302. “The ‘50s never die.”

The Impossible Burger at Mel's

I have read, with mild interest, about the search for a better veggie hamburger substitute. As with most things this trendy, much of this development is taking place locally. While I think the effort (time and money) could probably be better spent. And while I would be more interested if it was the search for a better BBQ ribs replacement. I wouldn’t object to a veggie burger that tasted more like the burgers of my youth. One of the candidates, in this competition is the “Impossible Burger” which I just ate at Mel’s Kitchen.

Mel’s is a famous local diner chain, it was featured in the movie "American Graffiti" -- still the best film George Lucas has made, in my opinion. One of their locations here, on Van Ness, has undergone an upscale transformation at the request of their landlord, a hotel also undergoing an upscale transformation. Instead of being a “diner” it is now a “kitchen.” There are still photos on the walls of "American Graffiti" and of the ‘50s in general, and there are some at-table jukebox controllers scattered about, but the actual music being played is not of the period. This would seem to be the decorative equivalent of façadism. But, then again, ‘50s music is problematic, so I’m not really complaining.

At any rate, I read in the paper that they were offering the Impossible Burger, so I took advantage of the opportunity to try one. It certainly isn’t the worst veggie burger I’ve ever ordered, though it’s close to the most expensive at $16. Without fries! Surprisingly, I would describe it as having the consistency of an uncooked hamburger patty. It tastes fine, but it does make me wonder what exactly they were aiming at. It is served at Mel’s with sliced pickles, a pesto sauce, and the usual lettuce and tomato. The bun was good but didn’t really add much to the experience.

While eating, I was thinking back on the outstanding burgers of my youth, starting in the ‘50s with White Castle. There the thing you recall is the bun, not the patty. My early ‘60s favorite was from Harvey’s on Colfax in Denver. There the primary taste ingredient was the secret sauce. I don’t recall much about either the bun or the patty. My final, late ‘60s favorite was from Whataburger, and I can’t recall anything specific about that one. So, at least for me, the bun and the sauce was more important than the actual burger patty. If I were interested in this search for the perfect veggie burger, I would ignore the patty entirely -- well, I’ve had Garden Burgers that were seasoned and tasted much better, so I would look into that. But I would just play with the bun and sauce and other toppings. A little avocado tends to make everything a little better. And even then, the only reason to even include the patty is to add some protein to the delicious mix. A “patty” of baked or sauteed tofu would work just as well if it had all the rest going for it.

Grease: Sundown Cinema

Last Friday I had to fill in for someone at the last minute. This was for a small event in our other big city park, McLaren Park. This was the first time I've been on foot in that park, but it was quite nice. This was for a public showing of the movie "Grease" -- which I realized I had never seen. There were only a few hundred people in attendance, probably because the weather has been cold and overcast, though it was surprisingly pleasant that evening. There were several food and drink vendors and a large security force, for some reason. The sing-along and dance-along aspect of the event would probably have worked better with a larger crowd.

I only caught a few scenes from the film, not my cup of tea. What I did like was the mostly ‘50s music that preceded the film. The DJ was a young woman with a box of LPs. She did a great job selecting music to play, there was very little I knew, but everything sounded of the period. If I had a tape of what she played, I would listen to it again. Which is a surprise considering my normal aversion to music from that decade.

The event was pretty boring for us as there was hardly any trash to sort. We were all done by 10:30pm though we were scheduled to work longer.

TMM and STC and "enki"

I’m caught up with my TMM blogging, I’ve done what my book club is reading this month (I cleverly specified the end of "Snow," rather than the end of chapter 6, so that we will focus on the philosophical debate and not get sidetracked by poor Joachim. I think they are regretting letting me be the “guide” for this book). I need to go over what I’ve blogged again, but I’m quite happy with it. I’ve linked material from all three of my active blogs. Everything is tying together nicely. And it occurred to me the other day that this will almost certainly be my last reading of TMM. Fortunately, there are one or two other things I still need to read.

On my recent Staycation trip to exotic Emeryville, I picked up yet another stylistically stunning design magazine from the UK, “enki” by name. Since I’m not quite ready to jump back into Genji, I’ve been amusing myself with “enki.” Mostly I love the typefaces and the overall graphic style of the mag. There is at least one instance of a room painted entirely in a dark gray, so popular in UK magazines and so very tempting to me. I’ve pretty much decided to go with the bright white look when I next paint my place, but whenever I see a photo of a room like this I fall in lust again. I just don’t think it would work in such a small space. I don’t actually plan to paint for nine years, so I have time to change my mind a few thousand times.

The most interesting house in this (September 2018) issue of “enki” is a modernist houseboat in Haarlem. It checks all the boxes, sustainable, modernist, climate-change resistant. It looks better on the outside than on the inside, which is nothing special, but I don’t understand why houses like this aren’t everywhere. Or at least everywhere there’s flowing water. Too big for me, of course. And I still have yet to see a multi-family floating project. I hope the Netherlands leads the way with this as the USA almost certainly wont.

There’s been exciting local news about the STC, our new multi-billion dollar bus station. Someone noticed that two of the steel beams, that hold up the part of the structure where I was catching the NL bus to Oakland two weekends ago, are cracked. The entire facility has been shut down and the buses returned to the Temporary Terminal. The beams must have been right above my head as I waited to catch the bus. I can’t wait to see how they shore it up while inspecting and repairing/replacing the beams. Seems like you would need a temporary beam that runs the width of the building and out over the street below, and then three-story posts to hold that beam in place. But how would you maneuver such a beam into place? (Instead they've opened holes in the bus level deck so the support posts run directly down to the street.)

There’s already a huge amount of litigation concerning the nearby residential tower that is sinking and tilting, and now we will get another layer of litigation to determine who is responsible for this SNAFU. And we lose the use of our lovely new park until the structural part of this problem is resolved.