When I started this blog section on reviews, I promised myself that I would not review chain restaurants, especially fast-food ones, if I can reasonably avoid it. On reviewing Cane’s #1, I cannot resist temptation. I do so, however, with the understanding that this is the first Raising Cane’s and the one dear to my heart.
On many a hot, Louisiana day during my studies at LSU, I was forced to make a decision. Should I dart fervently from shade tree to shade tree after leaving the air-conditioned safety of Himes Hall or should I make a relatively fast dart across the scorching Parade Grounds, dodging frisbee throwers or sunbathers. I say relatively because I am never really fast. That was part of the problem. Go slow knowing what was up ahead or go fast, chancing a meltdown into a pile of assorted lipids and proteins. Often I chanced it, with the full knowledge that the journey would suck, but I would enjoy the arrival.
Hyperbole, you say. Nay, the sun down here can get really hot. Also, the end of that journey was a steaming box of deliciousness reserved for Mt. Olympus, if the Greek gods had Southern accents and loved Chicken. I am talkin’ about the king of Northgate, Raising Cane’s #1. The brain child of LSU alums, Todd Graves and Craig Silvey. There, they created the beginnings of a national fast food chain that is beginning to sweep the nation.
I am a quintessential American, in that I am a firm believer in its core ideals that “all men are created equal.” My forebears left a land of narrowly defined status and class in order to make something of themselves in a new land. The history of America is my history, 15 generations and counting. Because of these concepts of equality, I have raised myself to be a strict egalitarian. This means that I give no special consideration to the high or low, rich or poor. The only way to earn anything higher than this is if we are somehow related or if I have chosen to befriend you. Even then, I usually will end up giving short shrift. In my entire life, I almost never considered myself better than someone or lower than them. While there are none lower than me, I would like to share my feelings about those who inhabit that place above.
I am racist. “What?” you say. Yes, I have decided to embrace my inner Klansman. Before the current political cycle that we are in, I was an assumed racist for being a white, Southern, Conservative male. A few years ago, I became a racist because I questioned the capability of our current “Dear Leader” during his election. Now, because I support the Tea Party which is advocating for fiscal responsibility, entitlement cuts, and a protected border, I have strange desires to lynch black people in trees as articulated by Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) of the Congressional Black Caucus on August 28, 2011. I feel the need to immediately go and cut up my sheets for a hood. Then I remember that my present economic woes mean that the sheets are too thin and full of holes, guaranteeing a positive identification. So, I stand forth sheetless and proud, informing the world of my racism.
The noted columnist and commentator, George Will, once stated that “Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.” In one aspect, he is correct. Football bares a tiny passing similarity to ancient gladiator games only in the sense that audience picks sides to cheer on as they bring violence to the opposing team. For some, this desire for mauling is lubricated with personal choices of alcoholic beverages. 
