Here's How Chef Ali Khan Celebrated His Vaccination

Spring Baking Championship host Ali Khan first ate chocolate mousse in 1985, and as he once wrote in Texas Highways, he can still remember "that perfect balance of rich flavor and silky texture." He's a big fan of dark truffle chocolate cake. His child calls pie a "lunch dessert." And he's dying to try Mexican sweet breads from Bowie Bakery in El Paso.

Make no mistake: Ali Khan has a sweet tooth. But he didn't eat cake to celebrate his COVID-19 vaccine. The Food Network personality, who told St. Louis Post Dispatch that getting to host Spring Baking Championship was "the NFL, baby," had ample cause to celebrate getting vaccinated. It's the first real step towards normalcy for him and his show. "I can tell you personally these times have made me shift my content," he told TV Insider. "I started in this world food writing; I'd go to this restaurant and that for content. Come 2020, that crashed to a halt. I turned to my phone." Filming was another challenge. In Rancho Palos Verdes, California, Spring Baking Championship's producers set up "a quarantine bubble," where participants were "kept sequestered" and hardly removed their face masks, according to St. Louis Post Dispatch. So, of course, Ali Khan indulged when he got vaccinated.  Not to do so would have been unthinkable. 

"A few weeks ago I was fortunate to receive my second dose of the Moderna vaccine," Ali Khan told his followers via tweet in late March 2021. "Totally treated myself to a big fat burger afterwards [sic]. It was my adult version of a lollipop at the doctor's office." When a news network followed up with Khan, he reported that he had a sore arm after getting the vaccine which "went away after a day and a half," and that he "felt a little tired [on the] second day and went to bed early" (via Twitter).

But back to the burger. We're not sure where Ali Khan ordered his vaccine celebration burger from, but we can take an educated guess. When the self-proclaimed "food whisperer" lived in California, he used to drive between LA and San Francisco. On those commutes, he'd stop at Kettleman City's In-N-Out (via Texas Highways). Khan's since been caught on Instagram chowing down on In-N-Out burgers with his son to cure "holidays leftover burnout." If not In-N-Out perhaps Khan went for a burger from one of his favorite restaurants in Austin Texas, Launderette. The chef told Foodsided that he's a fan.