The Chipotle Thing

And the food thing in general

It’s true. I am Burrito Baby.

I was sitting at work minding my own business when I got an incoming Google chat from my husband.

💕: Chipotle has sent me an email full of chilling stats. Would you guess that we ate Chipotle about once every 5 days over the last year? Because we did!

Absolutely horrifying news. I wanted no further information from Chipotle’s marketing team or from the man who supposedly loves me.

💸: WHAT THE F***, CHIPOTLE? Chill out man, you sound crazy.

He continued.

💕: Nationally. We are in the top 2% of Chipotle customers.

💸: Nononononononononononononononononon

This amount of information about my burrito consumption was, technically speaking, assault.

💕: We got queso 91 time this year.

💸: Babe, please, I need to live.

💕: Mind you, this does not count the 3 times my mother got me Chipotle nor, I am estimating, the 6-7 times we paid in person and didn't get rewards.

💸: BABE PLEASE

💕: We do have a free entree…

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I’ve written about Chipotle a lot. Like… a lot. So much so that when Nicole Dieker interviewed us for the Money Talks series in 2020 one of her questions was, more or less, “What’s up with the Chipotle thing?”

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February 6, 2020: We ended up at Chipotle, because of course. (It’s relatively healthy, they have food that both of the kids like, and, best of all, if we’re in a hurry, my husband can order online ahead of time and I can pick it up.)

March 3, 2020: “Gah! Water is out,” my husband texted me on Thursday morning, I assume from under two toddlers. “Can you bring me a lunch?” I’d left my debit card at home, so I told him to put in an order at Chipotle for me to pick up on my lunch hour. He asked if I wanted anything, and the thought of my turkey sandwich in the office fridge was more appealing to me than spending money—growth!—but I did ask for an iced tea.

May 14, 2021: I was starving and the car battery was almost empty, so I bought a Chipotle gift card from PayPal. (I really wanted a burger, but it seemed unlikely that any drive thru would take a check.) I picked up a quesadilla and a Mexican Coke, which I never order because $3 feels too spendy for a soda. Then I plugged the car into the free charger at the mall while I ate dinner without anyone trying to get a bite of my food and listened to a podcast as the sun set.

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So here’s what’s with the Chipotle thing:

My father never cooked. My mother cooked when she was a single mom, but she did so joylessly. When she remarried a man who offered us more financial security—a man who also could not cook, by the way—going out to eat became a common occurrence. Houston, where I grew up, has (or had, at least) a shocking number of affordable restaurants. My parents loved to eat out, and I was raised in two homes where it was treated as a perfectly reasonable thing to do several times a week.

After college (where the dining hall cooked for me every day and when we got tired of that, my hallmates would pool our work study money and order pizza) I got married and took a hard turn into the role of Wife Who Cooks. Like my mother before me, I also found no joy in it. Whether that was the intricacy and difficulty of the recipes I chose, the fact that I had no other outlets, or the fact that I was in a horrible relationship I’m not sure. When I left, I didn’t take anything from the kitchen.

When my now-husband came to my new apartment for the first time, he described the contents of my kitchen as childlike. A frozen stir-fry mix, cans of Limonata, a loaf of bread, Bonne Maman jam, a bag of BBQ Baked Lays, and a bulk bag full of tiny bags of peanut M&M’s. On one of our earliest dates he offered to come over and make us bruschetta to drink with wine. I told him I didn’t have a knife, so he bought me one and brought it with him. For months after, my phone’s camera roll filled up with pictures of delicious things he made us as our relationship picked up speed.

Eight years later, I’ve barely been into any of the kitchens we’ve rented together, and when I am it’s to cut up fruit for one of the kids or make myself a sandwich or heat up an entree from Trader Joe’s. I know how to cook but I don’t know how to feed myself. I don’t even really know what I want to eat. And it seems like it’s well past time to learn. I spent a comical amount of time looking at recipes and TikToks and Kitchn articles and I made myself a meal plan for next week. We’ll meet back here soon and I’ll let you know how it went. And if I fail and buy myself another burrito, I’m never telling.

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Take a Penny/Leave a Penny

When I searched my photos for Chipotle I found this screenshot I took from a hilarious TikTok judging people’s lunch choices. Click through and watch the video to see if your lunch place is lightly roasted as well.

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For next time: How do you feed yourself? You can respond to this email or drop a comment below.