(The smiling face of Kitok's, Kyung Brendemuehl, shows off a basket of Kitok's famous oriental fries before serving them to a table of happy patrons.)
I enjoyed a bit of a revelatory conversation during lunch with the UBC gang today at Kitok's.
During these lunches, it seems, I get to sort of play the Waco restaurant expert as new friends pepper me with questions whether this place is adding a location or that place is closing.
Today my friend Beth McCarty asked a bit of a loaded question.
"What is your favorite restaurant in town?" she asked. "Like if it was your last meal in town, where would you go?"
It's no secret, I enjoy watching sports at local eateries and watering holes.
Actually, it's one of my favorite things to do. "Do you want to watch the ball game at Shorty's Pizza Shack?" The answer is always "Yes." It doesn't matter if that ball game is women's soccer or little league baseball or college football. And the location could vary as well. The Dancing Bear, Salty Dog, George's, Hog Creek Ice House, etc.
Somehow, my friend Brian Patterson and I found our way to the conversation topic of monogamy among fish and birds and non-human mammals.
We were breakfasting at Cafe Homestead, but that's not what led us to the conversation. I would also like to point out that the conversation wasn't crass. I don't think we could have offended anyone at the surrounding tables, and I'm quite sure that no one was actually offended. The thing is, you can look up anything on the Internet and if you have a smart phone, you can do that while waiting on breakfast to arrive at the table.
So we reached the topic of monogamous animals and happened across a list called "Going Steady: 10 Animals More Monogamous Than Us." This is how we learned that black vultures will actually come together as a community and attack a vulture suspected of cheating.
And this piece of information, of course, stirred my imagination and led me to this potential vulture dialogue.
Could be the morning drive into the country. Could be the frequent coffee refills. Could be the exceptionally friendly service or the good old fashioned love of country.
It could be a combination of all of the above that make country diners a restaurant genre of their own. And within that genre, it's almost a given that breakfast will be done well.
Good call, Sparklefart, whoever you are.
In response to my query of Monday, Sparklefart responded by suggesting I try Lolita's breakfast and specifically endorsed the elefante burrito. Though I attempted to acquire Sparklefart's true identity, I was unable to do so. I don't even know if Sparklefart is a man or woman. But I trusted the recommendation anyway and indeed this morning consumed an elefante burrito at Lolita's.
I believe the person who offered the axiom "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" must have been a morning person. Or at least much more of a morning person than me.
I don't doubt the value of breakfast, nor the potential for deliciousness. It's just that I'm not the type to bounce out of bed at 6 a.m. and ponder whether I should have a bowl of cereal or full breakfast. Most of the time, in fact, by the time I've finished sleeping, watched a half hour of sports highlights, perused my usual assortment of Internet news, driven to Starbucks, sipped through a grande Americano, read a little more and then considered my agenda for the day, it's much closer to lunch time. The breakfast ship has sailed, if you know what I mean.
The topic of food challenges came up in lunch conversation this week.
I suggested to friends, including the esteemed Toph Whisnant, that WacoFork should stage some sort of "Burger Wars." Maybe it was because this discussion took place the day that Whisnant and Jose Zuniga engaged in gorging themselves with multiple double-double burgers. Whisnant countered that I should take a Waco burger challenge of eating a different Waco restaurant burger every hour on the hour from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
It seems to me when I mention Waco to new friends in other Texas cities one of the first points of reference for them is George's.
Certainly when people come in to Waco, whether they're returning Baylor students or first time tourists, they make drinking a Big O at George's one of, if not the top priority.
Double-double times two, times two.
Somehow lunch today with my usual Tuesday summertime lunch bunch spiraled out of control to the point where a burger-eating challenge entered the picture.
Mr. Jose Zuniga began pondering the possibility of consuming a second double-double burger at Bill & Bob's. At that point, Mr. Toph Whisnant claimed that he would tackle another double-double if Zuniga wasn't man enough to re-up.
If I were taking summer school right now, and it kind of feels like I am, I would be engaged in a mix of business classes along with some sort of "world foods" elective.
I'm enjoying both, really, but especially learning about different food from different places. I think I might write my thesis on Puerto Rican cuisine. The title of my paper could be "Yipee Ki-yay, Mofongo!"
