How to Eat . . . Better

I arrived at the airport this morning around 7:00 a.m. for the 8:00 a.m. flight to Seattle. Everything went smoothly. Security was a little slow, but the TSA staff didn’t try to get frisky.  I got on the plane and went straight into my Thursday morning nap routine. After about 35 minutes of quality nap time, I realized we weren’t in the air. Maintenance problems. We taxied to the gate. Maintenance worked for about 20 minutes, then we turned back to take off again. Keep in mind this is now an hour of ground time for a 30 minute flight. After another delay, they had us get off the plane. Since it was 9:30 by this time and my Seattle meeting started at 10:00 I made the decision to get some breakfast, and just call into the meeting.

Jump to Breakfast.

PDX (Portland for you non airport code junkies) has a nice array of food options. I opted for a veggie breakfast burrito from Elephant’s Delicatessen. It was good.

I was impressed with the even distribution of ingredients. It was pre-made, not made to order, so I don’t know how they did it. But at most burrito places they go down the line glopping scoops of rice beans, meat, cheese, etc. on a tortilla.  The problem with this approach is you end up with a partitioned burrito. There’s a section for meat, a section for beans, a section for rice. When you bite into it, you only get that one item in each bite. If you like lettuce this form of construction could be good, because the lettuce is protected by other lettuce and stays crisp. But otherwise I’m not a fan.

Proper burrito construction has the burritista (new word) spread the hot ingredients out evenly across the tortilla and then applies a layer of cheese or sour cream to protect any cold ingredients like lettuce or tomatoes. This process keeps crisp items crisp, but is time-consuming and a bad burrito fold, can ruin it all.

Consider instead, tossing the ingredients altogether in a bowl and then applying to the tortilla. This guarantees even distribution and saves time. To keep your lettuce crisp, order a salad on the side.

And my all time favorite burrito . . .  Tres Amigos Super Beef with a glass of horchata and pickled radishes.