Cheap thrills: Fries on the road

The best lunch I had this week was a $1.30 bag of french fries from an old-timey, walk-up burger counter on Hwy. 1 in Assumption Parish. We in Louisiana might have to endure potholes and poor signage on our rural roads, but the hidden food gems that dot the landscape are hard to beat. Stumbling upon cracklin’ shacks, boiled peanut purveyors, and convenience stores that sell boudin balls is delightfully commonplace. Burger shacks, however — the kind that serve milk shakes and crispy fries — are harder to come by.

The worn-out Dairy Inn in Assumption Parish was such a find. I had ventured beyond the borders of the Capital City to do a story on Bourgeois Meat Market in Thibodaux for Taste of the South magazine. On the way home, the faded red burger barn screamed out. I waited for my fries while locals pulled up to retrieve take out — white paper bags filled with items like fried chicken, fried okra, fried catfish and chili Fritos. Back in the car, I started in on the bulging bag of fries, plump, slightly crispy and screaming hot. I burned my mouth shoveling them in, but not before positioning them betwixt my knees and giving them good douses of ketchup and Tabasco. Way more dangerous than yammering away on a cell phone, but one satisfying lunch.