When I think of fast food, there are three big categories for me,
and yes, I'd really like to type about them.
I'm seeing my name as the last poster in too many categories,
so I've been letting this go for a long time, but I have to comment now.
The only foodie job I had was working full time at Kentucky Fried Chicken, in Welland, Ontario.
I was the cook and helped when the woman who mixed the salads came in.
I started off with three, and after a few weeks was having five, pieces of chicken for lunch.
I'd take them from the first batch of the day and bread and cook them again.
And then I'd put them in the heater so they would get drier and a little crunchy.
I'd butter five or six slices of the Greek bread on both sides,
and have two piles of different salads to go with it.
I worked there for only ten weeks, and it was summer, so I ate outside.
Being a full-time employee, I could eat for free. I didn't gain weight.
That was the original franchise, using pots to cook two birds at a time.
When it was sold, that changed to using a different oil product with four birds.
It wasn't a secret recipe, the ingredients for the coating were printed on the bag.
What the Colonel had to make it flavorful as Kentucky cooking could be,
was using buckwheat honey or his gravy with the chicken.
Most franchises hid that behind the counter and only gave it out if someone asked,
and when not enough people were asking, they stopped stocking it.
The Colonel came to Welland and spent a day in the downtown store, a very nice man.
He and his wife were a couple years from retirement, planning on selling their restaurant.
But the stage put a super-highway through and his property was bypassed and severely devalued.
They put his pressure cooking pots, what made chicken a fast food, his invention, into the trunk of their car,
and travelled around selling this concept and recipe.
When the company got international corporate, the State of Kentucky sued them for using the name,
so they changed it to KFC to get away from that.
When my one aunt worked for A&W, going to visit her was as far as my parents would let my younger brother and I ride our bikes.
She would say she was saving the extra drops from the tap for us, always giving us a glass of root beer.
When I was travelling around Ontario in bands in the 1970's, I'd go for lunch at A&W's, parking the band van.
Northern A&W's didn't have girls coming out to clip a tray on the window, and used ordinary aluminum heat savers,
nothing with logos or graphics on them, and the food cost less, more like an ordinary restaurant.
I didn't like a lot of meat, not liking two patties, and I didn't want bacon or cheese with everything else,
so the Mama Burger was my favorite, just what I like in a hamburger, and they were bigger, so one would do.
I'd order a small Chubby Chicken, two pieces, with some fries, as part of my meal,
and A&W was known for being short on fries, so I'd order small fries to add to the ones with the Chubby Chicken.
I'd have a vanilla milkshake and a big root beer to go with it.
Using salt for fries and popcorn is my only putting on salt use, so that made it more of a treat for me.
Sometimes I'd bring my own malt vinegar, liking that better than white.
The A&W in Orillia, outside of town on the highway, tops out my list.
As a band, we could park the van so highway traffic couldn't see it,
and we'd sit at a picnic table underneath a huge willow tree, relaxing for hours.
When you've got a Mohawk with a '58 Les Paul he bought new for a bandleader...
I have to mention "Mountain Boy" chicken, a franchise product sold by 24 hour truck stops.
We'd be getting gas way past midnight, and I'd ask if they had some dried out crispy chicken in the heater.
When sub shops first came out I was going there after the gig, seeing a sub as a nice, light meal,
and a nice combination of fresh vegetables, buns and cold cuts, even if I'm not hot on cold cuts.
When life is going my way, I'm a vegetarian most of the time, only because I won't pick apart food to get rid of the meat.
And sub shops had the newest arcade games, always a big part of the visit.
I wouldn't be saying anything over the microphone, but I'd be asking friendly locals about where to go and what games they had.
For one summer, having a dry sub was my favorite.
Triple cheese, a layer of fresh mushrooms, onions, green and hot peppers, triple of whatever cold cuts looked good,
and... being the lead guitarist in the band usually saw me getting a very deep sub...
mainly because I was always wearing my stage clothes wherever I went.
The Spiderman Pinball Game and the bar-top Asteroid game were my favorites.
I got over my video game addiction in 1980, and seeing Donkey Kong is what gave me my first second thoughts.
The fact that murders were beginning to happen outside the private arcade I was a member of,
built by electronic professors at York University, at a mall at Jane and Finch, convinced me how addictive they were.
That and the fact I was turning down invitations to restaurants and jams after gigs, to go and play computer games.
Rogers Sub Shop on Southworth in Welland has to be my favorite sub shop of all time.
Pizza. I've probably had more bad left-over pizza than fresh good ones.
Having pizza owners let me make my own, using one of their crusts, as a sign-painter, is the best.
My favorite to buy is an already cooked slice, calling it a re-heat.
Put some onions, hot peppers and anchovies with a sprinkling of cheese on top to hold them down,
on top of a cheese and pep slice, and reheat it until the cheese starts to melt. That's really nice.
When I lived in Queenston Heights for two years, looking up at the Brock Monument from the front window,
the A&P in Niagara Falls, by St. Davids, would close on Sunday and mark down products at the end of Saturday.
I had a pizza crust recipe memorized back then,
and always got some cheese marked down 50%, with other people waiting to see what meat was reduced.
When I got a Hickory Farm gift pack marked down, it had a big beef pepperoni in it.
I used a little nice sauce to cook the crust first, put on lots of beef slices with broccoli and mozzarella cheese.
I would mix a salmon spread, put spinach on that with mozzarella or cheddar, maybe my favorite.
But what is truly fast food for me nowadays?
What is it about me that surprises almost everyone I meet, and I'm a pro at surprising everyone.
I'm always carrying a sweet potato in my shoulder sports bag, or in a big coat pocket.
When I feel like snacking, I look for a microwave and four minutes later, I'm eating a sweet potato.
How fast is that?
When Conestoga was a big chain of western themed restaurants throughout Ontario,
I liked the Friday fish fry, all you can eat, with servers usually saying take some home,
wrapping them up for me.
But... their policy was if you order a steak dinner, you got the buffet for free.
And they had an amazing buffet. The turkey salad had huge chunks of fresh turkey,
with too many other items, a huge spread worthy of being a fine restaurant all by itself.
This was strange for me, considering they used barrels of chemicals to soften cheap beef.
What made this a lunch spot for me what this.
When you bought a hamburger plate, less than half the cost of the lowest steak dinner,
it was part of the steak menu, and you got the free buffet for that.
Sometimes I'd invite someone and say I'll pay for the hamburger platter,
and you can eat that if you want while I get food from the buffet.
When you're the only non-smoker, non-drinker, in a band on the road in a new city,
it's nice to have some friendship during the day.
When the first three Swiss Chalet restaurants were built in Toronto,
there was one at the end of the road where my apartment was in 1970.
I'd order the half chicken meal, but it was dipping the buns in the gravy I liked the best.
I also like their red salad dressing the best, a kind of more spicy Catalina.
But when a friendly waiter told me that I could have a cup of extra gravy and buns for free,
just their policy, I started ordering a quarter chicken with extra gravy and four extra buns.
I'd eat the meal, pour the extra gravy on the plate and start dipping.
The Swiss Chalet in Niagara Falls was the last restaurant to keep free extra gravy and buns.
Overall, and this is a definite I can't see changing, Oriental buffets are the best.
I've never met one I didn't like, and always tip heavily.
I'm only of Scottish ancestry, but what Kimonos in Welland does with pink salmon,
breading it for the deep fryer, yeah...
Have I ever caught a fish or killed some game, or picked up anything dead,
to clean it and cook it and eat it myself... no... and I've never even tried.
How can I call myself a Canadian when I drink the water and chew my way through the scenery,
when I've never done that?
How can I think of myself as a man, when I've never hit anyone in the face or got hit myself.
I spent almost eleven years living in bars, hotels and venues, playing around Ontario, living in Toronto,
and no-one ever slapped my face, poured a drink on me or poked a cigarette burn in my shirt.
What kind of musician and man am I, looking at a life that feels detached from the world around me?
See, food and thoughts can inspire each other, and make me wonder, what does "IMO" stand for?
I think I'm going to pop some popcorn, the only time I put butter and salt on food,
and for the last few years, I've been breaking up a big coconut chocolate bar from Turkey in it,
the pieces melting a little, getting buttery and salty.
Six big "Farmers' Market" peanut butter cookies with sticky strawberry jam on them,
and a carrot muffin with lotsa margarine, yeah... that sounds like a late supper for me.
"Black Sails", season three, will be on in the background.
Hand-cutting computer vinyl using sign stencils kept me busy all evening.
Please be forewarned: Get ready for food fights throughout North America,
coming soon to you.
