Fast Food-less 14er

I'm not a huge fast food person, but there is one time when I must have it: after climbing a 14er. For non-Colorado residents, a 14er is a 14,000+ foot mountain. For some reason, my otherwise lazy self enjoys hiking them. I've tried bringing turkey sandwiches to eat at the summit, but whole wheat bread and lean meat just don't seem appetizing after manually dragging myself up nearly a vertical mile. And so I end up at fast food restaurants.

Yesterday my husband (Peter), pug (Smeagol) and I climbed up Mt. Yale. Only Smeagol and I made it to the top, as we left Peter around 12,800'. Peter smartly packed all the food in his backpack, leaving us tired and hungry at the top. Luckily some nice guys from CSU fed Smeagol and I beef jerky, watermelon and chocolate (the pug didn't eat the chocolate). Still, I looked forward to my post-14er tradition - a cheeseburger and fries.

I picked up Peter on the trail and we started the long trek back to the car. While I'm all enthusiasm on the way up, I'm all misery on the way down. My shoes hurt my feet. I slid in the scree and scraped my knee. I'm hungry. I'm quite the brat.

On the plus side, nothing compares to seeing the 4-Runner at the trailhead parking lot. It's a harbinger of the cheeseburger to come. I typically insist that we wait until we encounter a drive-thru from which to get my greasy, protein-packed burger (hey, I just hauled my ass up a mountain, I deserve to order from inside the car), but I knew that my chain restriction would mean I'd have to get out of the car.

K's Burgers in Buena Vista, CO is where we stopped. They hyped "old-fashioned" burgers (as opposed to those new-fangled ones) and had a crowd outside. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries and Peter, feeling not-so-great after not summiting, ordered a grilled chicken sandwich. I've gotta say, it wasn't the best hamburger of my life. Not really worth getting out of the car for. But hey, it still beats a turkey sandwich.

Best. Pizza. Ever.

Every once in a while something comes along and turns your world upside down – in a good way. In my life these things have included meeting my husband, first tasting ice cream and learning that an airplane (and some cash) could take me pretty much anywhere I wanted to go. Now I have something new to add to that list – Marco’s coal-fired pizza (http://www.marcoscoalfiredpizza.com/).

I thought I knew pizza. I’ve met Chicago-style, New York-style, Neapolitan-style, heck even something called Denver-style. I’ve eaten it on at least 3 different continents and 10+ countries. I’ve been made sick off of it, as well as made happy. I’ve celebrated birthdays, mourned deaths and talked late into the night with friends new and old over it. I thought that after a quarter of a century I couldn’t possibly learn anything more about pizza.

I was wrong.

I’d heard about Marco’s in passing, but I’d never really taken the recommendation seriously. After being misled by friends’ referrals to “the best Italian food in Denver” (canned tomato sauce), “the best Mexican food in the world” (not even edible) and “the greatest hamburger since In-N-Out” (I’d rather have Burger King, and that’s saying something), I don’t really trust many people’s palettes. I guess I have a self-important tongue. But there is someone who is usually not too far off base when it comes to restaurant recs, and he said that Marco’s, on a good day, creates a world-class pizza. World class? That’s worth a shot.

I have a co-worker with whom I’m having a food affair. We’ll call him my Food Mister (if women are mistresses, I assume the male version would be a mister) in order to protect his identity from any of my potentially jealous dining companions. FM is extraordinarily generous to me when it comes to office lunches. He’s spent more on my mid-day meals than I’d spend on vet bills to keep my dogs alive. FM has a food fetish, and I’m an easy target of affection for anyone who enjoys a lady who can eat. The first time we went out to lunch, I out-ate him at an all-you-can-eat pasta buffet. He’s been smitten ever since.

We trade off buying each other lunches, although his treats are typically considerably more expensive than mine. On Thursday, it was my turn to buy FM lunch, and so we set out to try this so-called world-class pizza. It was a fairly long walk over, but we were greeted by a promising sign – filled tables and people waiting to be seated. This place was popular. It wasn’t long until someone showed us to a table, and quickly after we both ordered the lunch special – a salad, drink and margherita pizza.

I have a theory that you can tell all you need to know about a restaurant based upon their simplest, usually cheese or margherita, pizza. On this blank canvas, an overly-sweet or processed sauce can’t hide under stacks of pepperoni. The crust’s flavor and texture can’t be masked by peppers and onions. And when cheese is the star ingredient, it better be fresh and flavorful. If the margherita pizza doesn’t taste good, there’s a pretty good chance that nothing else will either.

Naturally, the salads arrived in front of us first. I was excited to see it topped with very young-looking mozzarella, and it didn’t disappoint. Normally I’m not a big fan of salads, but if there’s enough meat or cheese tossed in, I can make due.

When FM and I go out to lunch, we usually chat quite a bit. That is, until the food comes. Then, dead silence. The only sound you can hear coming from our table is the clanking of forks hitting plates and sauces being slurped. However, this time at Marco’s, when our pizza arrived, we spoke.

“Oh my God.”
“Oh my God.”
“This is the best margherita pizza I’ve ever eaten.”
“I know.”
“No, this is the best pizza I’ve ever eaten.”
“I know.”
“The sauce –”
“So fresh, it must have been real-life tomatoes just minutes ago.”
“The crust –”
“Perfection. You can taste the flour.”
“And the cheese –”
“Is there a cow in the back?”
“This pizza is so good I want to cuss.”

And FM never cusses.

If our conversation doesn’t do a good enough job of describing just how delicious this pizza is, here’s how Marco’s describes it. “Made with San Marzano tomatoes and artisanal cheeses imported from the Italian countryside. Antico Molino Caputo flour from a third-generation family mill. A proprietary water blend that recreates the signature New York City bite. Fired together at 1,000 degrees for just 90 seconds to create an exceptionally light, tender and fragrant crust.”

90 seconds! There is nothing any human has ever done or anything they will ever do in under 90 seconds that can match the greatness of this pizza. And don’t even mention sex – not until you’ve tried this pizza.

We finished quickly. I looked over at FM and said those magic words, “Do you want to get another one?” When the busboy came by to clear our tables he asked how everything tasted.

“Fantastic,” I replied. “Can we get another one?”
“Another one?” he stuttered. “Umm, let me get your waiter.”

Our waiter returned to our table, utterly befuddled.

“You want another pizza?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, please,” I answered.
“To go?”
“No, we’ll eat it now.”
Puzzled expression. “Well, do you want another lunch special?”
“No, we don’t need the salad and drink – just the pizza, please.”
“But you have to have the salad and drink – it’s the lunch special.”
“But we just want the pizza.”
“So you just want a pizza?”
“Yes, please.”
“But it comes with salad and a drink. It’s the lunch special. You have to get the salad and a drink to get the pizza.”
“Umm, ok. Whatever it takes to get us that pizza.”

Never in my life have I finished a meal at a restaurant and promptly ordered another of the exact same thing. It’s the equivalent of riding a roller coaster at an amusement park and screaming, “Again!” to the attendant. Except fuller.

The second – or I should say third since we had each eaten our own in round 1 – pizza was just as delectable as the first, although it could have used a bit more cheese. I happily paid whatever amount of money they charged my credit card – it could have been $100 and it would have been worth it – and out we waddled. On the walk back to the office, there were a lot of “Oh my Gods” again and “That was the best pizza ever.” No real conversation, however. We were both just basking in the afterglow of that pizza.

Why are you doing this???

When I told friends and family that I was giving up chain restaurants in 2009, the response was similar to if I had said I was planning to spend the year in an igloo eating only orange foods. “Good Lord, why?” was the common reaction.

I can’t really blame them. In your average suburb, city or town it’s a whole lot easier to find a Domino’s or Papa John’s than a family-run pizza joint. And you’ll stumble over five Olive Gardens before finding authentic Italian food.

So why avoid them? Am I some kind of hippie who needs everything I eat to be grown on an organic farm? Do I refuse to eat anything cultivated outside of my state unless it’s delivered in an electric car driven by environmentalists scattering seeds along the side of the highway? Am I a food snob who thinks I’m too good for McDonald’s?

For one, I’m far from a hippie; I have a Republican elephant tattoo. For the most part I could care less if my veggies are organic or if the farmer wore fair-trade overalls. While I will always select locally-produced food over imported when given the choice, I live in Colorado and am not willing to give up bananas, chocolate or pretty much anything that grows between November and April. I may be guilty of wanting high-quality, delicious foods, but I don’t believe there exists a correlation between that and cost, and I’m certainly not above hitting up a drive-thru every once in a while.

So why break the chain? Like most of my life, it all comes down to the food. I’ve had one too many disappointing meals at the restaurants you see advertised on TV. There are too many fantastic flavors at your local, independently-owned places to keep eating riblets and pizones. We live in a lazy, uncreative culture that rewards the status quo. Instead of trying out a new Asian restaurant, we fall back on P.F. Chang’s and Panda Express. That mentality made me miss out on Thai food for the first 19 years of my life. I still shudder to think of those years, or as I now call them, the dark ages.

It’s my intense love for food that has led me to this resolution of sorts. I can no longer bear the fact that I’ve never tasted food from Cambodia, Moldova and so many other regions. I’m going to stop wasting my meals at satisfactory (at best) restaurants that I’ve eaten at hundreds of times and instead seek out the exceptional.

I look forward to eating food that was imagined and prepared where I’m eating it. Where the cook makes what he/she thinks will taste best; not what corporate dictates. Where quality control means each and every plate sent out of the kitchen means something. I fully expect to eat the best food of my life.

Supporting my local economy is a positive externality of breaking the chain. The best way to support local businesses is to buy from them. Even if a franchise is owned by a resident, much of the profits will leave your community, as they’ll be sent away to corporate. That franchiser also doesn’t get to decide from where to purchase their food, and odds are they aren’t patronizing local farms and ranchers. Their ingredients come from a uniform, national supplier who ships the product to restaurants around the country. Of course when food is being transported long distances, it’s not fresh by the time it gets to your plate. And to keep it alive and servable longer, the food must be pumped full of chemicals and preservatives – a reason chains have such high sodium levels.

Better-tasting food, healthier food and environmentally and economically friendlier food – what’s not to love? This is going to be a preservative-free, locally-made piece of cake.
I’ll simply stop eating at chains – cut and dry, right? Well, what is a chain? Unfortunately it’s about as clear as Arby’s sauce. Some are obvious – Applebee’s, Denny’s, Red Lobster, etc. – but then there are local chains. Pizza places, delis and even fast food establishments that are based here out of Colorado but have just as many locations as the Cheesecake Factory.

According to a popular encyclopedia-esque website, a chain restaurant is a set of related restaurants with the same name in many different locations that are either under shared corporate ownership or franchising agreements. The site goes on to say that chains are typically built to a standard format and offer a standard menu. They are often found near shopping malls and tourist areas. Nothing like capitalism to incite your hunger for standard (read: bland) food fare (My words, not the website’s).

Since my motivating factor is the quality of the food I’ll be eating, I decided to define non-chains as locally-based restaurants with no more than 4 locations. While 4 is an arbitrary number, I believe that the more locations to oversee, the more likely the original flavors that made that initial restaurant so good will be sacrificed to appeal to the masses. And I don’t trust any mass that made Kentucky Fried Chicken the second most successful restaurant in America (secret recipe: herbs, spices and disdain). I’m also going to restrict non-chain restaurants to a single state. If they cross state lines, it’s a no-go; food extradition can’t possibly promote good eating.

Another reason why this will be harder than it first appeared is because this decision affects more than just me. Every person I eat with will have to avoid chains when dining with me, and for some people this will be a major challenge. One friend of mine won’t eat anywhere except the major American-food chains. Another won’t go to a Mexican restaurant that doesn’t serve Margaritas. So much for taco carts with her.

There are many restaurants I’ll miss, but I think at the end of the year I’ll consider ’09 to be a culinary success. Join me as I track the difficulties I experience, attempt to convert white bread friends to naan and chronicle my new food discoveries!