The Lynnster Zone

Fast food joint Sonic’s expansion has been far and wide in the last 20-25 years, but those of you who have always lived in the cities and never lived out in or grew up in the more rural boonies of West and Middle Tennessee like ‘Coma, Lindsey, a few others and myself have likely don’t know, and that would be:

(A) What a good Frito chili pie tastes like, or -

(B) What Pickle-Os are, and if you do, you’ve likely never had them the way they’re supposed to be.

The Sonics down here in Mempho actually do have chili pies (at least they did last time I looked, which has been a while), but they’re not right. They’re just not made right, and they’re just not very good. I have often thought that the Sonics here need to send their cooks to rural Northwest Tennessee to learn how to cook some of this stuff correctly (not just the chili pies).

Sonic here (or at least the one nearest me) tried to do Pickle-Os for a little bit too, but evidently they didn’t go over so well and soon got removed from the menu. And no wonder, because they weren’t making them right either - for one thing, not near enough batter on the things, and they just weren’t good. (In case you’re wondering, Pickle-Os are fried dill pickles, but you probably guessed that already.)

I also got into an argument with the employee manning the order system one day when they did offer Pickle-Os, who insisted that they could not possibly be made with cheese on top of them. She insisted they would be too soggy.

Well, not if they were cooked RIGHT to begin with. I know this for a fact because I’ve been eating Pickle-Os with cheese (and correctly made Frito chili pies) for well over 30 years now. The Sonic in Paris opened somewhere around 1976, 1977 or thereabouts, when I was still in elementary school. My friends and I pretty much lived at the one in Camden when I was in high school - probably much to the managers’ and cooks’ dismay, since we would do things like order Regular Cheese Coneys without the hot dog, Dr. Peppers with a lid (because otherwise you got no lid on your cup), and write checks for 54 cents for a soda. And at one time or another, I probably ordered something at every other Sonic in West Tennessee outside of Memphis over the last 30 years.

One of my best friends since school days swears by the power of Pickle-Os with cheese to cover up any smell of alcohol on one’s breath, which was always one of those good and important things when you’re 16, 17, 18-ish and especially if one’s parents were hypervigilant about such things. Mine weren’t, so it didn’t matter to me, but his were and he swore by that fact.

Anyway, I KNOW my Frito chili pies and Pickle-Os with cheese, the latter you can’t get down here in the city anymore anyway. And I’ve come to terms with the fact that no Sonic down here will ever learn how to make a decent and proper chili pie. So sometimes I get a craving and think, “Oh, man, that would be soooo good right now,” and just have to fight it because the nearest Sonic that can probably make a chili pie correctly or even has Pickle-Os is probably at least an hour’s drive away.

So I tell you all that to now bring up the fact that today, I am about to make what still won’t be right, but will be close enough, to what a real chili pie should be, and I’m very happy and excited about it.

Even in my presently sorry financial state (and thanks to the recently discovered Kroger gift card that had never been out of my luggage since Christmas), I’d say this is not too bad. I’ve got enough stuffies to make two, maybe three, chili pies (three days’ worth of meals for moi who hardly eats anyway). Probably the biggest score of all this is (since I don’t really cook anyway), I FINALLY found some storebought chili I can stand - most of it’s either just too salty or too gross for my tastes - so that’s basically what led to all this chili pie planning.

So I got two or three days’ worth of fixins, at about $2.50 for the chili, $2 on sale for Kroger sharp cheddar cheese (which honestly, I’ve gotten to where I prefer it to the name brands anyway), $1.19 for the Kroger version of Fritos - which will probably be fine - and 24 cents for a little onion. So around six bucks for two or three days’ worth of food that will hopefully staunch my craving for a decent and proper chili pie for a while, but should at the very least be plenty tasty enough.

I’m maybe a little more excited about all this than I should be, but I don’t care. And off I must go now, there’s a chili pie to be made!