Introduction: Trifecta?

First a note on “Trifecta”:

After years of eating off linen table cloths—caribou rounds with a sage blackberry sauce, muscles in saffron broth—courtesy of my dear adopted auntie Noreen (actually Noreen hated being a woman so always dressed as a man. She had a little rough cut head and wore silk lime green shirts and—even though she was filthy rich— men’s trousers from Penny’s. Whenever we went to dinner together, people assumed we were a May/December couple….well, she was 83 and I was in my twenties so more like May…Ming Dynasty. Then when I shaved my head waiters and hosts at the many restaurants we frequented simply stared. We do, after all, live in Utah.) I have discovered that I really really love burgers. And I really really love fries, salty greasy make my fingers smell so I want to lick them…and I really really really love ice cream. Together. All at once. Bites of one then bites of the other then fries dipped in the shake then the burger dipped in BBQ sauce and on and on. So this is my “trifecta.” Burger. Fries. Shake.

But not just any burger, fries and shake. I want mine served from a small town “Dairy Treat” by a waitress popping her gum. I want to be surrounded by cowboys in tight jeans after work and rough necks and couples that look way too young to have that many kids, and dirty hippies just off the trail (guilty) and river runners just off the river, so dehydrated their toes are curled under their Chaco’s (also guilty). Throw in a bunch of bikers drinking milk with their burgers and a flock of bleached-out German’s and I know I am in my happy place. Give me my burger on a stomach so empty from days in the bottom of a canyon or on a rock wall that I would think cardboard was flank steak. Give me “trifecta” as an after taste to adventure and make me want more.

When I emerge from the secret back countries of Utah, I emerge starving. As soon as I pull off whatever godforsaken, rutted, washboardfromhell excuse for a road I’ve been bumping along for the last hours and hit pavement, I want to EAT. However, starving as I am in these situations, a bad burger is very disappointing—almost tragic (the bit about thinking cardboard was flank steak earlier; a total lie). So I have joyfully taken it upon myself to thoroughly scope out the scene. Take what is to come as a travel log/dining guide for small town Utah. A, “I just got back from running Cataract/sitting in Crystal Hot Springs all days/backpacking Coyote Gulch/swimming through the Black Hole and damnit, I need a meal to put meat back on my bones!” whereto finder.

Sometimes too, food is not enough. I would also like to have a view, all kinds of views… old store fronts and maple lined lanes and Burr Trail slick rock accented by little irrigated green jewels and far reaching desolate plains rolling of towards the San Juans and the Haymaker Bench riding my back. I want to know I am in Utah and not any where else. I want to know I am in my adopted home. This wacky state that I love so much.


So here goes…