So it's been cold for a little while now

It's not quite as cool today

But there's been enough cold that I'm now fully pumpkin mode

And I started to go get a pumpkin spice latte but then I remembered I don't like pumpkin spice lattes

I thought I did

But either they changed or I changed

So I'm like no let me not do that

But instead

In my imperfect produce box

I ordered pumpkin some kind of other brand Pop-Tart type thing toaster pastries there we go toaster pastries pumpkin toaster pastries

And

Pumpkin English muffins

And

Pumpkin pie

And

Butternut squash ravioli

Last year they had this stuff that's like puffy bread it's like croissant bread or something that was pumpkin flavored and it was like you didn't have to put butter on it All you had to do was toast it because it had so much butter in it that it didn't need any further buttering

Unfortunately this year they did not have that

They opened up a Katz's right around the corner from me

I mean it's a little too far to walk

But it's definitely neighborhood

And honestly I don't know why they didn't put one there sooner maybe just because they've had a house of pies there and IHOP

House of pies is I guess a local chain they have two or three locations

And it's like a full-on diner but they also have an enormous assortment of pies

I have not been to House of pies I don't know maybe 20 years maybe not quite 20 years but when I was a kid it was a thing

It's open 24 hours it still is open 24 hours it has his IHOP although it may not be now they may have changed that now

But there used to be a lot of 24-hour places to eat and then there were a lot more places that were open extra late on the weekends

And how's pies and you could go and order food or you could go and just order like pie and coffee or pine hot chocolate or something like that so it was an old school place to go for you know after work work in the night shift

And their pies are pretty good

They are not artisanal

They are old school

So like if you're on the road and you stop in a small town and there is a diner that has one of those rotating things with pies it is that kind of pie

If it is meringue or cream it is 3 in of meringue or cream

And I know pie crust is supposed to be this delicate flaky business but most of the time I prefer a little hardier crust

And IHOP I have amazing memories of IHOP you know with all the flags and the peaked roof with the skylights and my aunt Joan telling me that it was supposed to look like a Swiss chalet and then like the whole kind of I don't know Peter Sellers pink Pan 3 translation of Swiss chalet for me you know

Steak and egg kitchen closed down years ago but steak and egg kitchen was great it had kind of a dive bar quality about it I think those were all across the country I don't think that was just a local thing but it had a really good jukebox I mean I was in several different locations and they all had really good jukeboxes and it was in all these shades of dark brown and burnt orange and I don't know it was just heaven

There are waffle houses and also toddle houses and also dairy Queen's within the greater Houston area but none of those were things that I really had much experience with at all I mean okay there was a dairy Queen that was not that far from us One of the places we lived in spring Branch

I'm pretty sure it's still there well it was pre-pandemic and it just seems like kind of a random place for a dairy Queen

But it was never like a place that we went as like a special thing you know it was just another place so there was McDonald's or there was Wendy's or there was Burger King or there was Long John silver's Taco Bell

Or there were local places

Like princess

Or Lucky Burger

Or at one point in the '70s there was this hamburger place oh oh what was the name of that place hang on there was another local chain called hamburgers by gourmet I forgot about that Man that place was great it was great

But in the '70s there was also just one place it wasn't like a chain it was just like a hamburger place down the street from me and it was called Raul's brass rubbing and they didn't have french fries but they did have baked potatoes You get hamburger and baked potato

And then Whataburger is

Well Whataburger isn't a local chain

It's a I guess I would call it a regional chain

Although maybe it's national now I don't know

And Whataburger

Is just objectively the best it's like a fast food hamburger in some way that is whatever satisfies the fast food craving

The packaging the decor is orange and white

And maybe there is some brown sometimes

It is

Texas

Okay so the packaging is bright

And there's something about Whataburger that is like classic

So it's not like it looks old school

And it's not like it looks you know new and styled

My Whataburger

It has these photographs these large blown up photographs on the walls

Are they a history of this particular Whataburger franchise

Don't know

Are they from the history of Whataburger itself

Don't know

I'm pretty sure they have little signs on them that say what they are

But you know they're on the wall and they're booths so unless you're sitting at that booth there's no real smooth way to get up and read it without you know being up in somebody's business

So I just kind of said you know I don't need to know I just love the pictures

There's one of a whole like little league baseball team sponsored by Whataburger

And there's another one I don't know what it is but it's some guy in it reminds me of the fountainhead or Atlas shrugged or you know one of those ayn rand kind of larger than life character against I don't know I don't even know what it's a picture of I just know when I look at it it's like

Whatever

One day I went in that Whataburger on the way home from my mom's pretty early in the day like they were really still expecting people to get breakfast foods but I was going to order a double meat double cheese Whataburger

But she the girl at the counter she had on the uniform right it's like these dark brown matte Jersey kind of pants right and

And the shirt was I think just a t-shirt maybe not maybe it was a button-down shirt that was orange and white striped I'm not sure because she had on this vest

And I don't know why she had the best maybe that's a part of the uniform they have if they are working the fry area

I don't know because I don't think the vest was zipped up maybe it was

I'm botching the story The point isn't so much what the outfit was that she was wearing exactly as that the way she was wearing it

She looked like a model for a shoot for some really like quirky bent fashion magazine

Like you know the kind I'm talking about right I know that's probably not something you read

But you know Vogue or Harper's bazar or you know those mainstream magazines when they have a quirky fashion shoot it's going to be you know exotic or historical or geographic or something that makes it quirky

But some of the more what would have been called hipster maybe a few years ago but now I didn't hear anyone ever say hipster

They might have a fashion shoot with women working in a fast food environment and this particular Whataburger it's really I mean it's hard to put my finger on exactly

It's an old building it's got the classic shape and it's got traditional textures and those beautiful large black and white photographs but

Then the work area

It's very

Photogenic

It's all black and stainless steel

There might be a little bit of other color

But you know you're if you're in the customer area it's all very light and open

And if you're in the worker area even though it is actively open like I could walk back there I would never do that it's so demarcated You know the floor goes from tile to like stained cement or something

All the surfaces in the entire I mean like everything you can see

Looks clean

And there's just something about the way the lighting is it goes from bright in the whole area to this area that's actually kind of dark but then very brightly lit in the areas where people are doing things and then behind the register area there's this wall that's black maybe it has some maybe it has some wood grain or something I don't know and it's got a reflective surface and it just I don't know

So she's not like super tall or super thin or like super shapely or super sexy she's not super anything except her aura

But with her aura it's like her clothes are moving like there's a light breeze

And her skin is glowing like

Skin glowy reasons

And I right there saw that outfit

Like just tweeked a notch

And my whole you know fall runway collection

I've never had an experience like that at a McDonald's for instance

But I mean as aww shucks as I'm being about it

They got merch

You can buy Whataburger hats and stuff like that online

But then in the grocery store I don't know if they have it where you are but at the grocery store here you can get all the condiments including that goddamn delicious spicy ketchup

So I mean

Whataburger

Okay how did I get on to Whataburger I was trying to talk about Katz's

And then I got onto House of pies and IHOP

Okay well I really liked all that stuff about Whataburger but I didn't intend to say any of that I don't know why I said any of that

They opened up a Katz's around the corner from me

I guess a little closer to the house of pies then to the IHOP but they're all three very close to me now

But it didn't go to Katz's

I ordered a DoorDash from Katz's

I ordered matzo ball soup

And I ordered hummus with bagel chips

Except their hummus said something like pecan hummus and I'm like okay I don't know what that means does that mean it's got pecan oil in it does that mean it has some pecans mixed into it but it still has chickpeas

I just don't really know what I'm ordering but I'm intrigued

And then the other thing it was with whipped feta cheese so it's this little container and it's like half this creamy stuff that I mean I ate it and it was delicious but I don't know if it had chickpeas in it or not

It was creamy

I did not get the sense that I was eating pecan butter

I've had pecan butter

My sweet potato recipe

Has sweet potatoes and dried apricots and pecan butter so I'm pretty familiar with its flavor and texture

But I did not get the feeling that that was what I was eating

I also had no big awareness of chickpeas

So I don't know what I ate but it was delicious

And the whipped feta was also delicious

And bagel chips are delicious when you get the not quite stale but somehow dead state bagel chips at the grocery store or something

But these are like housemade bagel chips

With like a garlicky butter sauce on them and then baked or something

Super delicious

The matzo ball soup though

Did not do it for me

It was very very salty

And it had a lot a lot of poultry seasoning

And it it seemed very much like you know dried poultry seasoning

Or like bouillon

But they're talking about their consummee

And it just I mean the texture was like consummee

But the flavor of it just was not

And I know matzo ball soup is a very individual thing so like everybody's matzo ball soup has whatever their particular secret to soup is and some people are better at that than others and some people probably use a a boxed mix

But I'm afraid

That any version of matzo ball soup that I could imagine

Would not supplant that wonton soup that you can get pretty inexpensively from many many Chinese restaurants

Some are better than others

And some have like a fancy kind that they'll have that has a lot of noodles and a lot of this and that and the other thing and I don't prefer that

I mean it used to be that when you got the fancy wonton soup you got that great broth you got some kind of green bok choy leaves or something You got the wonton noodles themselves stuffed with whatever is in wanton noodles I think it's pork and then you got some sliced meat that was like red around the edges and was probably also pork

Well that used to be like kind of the standard

But I don't think I've had wonton soup any place that was like that for more than 20 years

but there's a little hole in the wall place around the corner from me

And it does not have the best of everything right there's one place that you can order egg rolls from and the egg rolls are so big you almost can't fit them in your mouth with shrimp and so much chopped cabbage I mean they're just amazing they're the best egg rolls I've ever had anywhere

That's ambassador Chinese restaurant

But this other place that I'm talking about 7 Asian

They don't have good egg rolls

I mean they have some little Vietnamese egg rolls that are pretty tasty

But they're really little and they don't have the chopped cabbage and I really like that chopped cabbage

With the crispy fried and that chopped cabbage with a little bit of celery and a little bit of carrot and it's you know it's cooked it's hot but it's not like mushy at all it's still very crunchy it's crunchy and then the fried crust is crunchy and so good so good

But 7 Asian

They don't have that

What they have

Is really good and reasonably priced shrimp lo mein it is like a serious comfort food that shrimp lo mein and they have cheese puffs

They're like that stuff that you sometimes order that's crab rangoon only it doesn't have the crab it's it's got some cream cheese and maybe a little bit of mozzarella or some other cheese like that so it's just cheese and it's not particularly savory but it's not particularly sweet it's a really nice it's just really nice the fried and then that creaminess

And on my door dash here

It's got a feature where you can do an add-on

Without having to pay additional fees except there are additional tipping

So I'm not an early adopter of the add-ons I mostly don't add on

I always look through the add-ons but I don't get them except every once in a while

But I'm not certain how they decide which are the things that add on cuz there's bunches and bunches and bunches of them and you would think it would always be the same things because it's you know whatever's in some certain parameter but it doesn't seem to be sometimes they're just a few and then sometimes there's like 150 things and it's like come on I've got like 5 minutes to look at this actually I think you probably have more like 8 minutes to look at it maybe you have as much as 10 minutes to look at it but that is not nearly long enough for me

But I always look at them and I keep like hoping that you know I would order from the one place and they would have an add-on that I could pick up at the other place

But that never

Happens