I am at LAX before my Southwest flight back to Pittsburgh for an extended stay through the holidays. Another of my newly official rituals* is to get breakfast burritos when I have some time before an early morning flight. I purchased this one from the newly opened Urth Cafe which I recognize as a LA franchise. The burrito is not exactly authentic – Urth is one of those organic, cage-free America bistro kinda places – but I am quite pleased with it. There was quite a long line since it is the holidays, and I read a bit of Killing Commendatore during my wait. Just loving that book. Well, I love all of the Murakami books I have read, and this one is shaping up to be a favorite.
Back to the burrito. The ingredients seem high quality and natural – it’s possible this is cognitive bias due to the organic-y Cali vibes of the place, but I like to think I can tell the difference between eggs that came from a shell and those from a carton. Who knows. My one quip with Urth is the lack of hot in the hot sauce, but it’s on me for not inquiring about something spicier. They were quite busy with holiday traffic, and I didn’t want to bother anyone.
This burrito ritual is about more than the burrito, though. It’s about idle time at the airport at odd hours (it is 7am now), when work stuff isn’t on my mind yet. I can do whatever I want, act on any inspiration that comes to mind. Today, apparently, that was to write about my burrito…which is gone, by the way. I might need to find some chocolate now.
* The other newly official ritual pho when I’m hungover – an infrequent event, for the record.