On my way home from work I drive past a couple of fast food
places. Usually I smirk at the
long line of cars snaking around those buildings, waiting to pay for and
consume grease, salt and sugar in various forms, wrapped in overabundant
packaging. But sometimes I have to
admit that I wish I could order some simple, local fare from a window. Someone else could cook it, package it,
and have it hot and ready to serve when I get home. Fortunately, I have a few quick and easy dinners up my
sleeve that my family enjoys, so I sigh and drive on past, towards the grocery
store.
A new find at my local grocery is uncooked tortillas. Although packaged and not local, they
fit into Michael Pollan’s definition of “real food”, the only tortillas in the
refrigerated case with five or fewer ingredients: wheat flour, water, canola oil, salt, sugar. Less than a minute on each side in my heated
cast iron skillet, and they are puffy and slightly crispy, just perfect. Tonight I fry half of a giant
onion from the Moore’s farm with a pound of ground beef from Triple S
farms. I sprinkle with some chili
powder and salt, then add in a giant can of organic black beans which I’ve
rinsed to get the bubbles out. In
goes a half a cup of water, then it all simmers for a few minutes while I cook
the tortillas. I crumble up some
homemade goat cheese that I’d gotten out of the freezer earlier, and chop a
huge bunch of cilantro I bought at the market this weekend from Blue Moon
farms. I take a jar of jalapeños
and a tub of fresh deli-made salsa from the co-op out of the fridge. It takes me longer to get my men off
their respective computers and come downstairs than it did to make dinner.
No wrapping, no Styrofoam, no paper napkins. Everybody rolls up their sleeves and
stuffs as much as they can of their favorite combinations into the tortillas;
they’re messy and dripping as we dig in. (I didn’t even have time to make my specialty
margaritas!) No window, no waiting
in line, no indigestion afterwards.
I remind myself that my version of “fast food” is worth the tiny bit of
extra effort I put in.
