My family has a tradition every year. This has been going on since before I was born. Still goes on now.

We have for our big Christmas Eve dinner. We have white castles. No, you don't. That is our Christmas dinner. This has been going on for 40 plus years.

It is not Christmas and my family unless we have white castles. Wow. What do you have on Christmas Day then?

Just recovering? Left over white castles. I'd like you to meet Emily O'Mara. I'm a software consultant for Oracle Consulting Services.

Okay, so that sounds important and impressive, but Emily, I just want to know what I want to talk with you about today.

It's something that I love and I think that you love and it's the cheeseburger. Yes, sir.

Cheeseburgers? Yeah. What happens when I say the word cheeseburger? Does your pulse race? Yes, I get very hungry. I start having fantasies. Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger.

Can you describe that fantasy? Close your eyes if you must.

See, big, greasy, gooey cheese, fresh bread, good fries. That is very important. Often overlooked. I like a greasy seasoned meat. The greasier the better.

Oh, that's greasy.

O'Mara is 38 years old, married for eight years. Her husband works in retail. She was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky.

She went to Warren Wilson College in North Carolina and eventually returned to Louisville. Are you in Louisville, as we speak? Yep, downtown.

Does Louisville have some special connection with the cheeseburger? Yeah, depending on which urban legend you want to believe, the cheeseburger was invented in Louisville Kentucky.

No, no, no, defunct restaurant called Kaylons. You're kidding.

And I'm talking about the cheeseburger, meaning not the hamburger that honor belongs to Athens, Texas or maybe New Haven, Connecticut or maybe somewhere else. These things can be hard to verify. In any case, Louisville didn't invent the hamburger.

Louisville put the cheese on the hamburger, although that too may have first happened elsewhere, maybe in Pasadena, California. Anyway, Louisville has a long cheeseburger tradition and a vibrant cheeseburger scene.

O'Mara is a part of it. Like a lot of people, I love cheeseburgers and French fries. And like a lot of people, I love to argue about which place in town has the best cheeseburger and French fries.

And then I realize that I don't know what the best cheeseburger and fries are because I just go to the same places over and over again. And all my friends and family go to the same places over and over again.

So we think it's the best because it's our favorite. It's it's familiar to us.

I realize O'Mara is only talking about cheeseburgers here, but if you inspect that moment of self-realization of hers that we consider something the best primarily because it's what we're familiar with, it's what we're comfortable with, well, isn't that how a lot of us come to conclusions about a lot of things, about our political ideas or religious ideas, about art, about the kind of people we think are okay and those who aren't.

And I realized how do I know who's got the best burger and fries. You know, most of these places in town who offer burgers and fries, I had never even been there. I'd never even heard of some of them.

So she worked up a plan.

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