I’ve occasionally been asked why a lot of the food news and reviews I feature are “West-coast” oriented.

That would be because I live in California - home of the 42 billion dollar debt. Oh, and the Governator.

However. Just to show you I’m willling to give a shout out to companies east of the Rockies, I’d like to tell you about the Free Country Potatoes Day at Hardees tomorrow (Friday February 20, 2009). Yep, no purchase necessary apparently. You just walk in and they give you a free order of country potatoes.

Yes, I know we do have their sister chain Carl’s Junior in my neck of the woods. However, they aren’t serving up the free goods as far as I know. But I would, in fact, be willing to make a road trip to visit Hardees for the free potatoes. I’ve been known to do crageee things like that. (If eating potted meat from the dollar store doesn’t qualify as crageee, I don’t know what does.)

However, it appears that the nearest Hardees is 1063 miles away. In Casper, Wyoming, to be exact. I googlemapped it, and it’s a bit of a far drive even for crageee ol’ me. About 16 hours 27 minutes if I drove it straight.

So, I’m going to sit this one out. But I’d like to hear how the free potato event goes if you happen to have a Hardees near you.