In-N-Out Burger: When Magic and Beef Collide

I vividly remember my first experience eating at In-N-Out burger. My brother and I had just gone to the Jelly Belly factory and then we decided to go outlet shopping. I must explain: outlet shopping is not a chore for Kevin. Most guys are like “I don’t like this,” but my mom and I figured out, when he was trying to tell her that she should kill time by “outlet shopping” (and she didn’t really want to, because who wants to fly all the way to northern California to do the same thing you can do in any other place) it kind of dawned on both of us that he is the one that loves outlet shopping.  He was pushing it on her, because he secretly just wanted to do it himself. He’s like “oh my god, the have a Burberry outlet, THEY HAVE A BURBERRY OUTLET!” So, it was food time, and we were like “hey, let’s check out that In-N-Out burger place” We go in, and Kevin drops me at the door because, I think he had trouble parking. I don’t remember the specifics, but I do remember standing in a long line and him trying to call me back over to the door because the “line was too long” there was already a few people behind me, so I was reluctant to get out of line. I finally relented and walked over and we had a little “no way the line is too long” “I’m too fucking hungry to leave” dispute. I ended up winning out, thankfully, and we went back in line and ordered the food.

(In-N-Out Burger makes me happy to live in America, or at least California.)

That was a point were I didn’t know you could get grilled onions. So, I got the regular onions and I remember it being intense, but I also remember it being one of the best burgers I had ever eaten.

We ended up learning from a California native about the “animal style” and the “grilled onions” and the “extra crispy fries” and all that fun stuff.  I went back a second time and got the grilled onions, and I was completely sold.  Another thing I liked about it was that I could eat all that food for five dollars AND I could eat it all. Save, a few freedom fries toward the end.

(I use to pick fast-food places based on whether or not they had a ketchup pump. I'm over that now, because I'm not three years old anymore.)

This was the beginning of not only my relationship with In-N-Out Burger, but also my GPS’s relationship with In-N-Out. (By the end of this blog entry, you’ll understand that the two were pretty much common wealth married.) One thing I need to clarify is that you can search ‘points of interest’ with a GPS and it saves the last five items you looked for, needless to say In-N-Out Burger never left my ‘recent searches.’ I decided, after using the GPS to find my regular In-N-Out for almost six months, that I should actually learn the way to the one I frequented when I lived in Sacramento. I got promptly very very lost. It sucked, mostly because I was starving. Being that hungry, I had no time to experiment with “knowledge” on where “things” “are.” I was like “WHY AM I IN A COW FIELD! I NEED TO BE IN THE SHOPPING CENTER WITH IN-N-OUT!”

(All these, so close to my house!)

I’ve named my GPS “GPS lady.” Sometimes, when she starts yelling at me or sending me down streets that don’t exist, I call her “the bitch.” Our relationship is hot and cold sometimes. The only problem that GPS Lady had with In-N-Out Burger was its annunciation. GPS Lady does special things like, when you arrive at a Popeye’s she goes “You are now arriving at Popeye’s Fried Chicken and Biscuits” But for In-N-Out she goes “You are now arriving at In North Out Burjer” (that is not a typo, she says the word “burger” with a ‘J’ sound instead of a ‘G’ sound.) The reason she says that, is because the GPS is programmed to say certain things in certain ways.  She changes the letters N, S, E and W to their respective cardinal directions. She changes “St.” to “street.” So, let’s say you are going down St. Charles Street she goes “Take a left on Street Charles Street.” I gave mine a British accent, this was because the American accent GPS lady and me were no longer on speaking terms after I took her with me to Seattle. I actually didn’t use it for several months after Seattle, because I was just THAT mad. (Seattle is one of those cities that have streets on top of streets, so the bitch is telling me turn, when there IS NO TURN.)

(The employees that work at In-N-Out, or as I like to call them "Happy Little Robots.")

So, I finally figured out how to get to In-North-Out Burger on my own, and then I think I left Sacramento a week later. In an effort to become less dependent on my GPS and also be able to find an In-N-Out in an emergency situation, say, without my GPS, I learned were the closest one was using Google maps in San Diego.

(This is happiness.)

Good times to eat In-N-Out:

• Celebrating – I did this when I was done taking the GRE. I was like “it’s about that time to eat some celebratory In-N-Out burger.”
• After You Visit a Family Resource Center (a.k.a. FRC a.k.a. the place that gives out FOOD STAMPS) – We did this not once, but twice. There is something so poetic about going to a place where people are given food stamps, where you are doing a report to talk about how hard it is for people to get services (I.E. EAT AND HAVE FOOD) and it’s like “you know, I’m hungry let’s hit up In-N-Out.” And someone might be like “I’m full from the pizza we brought into the food stamp place, that we didn’t share with the hungry people in the lobby but gave to the employees instead and also ate ourselves” and then someone else is all “man, just FORCE IT. Stop BITCHING about how FULL you are.”
• When Your Dad is visiting – I actually took my mom to In-N-Out too, but it was my dad who had his eyes closed while he was eating. The man ate the burger in a rhythm that I had never seen before. I realized he was completely engrossed in the burger when I was talking, didn’t hear him respond and looked up to see his eyes half closed and him rhythmically eating the burger.
• Merging onto the Freeway at 85 mph – This is one of the most legitimate ways to eat In-N-Out. Unless the special sauce is accidentally dripping on your pants while merging onto the freeway, you aren’t doing it right. If your life doesn’t consequently flash before your eyes, you’re not doing it right.

(I meant to take the picture before I took a bite, oh well.)

And now, that brings us to the final leg in the relationship between In-N-Out and GPS lady. I was driving up to Napa from San Diego, and decided I needed to stop and get food. I did a search, and set it down on the passenger seat. Now, I was in the middle of the central valley, so I knew that the nearest one would be maybe 30 plus miles away. It found one, but that one was too close, and it was still 9:30 a.m. (they open at 10) so I set it down to find one further down, and it never woke up again.  February 18, 2011 at approximately 9:30 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, GPS lady died searching for an In-N-Out Burger and needless to say I got almost immediately lost when I hit the greater Sacramento area. Was my getting lost in Sacramento because I was so dependent on the GPS when I lived there? Yes. Was it a little bit Sacramento’s fault for having five names for their three Freeways that intersect that I, ironically, ended up at my old In-N-Out burger, and that’s when I realized how lost I was? Yes again.  Did I get Sac-Jacked pretty much the split second I got into the Sacramento city limits?  Yes, because it wouldn’t be Sacramento without having the special power to screw me over on a whim.

(Broken ass GPS.)

One final thing is, that while I was going to In-N-Out to eat and get pictures for this blog entry, I got lost and had to use the GPS to find my way. I was on the correct street, but about two miles away. It would appear even my new GPS and the In-N-Out burger in San Diego  are a lot like my old GPS and the In-N-Out in Sacramento: destined to be brought together over my love of In-N-Out and my inability to find my way around, anywhere, at all times.

Boba Tea: It Looks Like Swamp in A Cup

I have this thing, where when I get introduced to something I like, I tend to over do it. The first time I had Adobado Fries; I had it another seven times that month, and pretty much burned out on it. (But there will, eventually, be a blog entry about Adobado fries, fear not.) So, Boba tea is a recent discovery for me, and because I usually get it at the farmers market on campus, which is once a week, I will not over do it. Right? Wrong.

(from the place that sells it on campus)

As it turns out, they sell it at both the Mediterranean café and the Vietnamese place across the street from my house. It’s 2.50 for the tea, .50 for them to add Boba.  1.00 for extra extra Boba.

The issue I have, is that when I get it at the tent on campus, I always want more tapioca pearls per sip, and I end up doing this thing where I drink way more tea each sip to get a couple more tapioca pearls in the sip. If anyone is with me when I’m drinking it, the reason why I don’t say anything and probably have a crazy fearful look in my eye, is because it just turns into this really intense internal battle of tapioca pearls and tea management inside my mouth.

(Good on a hot day.)

I think the reason why it freaks people out is the same reason that French Onion soup freaks me out: it’s two really different textures and ingredients mixing together, maybe awkwardly.  Cheese melted into a broth soup is NOT NATURAL. Now, I’m already not the biggest fan of Swiss cheese, and I don’t exactly remember how it all went down, because I probably blocked out some of the details. But, essentially what happened is that I was like “this is a broth soup which means it just goes down the hatch like liquid” but there was some melted cheese that latched on to the back of my throat and just chilled there because I guess I forgot to CHEW because it was BROTH soup. So, I basically had a string of melted cheese that I had to fish out the back of my throat that was already half way down my esophagus. IT. SUCKED. SO. HARD. I almost barfed. And not in an “I just watched a crazy episode of BSG about new Caprica” good kind of twisty barf, but like an “I just had to gag myself, and now I might blow chunks” kind of bad barfing situation.

Now, I haven’t found too many people that like Boba, for example:

“It’s gross.” – Lauren Tracey

“It looks like swamp in a cup.” – Stephanie Laufenberg**

“Oh my god, you’ve never had Boba tea?” – Alexa Megna

“We don’t give tasting samples.” – Girls that works at J.Wok tent, the place that sells the tea on campus.

“No decaffeinated tea.” – The man behind the counter at the Mediterranean café.

(**Thanks for the title of this blog, even though you don’t remember saying this.)

(This is a swamp.)

So, because I have major issues with the amount of tapioca pearls, I decided to get extra the last time I ordered some. This was also a mistake, because it turned from me not getting enough tapioca pearls each sip, to getting too many. I was also able to isolate one, bite it in half and evaluate the texture. I decided it was like a gummy bear. Then, the idea of gummy bears in my tea freaked me out. A lot.

(This is a Gummy Bear.)

I need to address the claim that “Boba tea, it looks like swamp in a cup.” This is… not true. Being from Louisiana, I consider myself somewhat of an authority on swamp things. Or, I should say things that are “swamp like in nature.” The Boba that I get is always Mango tea and as a result I get an orange pinkish drink with black at the bottom. (See picture below.) If I were to find a swamp, and scoop a ladle of water from it and put it in a cup, I imagine that it would be grey-brownish water with possibly a layer of algae at the top.  So, the algae would be grossly hanging from the ladle and I would have some trouble getting it all in the cup without touching it, but I would eventually get it in there, and it would look like a gross goopy green algae, like, snot looking thing on top the water in the cup. Then there would be the layer of water that you wouldn’t exactly be able to see through because so many dirty particles would be floating around. Eventually, all the dirt would settle to the bottom, and I will concede that it might look VAGUELY like the Boba, but unless they have a Boba tea called “swamp water” I’m not inclined to believe that Mango Boba Tea looks like real swamp water. 

(Maybe it looks a little swamp like.)

When A Burrito, French Fries and a Quesadilla Have a Baby Together

First, let me say that there are a few things that need to be done if you live in California. You need to eat at In-N-Out burger. You need to drive 15 miles over the speed limit at all times. (Extra points if you’re eating In-N-Out burger while speeding down the freeway.) You need to be in a dance club when Katy Perry’s “California Girls” comes on (because in the words of one of my friends, who was born and bred in California, when I told/screamed at her at the club “I’VE NEVER BEEN IN A CLUB WHEN THIS SONG CAME ON SINCE I’VE BEEN LIVING IN CALIFORNIA, THIS IS SO FUNNY/AWESOME” her response was “I AM SO SORRY FOR YOU!” The final thing is that you need to eat a California burrito, preferably the “Sigma Pi” at Trujillo’s near the SDSU campus.

(this is a picture of a picture of the sign out front)

Let me not give you any notions that this isn’t the most intense burrito, possibly, in the entire world, because this is what it is:

French Fries

Carne Asada

Guacamole

Sour Cream

Pico De Gallo

This is all wrapped nicely within a cheese quesadilla. I repeat: This is a cheese quesadilla wrapped around a California Burrito. (For all my non-California reader, all one of you, a California Burrito is a burrito with French fries in it, or Freedom Fries if you’re still patriotic like that.)

(I like to get it with a diet Coke, because they don't have Coke Zero there)

First, I would like to break down the calories in this bad boy:

2oz French Fries – 200 calories

4oz Carne Asada – 180 calories

1.5 oz Guacamole – 45 calories

1 oz Sour Cream – 60 calories

1.5 oz. Pico De Gallo – 15 Calories

Large Tortilla – 300 calories

2 oz Shredded Cheese – 200 Calories

That’s a grand total of….  1000 Calories.

(Calories be damned, this shit is GOOD.) 

Now, let’s add all the Bud Light that lead you to that point where you think It’s a good idea to eat this burrito at 2 a.m. (which is, statistically, when this particular burrito is likely to be eaten, by both myself and my friends): 110 calories per beer.  (Now, let’s all do the math in our head of how many calories of beer we ingest in any given night.)

Now, let’s say you decided that because you ate the Sigma Pi at 2 a.m., that it counts toward the next day’s food. That’s fine, but just remember that between all the booze and the burrito you’ve pretty much consumed 3/4ths of your caloric intake for the day. So, enjoy it.

(What makes Sigma Pi Burritos delicious, at both 2 a.m. AND the following morning.)

Now, I am not the only one that loves this burrito. These are COMPLETELY in context quotes from people (that I know) about the awesomeness of the Sigma Pi:

“French Fries. I get it.” – Kevin C. Guidry

“I don’t like guacamole.” – Stephanie Laufenberg

“It’s a California burrito WRAPPED around a quesadilla, here is hot sauce.” – Eric Ligare

“Who are you? Get away from me with that tape recorder.” – Unknown patron at Trujillo’s

“I don’t eat anything with EYES.” – Every Vegetarian, Ever

The point is that I’ve conducted extensive field interviews and have compiled a comprehensive ethnographic study on the awesome of these burritos.

The conditions in which this burrito can be consumed under:

1 – Drunk

• Time: Anytime. If you are drunk too early in the morning, you might need to seek counseling, unless you’ve been up all night (and still then, you still might want to seek counseling, because alcoholism is NO. JOKE.)
• Risks: Bumping into one of your students.
• Benefit: Having said student buy your food because they are also drunk, and think they might get a better grade.

2 – Hung-over

• Time: Any time after 11 a.m. and before you start drinking again.
• Risks: Bumping into a student. Associating it with vomit, in case you’re that type of hung-over person. But, there is a good chance if you engage in Hangover vomiting you do not engage in hangover burrito eating.
• Benefit: It will make you feel better and fill you up. Like a hug.

3 – Just Hungry

• Time: From open to close.
• Risks: You might accidentally order two if you’re really hungry. Also “Trujillo’s Regret Syndrome.” (This will be covered in a future blog.)
• Benefit: You won’t be hungry anymore.

4 – Family and Friends are visiting.

• Time: From open to close.
• Risks: Deflecting compliments from introducing them to the best burrito in the world.
• Benefit: Seeing your friends and family smile and be happy and knowing you’re the cause of it. (If you’re into cheesy things like that.)

There is a time limit to how long this burrito stays good. Here is the break down:

• Walking from the counter to a table in Trujillo’s: This is the best way to eat a Sigma Pi, or anything from this restaurant for that matter.
• Walking from Trujillo’s to the Sociology Department on Campus: This is a risky move. Depending on how fast you walk and the temperature outside. Success is more likely if you put it in your backpack. But be sure to put it not next to the cold Coke Zero you also have in the backpack, as it would likely cool off one side of the burrito and make the fries “kinda gross.” 
• Walking from Trujillo’s to the library, realizing it’s closed, then walking to some empty tables, eating half of it, walking to Starbucks, then eating the other half: This is a risky risky move. Not only is the burrito likely to not be hot by the time you sit at the empty tables, but by the time you eat the other half of the burrito an hour later, the fries will be ice cold and the cheese will have re-congealed. Essentially, everything that’s supposed to be cold (the sour cream) will be warm and everything that’s supposed to be hot (the carne asada) will be cold.
• Driving straight home and eating the Sigma Pi while sitting on the couch and watching illegally downloaded television programs: This is also a slightly risky move. I only live a mile from Trujillo’s, but unless I know exactly what program I’m going to watch, depending on whether or not I decide I need a plate, or if Shitzer the Cat needs some food tends to influences the success rate of doing this. (That might be the most heinous run on sentence ever, but I can’t think of another way to express that sentiment.) Essentially, it depends how quickly you can get inside and start eating.

(See, the distance from the counter to a table: not that far away.)

Now, the employees at Trujillo’s are bi-lingual, but sometimes it’s fun to speak in another language. So, if you want to order this burrito in Spanish you say “Uno Sigma Pi Burrito, por favor” Be sure to role your ‘R’ when you say “burrito” so it makes sense and you don’t sound stupid. If you, for example, don’t like guacamole then you say “Yo soy no guacamole, en uno Sigma Pi burrito, por favor” (go ahead, put that in a translator if you don’t believe me.) If you want light sour cream then you say “Uno Sigma Pi Burrito, pequenos, um… ‘Sour Cream,’ por favor” Let’s say you want chicken instead of carne asada, you say “Yo soy pollo asada en no carne asada y Sigma Pi burrito, por favor” When they hand you the burrito, that hopefully they made to your exact specifications, you say “muchos gracias Senor/Senorita/Senora” although, I rarely like to say Senora to older women, as I do not want to offend. They might be all “yo que tu old?” (Translation: You calling me old?”) and you’re like “um, no se? Senorita, muchos muchos la apologies. Yo soy no mitch” (translations: No, I’m sorry, I meant to call you ‘Ms.’ I’m SOOO sorry, I didn’t mean to be a mitch.) Really, you should try not to pick any fights with the employees that work there, just buy your food and walk off. 

YAY, FOOD!

So, I think because the summer is almost upon me, I’m going to need a place to put all my excess energy and thinky thoughts. I also decided to give Facebook a break, because I’m constantly updating my status about: 1) How Hungover I am 2) and how I consequently want to eat the hell out of a burrito because of said “hangover.” The last time I was in school and didn’t sign up for summer classes, I ended up driving my scooter from Baton Rouge to Thibodaux. I took pictures along the way. I made a scrapbook. I got really sunburnt because it took all day long. I need stimulation in my life. Hopefully this blog will do the trick.

Let’s start with a little history:

• Favorite Food as a Kid: Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches (but only the ones that my childhood babysitter made.)
• Worst Food Memory: It’s a toss up between that one time my step dad tried to deep fry scrambled eggs (think each air pocket fills with grease, each bite of eggs was also with a sip of grease), that one time I bit into a paintball thinking it was gum, and when I was really little I think I ate some makeup my mom had in the fridge, but in my defense it looked like peanut butter it may have also been lard. I honestly don't know what it was, but it was the grossest thing ever. (Although, one time I drank my paintbrush water because it looked like chocolate milk. I was going to give it to my brother to "drink" and my dad was like "NO!" so I took a sip of it, told him, and then he promptly freaked the hell out on me. Drinking the paint brush water wasn't that bad, my dad freaking out and calling poison control was the traumatic part.)
• Dumbest thing you’ve ever done with something edible: It’s a toss up between that one time I accidentally pepper sprayed myself in the eye and the one time I stuck nerds up my nose. Considering I saved the biggest ones for last, it got caught up there for a while, but pepper spraying myself might take the cake.  Pepper belongs on food and in the eyes of rapists, not in past me’s eyes... but in my defense I thought it was lotion.

(*re-reading all my misfires with things that I've previously consumed, I'm surprised my parents didn't classify me as 'special needs.')

(This is the contents of my Refrigerator right now. It's: old bagels, coke zero, three half bottles of tonic, year old Reeses cups and a Dasani water bottle filled with tap water.)

One time I dreamed up a dish that I named “Chicken Dante.” This was my senior year of high school, so my friend Kalie helped me whip it up. It was like a deep-fried flour tortilla made into a small cup and then you put like chicken and a slice of avocado on top of it or something. I honestly don’t remember the details. Maybe she does.

For a while I got into making Quiche, again—this was high school—and one year, after Thanksgiving, I decided to make one with our leftover Tur-duck-in. (For those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s a Chicken inside a duck that’s inside a Turkey) Here is a tip: Never mix together eggs and the animals the make eggs together in one dish. It was pretty gross, but I ate like half of it anyway.  (Between the deep fried eggs and this, I’m starting to think I had more the appetite of a teenage boy than a teenage girl.)

(This is what currently is in my "pantry." It's five year old Carnation Instant Breakfast, a number of boxes of dried noodles and mac & Cheese and Jif Peanut Butter)

While the trip down memory lane was fun, I’m going to lay out my plans for this blog. The plan is to talk about all the food I eat. Don’t think this is going to be a high-end food blog, it’s going to be like “I ate Panda Express today” (then there will be a cell phone picture of what I had at Panda Express) I might talk about food I cook on occasion. There is a chance I will also talk about alcohol, since sometimes I consume it instead of food, and then I’m not hungry anymore. I might randomly post recipes, if I start taking myself seriously, and convince myself that people are not only 1) reading this but they also 2) would want random recipes. The only pictures on this blog will be pictures taken by my Samsung cell phone. This phone still does not have internet and I can't check Facebook on it without my mom paying 1.29 a minute to go "online." Essentially, in the words of my brother, it's a "dumb phone." The reason for taking any and all pictures with this phone, is because it's always with me and I don't want the quality of the pictures to go up or down (because if there is one thing the three people that read this blog require, it's my attention to detail and my unyielding consistency.)

(this is the picture of the cell phone I plan on using to take pictures. People that know me, are maybe familiar with it. People that are strangers, meet: My Phone.)

Another warning, is that I tend to end sentences with prepositions and I also "over comma." (That is, I just randomly put commas in places that commas have no business being, like maybe the two used in this sentence here.) I just recently learned exactly where I'm supposed to do "were" and "where" (thanks to my brother) so I won't be making that mistake anymore. 

Other than all that, enjoy!