By Katie Nolan

I have a dirty secret: I love fast food. I love everything about it. I love drive-thrus, I love the crinkle of the wrappers and, most of all, I love the taste. Taco Bell is my absolute favorite. I used to be addicted to their Mexican pizzas, but now I’m a fan of the quesarito. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept, it is a burrito rolled inside of a quesadilla. I also am addicted to KFC mashed potatoes and McDonalds’ chicken snack wraps.

My feelings about Chick-Fil-A deserve an article to themselves, and I could write sonnets to its annual peach milkshakes. Sitting in the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru only to realize it is Sunday constitutes a special and specific kind of disappointment for me. While I am a fan of the more “highbrow” forms of fast food, such as Qdoba, Panera and Chipotle, sometimes these places do not fit the bill for me. There are times when all I crave is artificial cheese and a 99 cent menu.

Back home in Louisville, Kentucky, fast food is a way of life. Yum Brands is headquartered in Louisville, Papa John used to live in my neighborhood and, yes, we do have a lot of KFCs. On moving to New York, I realized that my passion for fast food was not as socially acceptable as it was back home. There just are not as many fast food restaurants in the Northeast as there are back home, and people tend to give you funny looks if you start talking about how you want curly fries from Arby’s but want to also stop by Wendy’s and get a frosty for the curly fries. I have long tried to understand how fast food has not really caught on in the city. People are busy, fast food is great and I just don’t get it. These days, I have come to terms with the fact that people are just snobby about it. Eating fast food is seen as plebian, or just plain gross.

I’ve lived in New York for almost four years, and I love a lot of things about it, but the snobbery is one thing I absolutely hate. Saying you like fast food up here is akin to telling people you have a drug habit. Actually, it’s worse than having a drug habit, because at least a drug habit could be cool. There are only two Taco Bells in Manhattan. Instead, the borough is full of artisanal food trucks that make their own fries seasoned with truffle oil. Manhattan is the only place where a restaurant that specializes in comfort food like mac-and-cheese requires a reservation. I don’t want a gourmet, gastronomical spin on a hamburger; sometimes I just want a Big Mac. I don’t see what is wrong with that.

Yes, fast food can be gross if you think about it too much, and it is obviously not good for you, but I sometimes crave food that cannot be gentrified. For everyone that doesn’t understand this, more waffle fries for me.