On the Daily: The Occasional Whopper
If I had time to write yesterday, it would have been about the fall from gourmet cooking to good old American fast food. We’d taken a quick trip to Oahu for the day and, somehow, despite being in Waikiki, it turned into a surprisingly unremarkable food day. Nothing terrible. Just nothing memorable either. By the time we reached the airport for the flight back to Maui, I was a little hungry and a little restless. So I did something I almost never do. I bought a Whopper Jr. with cheese. Impulse decision. Mild rebellion. Possibly boredom. Possibly nostalgia. Probably all three.
There is something strangely comforting about the occasional surrender to American fast food. I don’t crave it often. But when the impulse does show up, I go with it. An occasion so rare it hardly feels like a vice. And I rarely eat the whole thing. Just a few bites. Enough to get a little titillated. A naughty way to scratch that nostalgic itch. Then the rest goes in the trash and life moves on.
For someone who spends most of her days thinking about Italian flour, seasonal vegetables, the quality of any given olive oil, and the rhythms of cooking real food, the occasional Whopper feels almost… anthropological. A little scavenger hunt (no pun intended). A brief visit to my native food culture, that of the standard American diet. One that millions of other Americans understand intimately.
Anyway. A few bites. A little rebellion. A little nostalgia. Then back to Maui.
