What A Burger!     02/23-24/22

Coastal Breeze RV Resort, Rockport, Texas

When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream:  On my head were three wicker baskets.  In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.” Joseph said, “This is what it means…The three baskets are three days.  Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and hang you on a tree.  And the birds will eat away your flesh.” ~ Genesis 40:16-19     Oh my!  It sounds even worse in The Message Bible:  “…within three days Pharaoh will take off your head, impale you on a post, and the birds will pick your bones clean.”  I wonder if Joseph cringed at having to interpret this dream?  Did he hesitate?  Was his heart filled with sorrow over what was to become of this man?  And how did the baker feel?  Was he sick for three days as he awaited his fate?  Or did he choose to blow off Joseph’s two interpretations as hogwash, so he didn’t have to face the truth?  Don’t we often dismiss Truth because we don’t want to face/admit sin and its consequences?

You may have guessed that we didn’t go to Bingo last night.  We didn’t go anywhere yesterday.  I worked on the blog, Blaine posted it, he replaced a tank sensor, we worked on some personal stuff, menu planned for the next few days, and that’s about all we did yesterday.  We were very lazy. We’re turning into old people……  YIKES!  Just to make it clear though, it was a high of 44⁰ with high winds – again – that made it feel like 36, or colder AND it spit condensation periodically!

But today?  Ahhhh, today we ventured out in the cold!  It was still cold, and the wind could be counted as pretty breezy rather than near hurricane force, but we bundled up and went site-seeing and grocery shopping.

There’s a mansion here that everyone has told us not to miss, so that was our first stop.  It was a nicely restored house with a lot of history – – including being used as an RV Park!  When Hurricane Harvey hit, the place had just recently been restored at a cost of 3.5 million dollars. But nature won out.  The winds reached out, grabbed the roof and rolled it right off the house, taking the chimneys with it, which allowed water to come in.  Honestly, I’m surprised that more damage wasn’t done.  We guessed that that’s why we weren’t allowed to go up to the third floor.  The place looks pretty great now!  Enjoy!  Oh.  And the museum part at the beginning is in a separate building.

A short distance away (Rockport’s a small town, remember?), lies the Bay Education Center and we’d read that they have a sphere show that shouldn’t be missed.  It was in deed pretty cool!  A large ball suspended from the ceiling with no visible means of support, and four projectors around the room making a seamless projection that looks like you’re looking at all of Earth all at once!  They did a talk about wind currents and weather and showed it swirling all around the globe.

Across the street was the Texas Maritime Museum.  I was getting museumed out by then, but we went in.  It turned out to be a pretty small place – well, large in size, but small in information.  Nice, though.

Before the grocery store, we stopped at Whataburger for dinner.  These fast-food burger joints are all over the place around here, so we figured they must be good.  I’ll let you know in a minute.  First, I want to stress how many there are.  When we were driving in the Corpus Christi area the other day, I’m telling you the truth – – there was one about every half-mile!  Turns out, it was founded by Harmon Dobson and Paul Burton in 1950 (McDonald’s opened in 1955), and they opened their first restaurant in Corpus Christi that year.  There are now 880 restaurants in 12 states – 707 of which are in Texas and 23 are in Corpus Christi.  I thought that was a lot for one town, but then I learned that Houston and San Antonio each have 58! I found the following fun article on-line:  Oh!  By the way – – there are 14 McDonald’s, 4 Wendy’s, 6 Burger Kings, but 0 Culver’s ☹.  And I didn’t count any other hamburger places in town.  That seems like a lot of burger joints for a town of 325,000!

It’s Road Trip Week at Bon Appétit! Which means every day, we’ll be sharing stories about food on the long and lonely highway. Or not so lonely if you grew up traveling across the country in a minivan packed with six of your closest brothers, sisters, friends, and Poochie the carsick beagle. So buckle up, and don’t make us turn this car around.

It’s been said that there are three food groups in Texas—barbecue, Tex-Mex, and chicken-fried steak. Some might argue, however, that there’s a fourth food group, and that would be Whataburger.

Now, to the uninitiated, lifting a fast-food burger chain to the rank of Texan culinary icon might seem a little strange. And yet, when Texans spot the restaurant’s familiar orange- and white-striped logo and architecture, hearts beat faster, mouths begin to water, and they start contemplating about what to order.

In Texas, the standard Whataburger is made with mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and diced onions on a toasted five-inch bun. But one of the many things about Whataburger that makes it so beloved is you can order your burger any way you like and they won’t even blink. My preference is a Whataburger with cheese, mayonnaise, pickles, jalapeños, lettuce, and tomatoes.

When Harmon Dobson founded the company in 1950 in Corpus Christi, cooking each burger to suit the customer was one of his key tenets for his new business. Another was to serve a burger so large you needed two hands to eat it. He wanted the customer to exclaim, “What a burger!” as they hefted the almost half-foot wide burger to their mouth, thus coming up with a name for his new place.

(Though many Texans—present company included—may have thought when they were young that it was called Water-burger, until they were otherwise corrected…or learned to read.)

The original Whataburger was a portable stand, but in 1961, Dobson, who was a pilot, built the first A-frame store and painted it with the now iconic orange and white stripes, creative decisions said to have been based on his love of flying. Indeed, you can easily spot a Whataburger from the air, which has been known to elicit cravings for Texans traveling home after a long spell away.

When Dobson opened Whataburger, Texas already had a strong burger tradition. Around 1904, Fletch Davis is said to have created the world’s first hamburger in East Texas (a claim that some dispute, but that’s another story for another day). And the first drive-in restaurant, Kirby’s Pig Stand, opened in Dallas in 1921. As such, there is no shortage of good burgers in Texas, which has lead some to question the passion people feel for Whataburger. Heck, even I will admit there are plenty of Texas burgers that I prefer.

For instance, there’s a gas station outside of Longview that fries up a classic juicy thin-patty burger, which they offer with a free side of spicy pinto beans you serve yourself from a slow cooker by the register. Then there’s Top Notch in Austin, which not only has hand-breaded onion rings and a chandelier crafted out of Lone Star bottles, but its default charbroiled burger is made with mayonnaise, all of which makes me smile.

And yet despite this bounty of excellent burgers in Texas, the call of Whataburger is still strong. Why is this? Well, let’s start with the burger itself. It’s a solid sandwich and each satisfying bite strikes all the right notes—salty, peppery, juicy, crunchy, and tangy.

They also use 100% beef and crisp, fresh vegetables, which makes everything taste relatively wholesome for fast food. Besides their classic burger, they also serve salads, chicken tenders, and fajita tacos. Whataburger also rolls out limited-time specials—such as its green-chile cheeseburger or chophouse cheddar burger—occurrences that fans track with a passion usually reserved for football or politics.

It’s also a popular spot for breakfast, when you’ll find taquitos—warm flour tortillas stuffed with fluffy eggs, cheese, potatoes, and a choice of meat (what most would call a breakfast taco but since it’s traditionally known as a taquito in Corpus Christi, where the company started, that name has remained); jalapeño cheese biscuits that are flaky and buttery with a hit of heat; and the breakfast on a bun, affectionately known as the Bob—an egg, cheese, a meat sandwich, which can be gussied up with salsa to make it ranchero style.

Breakfast begins at 11 p.m., which gives the late-night visitor a choice in what they wish to eat. In fact, Whataburger is open 24 hours and it’s often the only thing going at that time of night. It’s the rare Texan who doesn’t have at least one story involving a visit in the darkest hours. One late-night indulgence for me involved guys in tuxedos, a bride in her gown, and stacks of burgers and fries doing their best to help mitigate the effects of Shiner, wedding cake, and the chicken dance.

If you’re dining in, after placing your order they’ll hand you a number printed on an orange-and-white striped piece of A-framed plastic (a nod to the chain’s distinctive architecture), you grab a drink, sit and relax at your table, and when the food is ready they’ll bring it to you along with a tray of condiments to choose from such as their spicy ketchup or jalapeño ranch. The sauces are so popular that Texas grocery chain H-E-B started selling them a few years ago for superfans.

By the way – – we tried the spicy ketchup with our fries. The spicyness was just right.