Eating out as a teenager for me was about learning to access what was socially available and hanging with friends without supervision. A time of simple tastes whose impact would continue to ripple. The food was secondary to whatever impatient opportunity presented itself to explore, fit in and sometimes clash—all while being steadily marched toward the grind of adult consequence.

When I was first going out with friends, apart from McDonalds we frequented burger shops that were mostly operated by Greek immigrants serving Chicago dogs, fried mushrooms, cheese fries and pizza puffs.

The pizza puff was a curious menu staple—a deep fried turnover filled with pizza goo and designed to be eaten punishingly hot. Maybe it was developed as an individual pizza-approximation in a city where it wasn’t sold by the slice.

Working part-time for minimum wage I would spend an hour’s pay on a chili dog and fries. The idea of spending $40 for a Chinese dinner at the Pine Yard with friends seemed weird and was clearly the domain of going out with parents. When we did start eating at places without serving trays, we went to coffee shops.

The coffee shop period remains something that I have a grudging nostalgia for. A lot of cigarettes and a lot of Denver omelettes. The places were named after variations on Greek mythology and street locations: the Olympia, the Athena, the Main Cafe, the Sherman Grill, the Sher-Main Grill.

With access to cars came the pull of long drives to Wisconsin to eat lunch at Apple Holler, an orchard and kitchen that’s advertised on I-94 with a billboard bucolically promising Farm Cookin’. Stacked helpings of home fries, apple butter, fried apples, potpies, chicken & dumplings, cider and donuts and the dishes that give the wide, green and wheat-colored land of the midwest its taste. Plus, it was only a short drive from the Bong Recreation Area.

Those unsanctioned excursions to random outreaches increased the older we got. Along with them came the sour side of midwestern exploration. Dealing with skeptical faces receiving us as freak threats on misadventures in their heartland. Layers of prejudice simmer like thickening gravy; we were weirdos. Even small-scale nuisances could threaten us with disaster and a lot of people that we knew did get caught up.

Although Chicago is a hard town, the threats there at least seemed familiar and triggered by people with a temperament we understood. Once we left Cook County it felt strange and rural for hundreds of miles. Nobody from Chicago says they are from Illinois. There would be enough options among local grills and diners, though we still felt compelled to search for surprises in what was available.

Out with friends around the age of 16, at a spot called Bumpkins of all things, I echoed an order placed by Dr. Gonzo in Fear and Loathing and asked for a chili burger and fries. The response was basically like I’d uttered a new combination of curse words they had never heard before.

‘A chili burger?’ the counter guy half-asked.

‘It’s a burger, with chili on it,’ I replied.

He proceeded to ambivalently fill my order, scoffing a bit, and internally I took a step towards the west coast where chili is ladled and served in all manner of configurations without question.

Los Angeles is the clear home of the chili burger and ordering six wouldn’t so much as raise an eyebrow. At Fatburger, the chili is muted by the heavy mayo and lettuce. The Tommy’s chili burger is messier and more laden with orange grease that slides off the thick tomato slice. Along with many visits to Pink’s over the years, before they shuttered I visited Art’s Famous Chili Stand—the fabled originators of the chili dog.

Had I tried ordering a pizza puff at any of those places I would have been greeted with blank curiosity.

Near Dodger Stadium, the version at Ototo isn’t topped with chili as much as bolognese. The inspiration there doesn’t lie locally, but with Japanese chain restaurant MOS Burger. Their comparative spike in price-point may be a tax on creating that rarity—a photogenic chili burger.

Langer’s has been one of the most lauded delis in the country for many years and though they are famous for their pastrami, their chili cheese fries are an ideal balance of meatiness, goo, and crisp ridged potato resistance. The quality of their ingredients is evident, along with the warmth of the restaurant’s mid-20th century surroundings.

Being seated inside Langer’s dining room feels very familiar, like the coffee shops of my youth in Chicago. The cups are the same brown ceramic though there are no ashtrays on the table like there were back then. After living in LA over half of my life at this point I can no longer remember my first visit.

Eating at diners is something I would come to take for granted. All of the talking and joking over predictably average coffee collects into pools that slip through memory. The visits that are most indelible for me now are the ones I shared with my daughter. We were a tight nucleus that spent more time together than I had with my folks growing up. Instead of fending to feed herself, she seemed happy enough to roll with me as curator.

She was a bona-fide breakfast and burger girl, and our meals allowed me to re-experience the excitement of towering banquettes that came supplied with sugar and jelly on the table. It was a home base that we would return to as she grew and her horizons widened. I was her guide, navigating based on what I hoped would spark an excited glimmer in her eyes for plates of greasy food she could devour. I pursued that glow with anticipation of the uninhibited happiness in her expression— a reflection of my younger self that I might burnish to shine with her leading me to reveal it. The mirror of her face and mine sharing this link in the most accessible places.

The cups, the sugar, the counters and booths—these familiar unifying elements create a continuum that transcends time and the changes it brings. If I’m feeling strong and fortify myself for the wave of grief that is inevitable in her absence, I may re-enter the space we shared those happy meals and bittersweet bottomless coffee.

Over here the diners serve pastrami and chili fries. Over there it is gyros and fried mushrooms. I know what to expect from the menu now, but being able to have experienced it in those early times and then again with my daughter is something I hold so dearly.

That is what we call comfort food—the things we were eating when fun was still new and life had no limit.