SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Beginning this weekend, you can get a little literature with your burrito. Chipotle is putting short essays on its bags and cups - musing written by writers and thinkers that include Michael Lewis, Toni Morrison, George Saunders and Malcolm Gladwell. The series is headed by Jonathan Safran Foer, the author of the book "Eating Animals." He told Vanity Fair he'd like to create a small pocket of thoughtfulness right in the middle of the busy day.
If the program succeeds, I wonder if Chipotle would consider printing classic stories from great writers like the old man and the burrito.
He was an old man who ordered alone and who would go on 24 hours without a burrito. Yet his eyes were cheerful and undefeated. So he went down to the street where he saw the shop and then the great flat, white plane of the tortillas, the white puffs from the steam peaks of white rice, the dried blood-red of the pintos, the glisten of onions and the inky slick of black beans. The boy behind the counter saw the old man and asked, burrito or bowl? And the old man took a breath before answering.
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