Part of living this far west in Albuquerque is watching the mesa transform from the tumbleweed-studded jeep tracks of Adam's misspent youth into a reasonable facimilie of civilization. Or, as we tend to short-hand around here, "sprawl."

So please bear with us when we can't agree on when the Blake's went in down the street. Adam thinks it opened last summer while I think it might have always been there; we just didn't pay attention until sometime after the state fair. At any rate, at some point in the last year, the restaurant grew from the desert like so many allergy-bearing weeds and continues to nurture us to this day.

Adam says this is the product of wet winters in Albuquerque. It rains, and we get another Lotaburger.

Ruidoso didn't have a Lotaburger when I was growing up, and for that I feel deprived. The nearest was 46 miles to the south, in Alamogordo, and everyone knew that if you were going to Alamogordo and got fast food, you were either going to Long John Silver's or Taco Bell. End of story.

Still, even without visiting it, impressions were made. The sign, for one. To my six-year-old eyes, it looked just like former Governor Toney Anaya.

(I tried to find a photo of the guy, but no dice.)

For another, billboards advertising the joint looked as if the concept of "food stylist" was foreign. I remember once turning to my mom and asking "Why does food that looks sloppy just taste better?" I think I was twelve or thirteen, though. A precocious child I wasn't.

So. Blake's. We're in favor of it.

Since the local branch opened its doors, our patronage has become something of a habit. Usually on Thursday nights, I swing by on my way home and pick up dinner, which is completely unhealthy and has to stop, but the onion rings, man! Think of the onion rings!

And the thing about Blake's is how they prepare the order after it's placed. I wasn't used to the wait between ordering and delivering. I'd been well-trained by the McCulture of McGratification and didn't really know what to do with myself for those five or ten minutes. But as it became more of a routine, I started using the time to sketch out the Next Project. It was great; for a set length of time, I was forced to think about the project and brainstorm on the back of my receipt. Over a series of Thursday nights, even when I was neck-deep in revisions on the current project, the Next Project fleshed out to doable proportions.

I don't know if it's the green chile or the grease, or the forced discipline of mind. I don't know how the workers would feel if I co-opted a back booth on a Saturday and hunched over my laptop for six hours. But there's more to Blake's than green chile cheeseburgers. There's inspiration on the side.