Saturday, January 27, 2007

On the QT

That is a tasty burger!

There's no easy way to get from Rochacha to Ithaca. You want to start on 490, pick up 90, and eventually get to 34. (I'm out of L.A., the thes are no mas.)

One of the good parts about a trip like this is a chance to see Main Street in a town you've never heard of.

Halfway through the trip, rolling at 25 mph, trying to follow a web map printout of the directions from one named street to another, hoping to get back on properly numbered roads, I saw a store.

Big Kahuna Burger.

Well, we were running late, freezing rain was everywhere, and the navigator is a vegetarian, which kind of made me a vegetarian, too, so we didn't stop.

But I know they got some tasty burgers, and I'm going back.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not quite sure about your directions. I think what you're saying is that you take the 490 to the 90 and then you take the 90 to the 34. On the way you go down the Main Street in somewhere or other and indulge in a little cannibalism at the Kahuna's stand probably washed down with an extra thick malted to help the cholesterol stick to your arterial walls.

bjkeefe said...

Spoken like a true Californian.

Anonymous said...

When my brother went to Harvard, upon arriving in Mass he was surprised to discover that if you ordered a "chocolate malt" you didn't get a "malt." To get a malt you had to order a frappe. I don't know if you've caught up with modern usage back there yet or not.

bjkeefe said...

Actually, the different terms are even more localized than you might think.

I never heard the term "frappe" until I moved to Rhode Island. In NY and CT, at least the parts I lived in, we called a concoction of milk, ice cream, and syrup a "milkshake." In RI, a "milkshake" is just the milk and syrup, eponymously agitated.

In Boston, a "frappe" was a "cabinet," an instance of provincialism that truly amazed me, considering that Boston is only forty miles from Providence.

Also, in NY anyway, a "chocolate malt" requires the actual addition of malt to the milk, ice cream, and syrup. This insistence on precision stands in stark contrast to another fountain treat: the egg cream. An egg cream has no egg at all.

And don't get me started on subs, heroes, hoagies, wedges, grinders, …

Zo Kwe Zo said...

Brendan, congratulations on finally managing to work the word "eponymously" into everyday conversation. I know that took some doing.

bjkeefe said...

Re: "eponymously"

Ouch. Busted.

Now I gotta learn how to pronounce this word without first having to mentally review the playback before I actually say it out loud.

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