Kyle is a foodie who loves Tarot. Theresa is a Tarot reader who loves food.
Together, we host Tarot by the Mouthful: a mouthwatering, multi-media culinary tour through the world of Tarot.
Sublime recipes. Soulful stories. Essays, videos, interviews and delicious surprises.
Join us every Sunday for a new installment — and get ready to sip, slurp, crunch and savor your way through the entire Tarot deck!
This week: The Chariot
The Chariot – The Chariot represents the control and willpower needed to accomplish goals. The figure has the reins fully in his grasp and a look of determination on his face. He’s going places and nothing will get in his way. This is the triumph after the journey – and the road ahead. He’s leaving behind the old and setting off for adventures. The man in the Chariot has found the perfect vehicle to accomplish his mission. How will you move forward? What are you ready to conquer?
This week, Kyle is in the Big Apple (and eating very, very well) so it’s just me!
Theresa – Road Trip!
When I began putting these series together, I knew exactly what I’d be doing for The Chariot – a road trip to a drive-in restaurant!
The first drive-in was “Kirby’s Pig Stand” which opened in 1921 in Dallas. They caught on and soon became all the rage for car-loving Americans. You could drive up, place your order with the waitress (called a car-hop) and bam – they’d bring your meal out on a little tray that you would snap onto your window. It was fun for families and for teens looking for an inexpensive date.
Drive-ins were once a very popular thing in the U.S. but they’ve fallen out of favor over the years. Back in their heyday, there were over 4000 scattered across the country! But now, that number has dwindled to less than 500.
I remember the drive-ins of my youth with great fondness: Dog ‘n Suds, The Carousel (still mad that it got torn down), A&W (baby burgers!) and my favorite haunt, The Kiltie.
Thankfully, the Kiltie is still in full operation and perfect for an after-yoga road trip with one of my favorite partners in food crime, Jackie. Jackie is the person I always grab when I want to eat something really luxe or super bad-for-you. Although she tends to eat healthy (yoga student…duh), when it comes to a greasy burger and a double malted, she throws down like a badass. (We’ll just work those calories off with a few sun salutations..heh heh…)
So after a recent class, we hit the road for the Kiltie. Our chariot: a 2003 cherry-red Toyota Matrix.
The Kiltie is a local drive-in complete with homemade custard and car hops…in kilts! The restaurant was built back in the 60’s and not much has changed. In fact, it’s pretty much exactly how I remembered it, right down to the menu.
Jackie and I drove up and the carhop came right over to take our orders. I ordered a burger with mayo and raw onion (Yeah, gross…but childhood fave, what can I say? We’re trying to recreate some youth so sue me.), fries and a chocolate malt. Jackie ordered a cheeseburger with friend onions and a vanilla malt with double the malt. Without another yogi in sight, we could have onion breath and not worry about offending anyone.
When the food arrived on the little tray, we squealed like little girls! OMG the wrappers! The crisp fries! The malts!
Digging into that burger brought back so much nostalgia for me. Custard cones with jimmies, root beer in the plastic jugs, and summer nights crammed into the car and elbowing my siblings while we dug into our burgers. So much fun and so many good memories with each bite of the burger or sip of the malt.
We slammed that grub down like wolves and then headed back for the forty-minute drive home, bellies bursting and laughing like kids.
And that’s the joy of the whole adventure: an open road, a sunny day, a food-loving companion who has no qualms about going low-brow, and the pleasure of a nostalgic meal that brings you back to a simpler time.
“That’s why I love road trips, dude. It’s like doing something without actually doing anything.” ~ John Green
Bon appetit!
Theresa and Kyle
© Theresa Reed | The Tarot Lady 2015
photos from personal collection and Jessica Kaminski
Hungry for more? Click here to explore the entire Tarot by the Mouthful series, from the very first card… right up to our latest installment. Bon appetit!
I’m Theresa Reed (aka, The Tarot Lady). I’ve been a full-time tarot reader for 30+ years — which, in my industry, makes me pretty badass.
I’m definitely not your average Tarot expert — I drop the F-bomb, I quote rappers, and I’m obsessed with pop culture + reality TV. Folks come to me for straight-talk + tough-love — without the woo-woo fluff. 
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