It does not matter how you start a burrito, it matters how you finish.
I have been thinking about this for quite some time now. The way you
have to stretch your muscles around your
mouth to take the first bite can sometimes strain and take away from
the pleasure of starting your meal. Second bite is easier, because you
start to try and develop a rhythm and
finally the third bite, you are fulfilling the role of engineer your
mother always hoped you would be. You do not want to dismantle the
left side quicker than the right because you do not
want to shift the burritos center of gravity and have it fall over top
heavy. You move circular and hope for the best.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, half way down this tower of beans
and rice suspended between sizzling pieces of carne asada, you cannot
help but contemplate the architect of
such a design. I have been coming to La Alteña Taqueria, in the
Mission Market, for quite some time now and I cannot help but think
about the burrito roller in the back who is always
draped in a hair net and laughing amiably with his colleagues. I
wonder if he laughs at them or with them. Maybe it is my own inner
evil man wanting that smile to be a smirk that says
mockingly, “You aint got what it takes to roll the way I do.” I know,
more than likely, he does not share the same hostility, the way I do,
to his co-workers. He probably buys the first
round after work but I would like to imagine this because, sometimes,
if he is not there, I prefer not to eat a burrito at all as if my
scorn could teach those lesser burrito rollers a lesson.
But he seems pleasant enough, and maybe he imparts his secrets along
the way to his colleagues. But if he does, I have not noticed, because
when I recommend La Alteña to friends,
I emphasize that if he is not there, then they probably will receive a
bean bag of a meal instead of the holy grail of Mission foodies: the
perfect burrito.
And then you look back down at your meal and realize that there is
just more than an absorbent flour tortilla and aluminum foil that
holds this urban skyscraper of a meal together.
There is a lot of thought and tenderness on the fingers that rolled
such a creation to let the right amount of beans, rice and guacamole
guard the carne asada. There is craftsmanship
that can go almost unnoticed if you do not realize that very last
piece of burrito that cups the remnants of your meal had to be rolled
in such a way as to allow you to glean every last
part of this inner city delicacy. So when you finish and look up with
your eyes overdosing on protein and your skin reeking of salsa, you
cannot help but see this master of a burrito
roller and you realize that you have just finished eating a piece of
art that has led you to transcendence and not even an alka-seltzer or
tums can quell this transformation that unfurled
with a strain and led you to profound enlightenment.
is a community contributor.
You know, Indica pot will make you less chatty and weird, try that instead of the Sativa.
Me thinks you like burritos just a bit too much. But it does involve a good sexual euphemism, the libido burrito.