Tony Carillo: My early experiences with all-you-can-eat buffet restaurants were plagued by lingering questions. Did I overdo it with the first plate? Should I have avoided rice altogether? Am I a quitter for having only one dessert plate?

I never left feeling like I had made the most of it. I was constantly scrutinizing my buffet strategy; that is, until I realized the power of food combination experimentation.

It is a practice that began at home one day when the only thing in the house I had to eat was one egg and some plain pasta. I fried up the egg over-easy, plopped it down on the pasta and let the yolk act as a poor-man’s pasta sauce. It was amazing. It was also eye opening. I realized I had been allowing myself to be restricted by food rules made up by someone hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Why couldn’t I have a baked potato artfully drizzled with sweet and sour sauce? Couldn’t lasagna be a side to my hamburger? Who says you can’t wrap a hotdog in a slice of pizza? This is America!

The buffet was the perfect venue for my food trials. After only a few visits I had invented Cheesy Brownies, Tuna Hamwiches and Pizza-chicken Soup. I also took the time to officially verify what everyone already suspected: that everything is better with bacon. My buffet experience became so much more enjoyable after changing the goal from eating as much food as possible to creating the next corndog. Every visit became a challenge.

One morning, I found myself alone at a buffet near the repair shop where my car was getting a new something-or-other installed. It was on my mind that there hadn’t been a significant breakfast breakthrough since the Toaster Strudel, and I was determined to be productive with my time in the “lab.”

I was on my way to the pancake section, thinking about an idea involving syrup and cola, when an old man sitting at a table with his wife flagged me down. I stopped and the man said, “Clear this away, will you?” pointing at a pile of dirty plates.

This was not the first time an old man had mistaken me for a busboy in a restaurant. I looked around and noticed most of the busboys were young Hispanic males like myself. I was wearing a black t-shirt, and they had black polos, which was close enough for this old man.

I saw a sudden realization spreading across his wife’s face. “Conrad!” she stammered. Before she could say anything more, I started collecting the plates, and asked if there was anything I could bring them.

“A lemonade would be great,” said Conrad. “Anything for you, Dear?”

His wife shook her head with wide-eyed confusion.

I headed off to the drink station to get a glass of lemonade. Then I stopped by the condiment station, stirred a spoonful of table salt into the lemonade and left the drink with Conrad. Then I set back to work on my breakfast, filling waffle nooks with various meats.

After about a half-hour, I stopped by to check on Conrad. “There you are!” he said. “This lemonade is terrible! I think it’s gone bad.” The glass was almost empty. I apologized and got him a new glass. This time I stirred in a good amount of maple syrup, which I had already determined was not a good mixture.

Another twenty minutes passed and I was feeling a little dejected. I knew the restaurant would be switching from breakfast to lunch soon, and all I had come up with was an orange and toast combo that wasn’t very good. I decided to go see if Conrad needed anything else.

“You’re not getting a tip, you know,” he said. “This lemonade was also terrible, but since you disappeared, I had to drink the whole thing.” I apologized again, and asked if I could do anything to make it up to him. “I see they are switching to lunch. Get me one of those tamales they just brought out. You should be able to get that right,” he chuckled.

Suddenly, I had an epiphany. “Conrad, I could kiss you!” I shouted. He looked terrified.

I turned and ran to the Mexican food station. I grabbed a few tamales and tortillas, and then dashed over to where the egg chef was cleaning up. I begged him to cook me one more egg over-easy. He hesitated, so I slammed a five-dollar bill on the counter. “How about now?”

I took my Mexican food and my five-dollar egg back to my table. I unwrapped a tamale and laid it gently down on a tortilla. Then I placed the egg on the tamale. I spread a little salsa over them, sprinkled some bacon bits left over from a previous experiment, and proceeded to carefully wrap the whole concoction together in the tortilla, burrito-style.

After one bite I knew I had something special here. After two, I knew I had a new favorite breakfast.

Combining the Spanish word for egg (huevo) with tamale and burrito, I named my innovation The Huetamito.

Conrad never got his tamale, but through his sacrifice, the world received a great breakfast gift. Whenever I enjoy a hot Huetamito I take a moment to thank Conrad and his lemonade.