BLOG: Safe and savory at 160

Two years ago (not exactly, but a ballpark figure), I walked into what once was named Downtown Brewing Co. (DTB) in, you guessed it, downtown San Luis Obispo. Now it’s SLO Brewing Co.

It was a Sunday night, and that meant 75-cent beef ribs. Oh joy, I thought, because I love meat, ‘specially the red kind.

I sat down and ordered five bucks worth. When they arrived, my mouth salivated. Should’ve seen me. I dug in. After ravaging for five minutes, I noticed a weird smell. But I didn’t think nothing of it, and just kept on grubbing.

Boy was that stupid.

Later that night, in my bed, I sweated my ass off, cold then hot then cold. All I could think as I lay there was, ‘God, I got a final in my animal nutrition class tomorrow, and it’s 3 a.m. I can’t sleep because I’m sweating profusely.’ I felt like a pile of poop. I crawled to the bathroom for the fifth time and hugged the porcelain rim.

I thanked God that, earlier, I left the seat up and wiped the rim clean. In fact, now that I think of it, I’m grateful the bowl was there to catch the projectiles spewing from both my mouth and my ass.

Funny, I once heard meat science guru and Cal Poly professor Bob Delmore describe what I was suffering from as the “two buckets illness.” I recall the day in class he mentioned the illness is caused by mishandled or undercooked meat. What I didn’t listen to is when he said he saw at Thursday night Farmers’ Market, beef and chicken next to each other on the cutting board, their juices and other crap mixed together, which potentially would taint anyone’s eating experience.

Never gonna eat at that place, Delmore said. Should’ve effectively listened, I guess. Now, I’m not sure how the ribs I ate became tainted, but they most definitely were.

Recently that memory of me sitting in Delmore’s class flashed again, as I entered the DTB in Paso Robles. It was a Friday, and I had a long week. I wanted a cheeseburger and fries — the best culinary combo invented. For reals.

Whenever we’d eat out as a family, I’d order a cheeseburger, no matter what. Thick and juicy and divine — that’s how I regarded burgers. Even if we went to a seafood restaurant, I’d say, “I want a cheeseburger, please.”

What can I say, I’m a carnivore and proud of it.

It’s because I eat meat, specifically ground beef, that I feel I carry a certain responsibility: To eat ground beef that’s properly prepared.

USDA recommends that a ground beef patty be cooked to 160 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s the temperature at which pathogens lose muster. And so you know, just because the patty may look done, meaning not “pink,” doesn’t mean it’s free of pathogens. To really tell, you gotta have a meat thermometer, and who really carries one of those around? Maybe I should, ‘specially after this story you’re about to read.

So let’s go back inside DTB (in Paso), where I am eagerly waiting for my double cheeseburger. Baseball is on TV, and I’m ’bout halfway through a cold beer. Plop, the waitress puts the plate down. The burger is cut in half and I notice a pink center. Not OK, I thought — plus the fries were stale, like they’d been left under (or not under) a heat lamp for hours. So I request a redo, another burger, only this time cooked medium well, just how I ordered the first time.

I’m not ignorant of what goes on at restaurants, so I actually got up and watched the cooks cook my burger, because I know what “might” happen after a customer returns food that’s not prepared to his or her liking. Nothing crude happened.

However, when the cook plated the burger, he cut it open, and I noticed pink. There was a moment when he looked at me, as if I hadn’t seen the scarlet hue. The waitress was watching, too. He proceeded to place the open-faced side of the burger back on the grill. I think he thought he could sneak it by me. It’s my assumption that he only knew one way to cook a burger. That, or, he had never had to seriously “cook” a patty to rid it of potential buckets disease.

I walked back to my table.

I sat there thinking about what I was going to do. My heart revved.

So you know, normally, I would say to the waitress when she asks how everything is, “Yes, yes, fine, great, thank you,” and continue munching. Not this time though. I couldn’t. See, I care about my food, and I care about my health (for the most part, which is why I drink hard alcohol sparingly).

More because I’m an advocate not just for agriculture but for having pride when serving people, especially when preparing food, I told the waitress that I’d left her a $1 tip because her cooks hadn’t cared, hadn’t taken pride in their job to serve a guy who just wanted to enjoy a cheeseburger after a long week grinding life out on his leather ass.

My hope is she, the waitress, will relay the message to the cook, which will then spark change. So the next time someone orders food, he or she will be a part of a pleasant eating experience, as well as yield a tip the waiter deserves.

In my life, I’ve learned that accountability for one’s actions is one of the truest virtues.

That said … next time I’m going to In-N-Out. And you can count on that, yo.