Amazon. This flower is then fried in oil and served with tartar sauce.

Last, foods that my mom and dad make, which facetious words wilt before because these foods are made with love and destroy all that is false and unserious, like Voldemort before the infant Harry Potter:

1. Pasta Primavera
2. Salmon with some wild rice and green beans
3.  A big old pot of chili, either vegetarian or with beef, garnished with corn chips and shredded cheese
4. A grilled-cheese sandwich
5.  A peanut butter and jelly sandwich; grape jelly, accept no substitutes
6. Pancakes with pecans and blueberries nestled inside
7. Beignets
8.  Pasta with kidney beans, tomatoes, and Swiss chard
9. Homemade pizza