It’s no secret that I’m a spooky season fanatic. Some girls are for the streets. I am one of those girls: but only when the gutters are full of fallen orange, brown, and yellow leaves and the front porches of houses are bedecked with mums, pumpkins, and gourds. Everything about autumn gives me life and I see no reason to ever apologize for being so completely blissed out over something so simple and innocent. If I want to wear a sweater and drink a hot PSL on an eighty degree Indiana day in late September, the only person I’m hurting is myself. Call me ‘basic’ if you must: but be prepared to cry yourself to sleep when I ‘basically’ hurt your feelings with my words and politely, but pointedly, dress you down for harshing other people’s vibes just to make yourself feel bigger–because only someone sad and deeply traumatized would behave in such an unkind manner.
When I moved to Fort Wayne, my first night alone in my house was Halloween. Usually it’s one of my favorite nights of the year, but that night didn’t go so well. I was too busy unpacking boxes and assembling furniture to partake in any of my favorite fall time activities. My front porch looked pretty pathetic and vacant. I didn’t really have a feel for the neighborhood since I was brand new–and I underestimated how many kids there would be so I didn’t buy enough candy. I left my meager offering in a big bowl on my porch. Not far into the evening, a bunch of shitty teenagers stole all the candy…and the bowl. I watched Hocus Pocus and cried myself to sleep.
A few days later, I treated myself to Bravas for the first time: and, at the time, it felt like such a big deal to me to leave my house and walk alone to the truck to grab my dinner. Not because it’s a scary neighborhood or anything–it’s not. But, everything was so completely unfamiliar and I was hyper aware that if anything went wrong, there was zero safety net–no friends or family nearby to call if I accidentally locked myself out of my house or something silly like that. If I got hit by a car, who would feed my dog? I remember putting on my big black coat and walking to the truck in gorgeous, golden, late afternoon sunlight–and I remember feeling like my coat made me look out of place. It seems that Midwesterners don’t wear coats unless they absolutely have to and I hadn’t really adapted to that lifestyle yet. (I still probably wear a coat more often then y’all do but if I’m never really one of you, I suppose that’s fine by me. I’d rather be warm and cozy than a true Hoosier.) So, I walked to the food truck, leaves crunching beneath my boots, finally having the sort of autumnal moment I’d really been deprived of all season. Bravas were still slinging burgers from the truck parked on Farfield Avenue. I secured my big, brown paper bag and trudged home to unpack my spoils.
My very first taste of Bravas included my very first taste of the famed Caramel Apple Burger. I didn’t know then, but I know now that this burger basically has a cult following in Fort Wayne: and for good reason. (Recently, someone brilliant even went so far as to do a mock-up design for a Caramel Apple Burger Cult T-shirt and I am shooketh by the utter creativity and talent!) The first time I tried it–alone at my newly assembled dining room table–it was the food that made me feel like moving to Indiana wasn’t a completely fucking stupid idea and everything was going to be okay. It didn’t make me feel at home. It couldn’t. It was new, exciting–completely foreign and different. (Apples on a burger? That’s not something you see every day. Caramel on a burger? How bizarre, how bizarre.) But it did make me feel happy, and that’s a lot…happiness doesn’t come easily to everyone. I texted my mom just to tell her how much I liked the burger because I really liked the burger. It was one of those life changing bites; a transformative taste. I won’t lie to you: I’ve considered leaving Fort Wayne more than once since moving here–but the Caramel Apple Burger is the kind of thing that makes me want to stay because, even if it didn’t taste like home the first time I tried it, it kind of tastes like home now. Doesn’t it? It kind of does.
I wish the Caramel Apple Burger wasn’t a seasonal menu item. But I also understand why it’s maybe best for it to be this way. Maybe it’s for my own good. If I could have this burger any day of the year that I craved it, I’d value it less. It wouldn’t grow in my estimation, it would shrink. Hedonic adaptation would set in and I’d find faults–though the burger is frankly flawless–but we nitpick when we grow weary of something from overexposure. It’s better to miss it, to long for it, to crave it all year long than it would be to take it for granted if it was always around. Take the infamous PSL for example: do I want to drink one in July? Yes. I crave it all year round. But, if I drank it all year round–for more of the 365 days of the year than not–I’d get sick of it and probably find myself yearning for something else…maybe a lavender cold brew. With that said, we as a culture keep stretching pumpkin spice season and granting easy access to the beverage just a little bit longer each year. Bravas seems to have taken note, as they recently announced that the Caramel Apple Burger will be available until the end of the year. Babies, that means from late September through December we can nom down on this dreamy beefcake of a smashburger. Bravas, this genuinely might be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. (Even though it wasn’t done specifically for me–just take the damn compliment.) Genuinely, I expect this to have a positive impact on the collective mental health of Fort Wayne.
But what is it about the Caramel Apple Burger that has endeared the Fort Wayne community to this masterpiece on a bun? Why are we so tightly locked in its sticky-sweet stranglehold? How can this simple smashburger have such a vice grip on our taste buds, garner such rave reactions, demand such undivided attention, and spark witticism about forming cults–not to mention subsequent fan art depicting robed worshippers of the perfectly gooey sticky-salty-sweet burger? It can’t just be that it’s good–all Bravas burgers are good. The Peanut Butter Burger is on the menu year round; we love it. Yet, as far as I’m aware, nobody is joking about forming a religion for the simple sake of worshipping this burger. (Selling a kidney for some spare cash to buy more PB Burgers? Maybe. But a whole religion? I think not.) There’s something exceptional about the Caramel Apple Burger that calls to us, like an autumnal siren song. I think there’s magic and whimsy sandwiched between the plain white bun of this burger. Yes, hidden amongst the paper-thin slices of pickled Ambrosia Orchard apple, the cartoonishly curled-and-crispy Ossian bacon, the stop-the-world-and-melt-with-you white cheddar, the shmashed-and-shmooshed-to-shmershmection Wood Farms burger patty, and the oozy-pooling-puddling salted caramel sauce, there is magic. There’s all sorts of magic in this world, but I’m not talking about the occultist kind, or any sort of sorcery, or witchcraft. I’m talking about simple kitchen magic: basic ingredients coming together to form more than the sum of their parts. I’m talking about the magic of a bright mind. Once upon a time someone dreamed this burger into reality. With ingenuity, imagination, a little luck, and a lot of skill–nothingness was seasoned, simmered, and serendipitously sculpted into something. The Caramel Apple Burger was born. I’m talking about the most powerful magic of all–yes, you dingus, I mean love. Because we do love it–don’t we? We’re ecstatic when it arrives like clockwork each fall. We hate to see it leave at season’s end. We carve out time and make plans so that we can enjoy it as much as possible while it’s here. When it’s gone again, we think of it often and remember it fondly–for it leaves us with only happy memories.
Charles Bukowski once wrote, “Love is a dog from hell.” He was wrong about that. He was wrong about a lot of things. Because love is no dog at all. Love is a Caramel Apple Burger. It comes to us when the sun begins to shrink away, leaving our days growing darker by the minute. As leaves die and fall to the ground, the Caramel Apple Burger whispers to us, “Don’t you dare.” It drips its thick, gooey, salty-sweet caramel on our tongues to remind us that life is sweet. It awakens our taste buds with pretty-pink, tart, sour-sweet mouthfuls of pickled apple to remind us that we are still alive. We hold it in our hands–an intimate action, whether you’ve realized it before or not–until it hugs us from the inside with its cozy blankets of white cheddar cheese. Selflessly, it will carry us through the changing season into darker days. A psychopomp in burger form. A caramel-covered spirit guide. Sweet, apple-smothered company for the long journey ahead: winter. If that’s not love, what is? Love is no dog from hell. If love is a dog at all, it’s a loyal one who walks beside you with no leash, never disappoints, and always comes back to you when you need it most–keeping you warm as the nights get chillier and the leaves start to fall, then the snow. Love is a Caramel Apple Burger from Bravas.
Plonk & Pleasure 
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