jhlurie

Chad You mean it's not true?

In this post Fat Guy shows what the receipt is supposed to look like. In MY Burger King it's not that they can't do this, it's just that they probably didn't know how to properly use their POS system. Why? Because they so rarely get the request.

You are right Pete--I'm sure now I initially said the wrong thing (I haven't been to, or thought about, a BK in many months). Although they "got" what I meant before they rang me up, so I'd still expect to have seen it on the receipt. It's likely just a quirk of the staff in that BK. Really, it DID seem like I got it "fresh". Well as "fresh" as BK is capable of. As for the idea of them using this for the Whopper, that assumes that they are completely fabricating the fact that this is supposedly better and more expensive meat. I'm pretty sure, even tasting through the steak sauce, that it is... although certainly it's not a night and day difference here. It's somewhat better meat, not great meat. I happen to like Steak Sauce in general, and on hamburger (even "chopped steak") I might use a small amount. On an "intact" steak, almost never. The problem is... they don't give you an option. It's tons of steak sauce, with no option for "a little" or "none".

Geez. That explanation hadn't even occured to me. Lucy mentions ghosts and curses. I was thinking maybe zombies, aliens or robots (all of those "Stepford Wives" ads are getting to me). But neck marks... that makes me think. Of course the mystery then is why he showed up in the photo in the first place. Maybe Anne Rice is more accurate than Bram Stoker.

So I hobbled into my local BK and had an "Angus Steakburger" for lunch. Because I'm one of those smart eGulleteers "in the know" I hedged my bets and ordered it "off the grill". The staff looked confused for a moment but then finally got my point. It came a bit quicker than I'd expected, but I'm still reasonably sure it didn't sit in a warming tray, because two people behind me in the line who also ordered Angus Burgers--but NOT "off the grill"--got their food while I waited. A grand total of about 4 minutes. NOTE TO LOCAL BK: start inputting "off the grill" into your cash registers the way many BKs do when I order, so as not to confuse me. I want it on my receipt as proof. Conclusions? At least if you avoid the horror of the warming tray... it's not bad. It's shaped a bit less evenly than BKs normal burgers (probably just to give the illusion of being hand-made... but we know it's not). It DOES taste noticeably better, so while the term "Angus" IS a bit of a scam... it may actually be better meat. At least a little. It was $3.79 for a third of a pound burger, without being "meal-ized", so it's not cheap. But it's also not super expensive. It's got grilled onions on it. One thing I'd bet ANY amount of money is that even if the burger itself was fresh off the grill, because I asked for that, I'm sure the grilled onions weren't. They weren't bad, but yes... they did come from a little container in the prep area. One thing which is debatable (and makes the comparison to a regular BK burger incomplete) is that by default it comes smothered in steak sauce. Now it wasn't BAD steak sauce, but it was a bit more than you or I would probably use at home. The real test? One of us (maybe me, next visit) has to order it "off the grill" AND ask for it without the steak sauce. So... you know... we can really taste the meat. Of course, as Holly Moore suggests at the head of this topic, a steak-sauceless option may be flat out impossible. You may get an even stranger look from the BK staff than I did when I asked for "off the grill". The roll was decent, but not that different than the norm--which is surprising considering the elaborate rolls BK has come up with for some of their recent sandwiches. The Angus, in fact, is being heavily hyped as an Atkins option--the "lettuce wrapped" option is being highly promoted. The Angus Steakburger also had an option including cheese and bacon, in addition to the default onions, but I didn't really see the point. If the meat is supposed to be that much better, the cheese and bacon would just obscure that. Okay... maybe at some point I'll try the bacon WITHOUT the cheese. I mean, I'm apparently already stuck with the steak sauce Final thought: If you somehow have to be at BK, it's worth a shot. Is it still probably a bit of a scam? Sure. Despite that, is the burger better? Well, maybe. If you like steak sauce.

Apparently the Atkins diet is over for Cookie, because he just won Carnegie Deli's sixth annual pickle eating contest. Actually, apparently this is Cookie's second recent victory. A few days ago he also qualified for the big Nathan's National Championship Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4, with a hot dog eating victory last Sunday in Boston. Another up and coming American hope is East Village local Crazy Legs Conti.

Lucy Vanel isn't quite sure, but she's willing to entertain the possibility... Is Lucy seeing ghosts? Shadows? + + + The Immortal Butcher of St. Nizier by Lucy Vanel Thursday, May 20, 2004 "DON'T JUST shoot at things, or landscapes, because people are what make photographs interesting," my mother once said when we were on a road trip to Alabama. I was pressing the lens up against the car window and taking pictures of the landscape streaking by alongside the highway with my Brownie camera. Not long ago, I was rooting through an antique bookshop near Ampère Victor Hugo, and I ran across a series of photographs from the year 1930 in Lyon. Having lived here for a couple of years at the time, I knew the scenes, the churches, the landscapes. The great thing about them is that even though they are consecrated to monuments or famous landscapes, the photos inevitably contain all kinds of interesting people of the period in them. They are interesting souvenirs of not only the city, but of the culture. I immediately bought six of them for seven bucks apiece, and framed them. My favorite of these photos is entitled St. Nizier, named for the church. Eglise St. Nizier is framed by buildings on both sides in the foreground. All of the street activity in the street in front of the buildings is in focus. In addition to the silhouettes of several old women in black, is a cluster of three butchers, with their aprons tied over one shoulder. One has a bicycle, one gesturing grandly, they're talking, laughing about something. I've stared at that photo for long periods of time. We recently moved to our new neighborhood in the center of town. Although there are five butchers within a two-block periphery of our home, I chose my butcher because of the sparse reality of his operation, and frankly, the way he tied his apron. It reminded me of the photo. In passing, I observed that each night he would go through the same ritual of sanding down his block and he would empty the spare cuts he had displayed in the street case. He did not add fake grass, red-checkered backgrounds, or garnish his meats with parsley. He did not illuminate his display cases with lights made to falsely deepen the color of the meats. He wrapped nothing in plastic, he did two kinds of sausage, and one kind of terrine. For these reasons, I chose him. I would guess, looking from the butcher, that he is most likely in his 50s, possibly a young 60. His wife, who runs the register and takes special orders, is a fragile, waxen figure, with large strawberry-colored hair coiffed like cotton candy. She wears the same pink angora sweater every single day and it is never corrupted with a spatter of blood. The skin of both her hands and face is a perfect porcelain, almost too good to be true. She never handles the meats, he hands them over to her after he's wrapped them in waxed paper and then brown, and she writes what’s inside on the paper in a lilting hand with a sharpie. She is really a sight to behold. She looks like she's been transported from another time. I had been buying my meat from this butcher for a few months when I noticed something odd. It was his fresh and sanguine complexion, which struck me as a rather bizarre contrast to his flat eyes. Someone like me likes to look into a person's eyes once I become fond of them. But even after three months of transactions two or three times a week, his eyes had a strange aspect, a glint that's hard to hold in your gaze; a coppery, hot, flinty kind of look, flat, like pennies. Like a doll. Even though the shop was lit by dim fluorescents in the evenings and I was normally there well after dark, his pupils were always beady and tight, as if he was standing in a pool of bright light. He was always cheerful, and his wife always the same, like an aged Barbie, but with the creamiest, smoothest skin I'd ever seen in a lady that age. It all clicked when I went home one night, after having made a real attempt to look into this man's eyes when I picked up my order. I'd pushed myself to do it, but it was impossible to really meet his gaze, and that bothered me. I was getting dinner ready. I was thinking about this butcher and his flinty eyes, and I glanced up at the St. Nizier photo. The butchers were there joking on the street in front of the church, in their familiar triad. I wondered if it was a butcher kind of thing, beady eyes, and began to ponder the butchers I had known. I munched on a carrot and examined the photo more closely. Then it hit me. It was him. In the year 1930, my butcher was captured for all time in this now ancient photographic print. I took the photo off the wall for a better look. Same age, same clothes, same everything. It was him. It was frightening enough to get my blood pumping. I called my mother. "Oh hey, honey! I'm just getting ready to go play bridge." "Mama, have you got a minute? "Sure, what's up?" "It's the butcher," I gravely began, and hesitated, trying to figure out the best way to tell her. "You know, the man." "Sure, I remember." She'd been here to visit me not long before, and I had sent her over to pick up a sausage order just before Thanksgiving. This had been an interesting experience for her. "What about him?" "Yea. Well, he's in that photograph." I knew she wouldn't remember. "That photograph from 1930. The church. One of the butchers in that 1930 photo is my butcher, Mom. Do you understand?" "I'm sorry, honey?" she said, as if she hadn't heard me. "Are you sure?" she added, trying to piece together my tone of conviction with what I was saying. "We are now in the 21st century Mom. And I'm absolutely sure about this. Do you realize what this means? It means, if the butcher was, lets say, 60 in the photo, that would mean," I paused to do the numbers although I knew she was getting impatient. "What is this all about?" she asked, beginning to sound concerned. "Mom, that would mean -- that the man is over 130 years old." I don't know what I expected. Maybe some kind of "aha" or maybe even a command, an order, coming from my mother over the line, like: "Get yourself out of there!" Panic would have been good. Raw fear was certainly what I was feeling. The hairs on my neck were bristling at the thought of those flinty copper eyes being over 130 years old. My mom hummed the beginnings of a song, and I heard the closet door at home creaking as she thought about the prospect I was offering. "Lucy," she answered finally, pausing, "he's the son of a butcher. It's his father in the photograph. It's not really him." I looked out the window from my living room, as I held the receiver that connected to my mother, looking through time warped glass panes, into the square that was lit with a greenish eerie tinted light. "But, what if they're -- ghosts, or they are under some kind of spell?" Her explanation had made perfect sense, and my question was perfectly silly, we both knew that. But I couldn't stop myself. "Luce," she was losing patience. "Do you think that if this guy had the key to everlasting youth he would choose to be a butcher, for all time? I'm going to bridge now." She said with an air of finality. "Okay mom, what could I have been thinking?" "Its ok sweetheart, I'll talk to you later." After hanging up, I sat down and calculated. This would have to be his grandfather. The next day, I took another long look at the photograph, and went back for my cutlets. The butcher and his wife greeted me. I scanned the shop for evidence of generations past, but nothing in the shop looked old or new. I pointed to the veal and he took the meat from the case. He put his knife along the edge to verify the thickness I desired, and smiled when I nodded. "Oui, madame." He carefully weighed and expertly trimmed them with his razor sharp knife, with a smile on his face. The cutlets gently fell like soft dominoes and he trimmed the fat from each one. A perfect transaction, exactly as it had been two days before. He looked so happy, it was scary. I decided to take a photograph of the butcher, in kind of a tribute and a comparison. I asked permission. "I am writing an article about my neighborhood here in France and would love to have a photograph of you. Would that be possible?" At that moment, his wife nearly made me jump out of my skin by shrieking: "Non! Absolutely no photos!" I was taken aback and a bit frightened but of course did not protest, and left the shop in a hurry. As the days went by and I kept going back, I decided that it was going to be necessary to show him the photograph of his grandfather just to get some closure to this in my own mind. Although we saw each other almost daily, our relationship had cooled to a certain degree after his wife's outburst. I found myself trying to compensate for the rift. Sometimes I bought more meat than we needed, just to be a good customer and to get them smiling again. But they had changed, somehow. When I entered the shop, his wife especially took on a stiff tone. Now they rarely smiled. I knew she was embarrassed by the shrieking incident, and for that reason things were mildly uncomfortable for them. I regretted having asked to intrude too deeply into their world. At the same time, I didn't really worry too much. It was the butcher. They didn't have to be my best friends. One evening, near closing, when I knew the wife would not be there, I descended to the square and crossed to the butcher shop, where he was cleaning up for the night. I had the photograph tucked under my arm. I entered the shop, the door ringing the bell. "You're late, Madame, I'm closed for the night," he murmured, politely, but with a tinge of coolness to his voice. "I just want to show you something -- a photograph." "No more talk of photographs," he tersely set the broom aside and faced me. But then he saw that I had the framed photograph in my hands. "OK, let me see it," he said, as he looked past me into the street. The butcher took the frame in his hands and turned his back as he held it for a moment or two. "I wanted to ask, if that's your grandfather," I stuttered, "the resemblance is striking." But the butcher turned around again, and handed me the photo. "What was it that you wanted me to see?" I gestured at the group of butchers in the foreground, and said, "Look there, isn't that you?" "Absolutely not, Madame." "Then your father or grandfather?" "No, Madame, you have me mistaken for someone else. I am sorry Madame. Goodnight." He ushered me from the shop and I stood there sadly on the walk as he quickly slapped the shutters closed. I noticed it right away on the street in front of his shop and it scared me so badly it had me running as fast as I could back home. Once I was inside the front door of my building, I looked again at the photograph to be sure. My heart was nearly beating in my throat, and I had to fight myself from breaking into a run again around the corner of the stairs. I considered letting the entire frame slip down between the railings of the stairwell to be rid of it forever. Feeling weak, I fumbled frantically with my keys. By the dim light, I looked once more and saw that is was true. My butcher in the photo now had his back turned; I could not see his face. "Did you show the butcher that photograph?" my mother asked, the next time I called. "Yep," I responded, deep in thought. I was talking to her while at the same time noting a recipe in my book for the endives I had braising. I was going to wrap them in slices of ham purchased that morning. "It turned out not to be him." "He seems like a pretty good butcher." "Best butcher in the neighborhood, Mom." * * * Lucy Vanel ("bleudauvergne") has worked in commodities trade, consulting, and as a personal assistant to CEO level executives as a sideline to her passion for literature, food, and photography. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, and raised in Central New York, 8 of the last 10 years have found Lucy working and writing in different cities in Europe and Asia. She lives and works in Lyon, France.

Rocco is on Craig Kilborn's annoying show tonight. I'm betting the cancelation of his show won't be mentioned. Heck, I'll bet Rocco's as a whole won't even be mentioned.

could someone please translate/paraphrase for the spanish-challenged? Google's translator does a bit of a hash job, but you can probably still get the gist of the article from it.

Chad, there's a bucket-load of Habanero varieties, and the "heat" on them (as well as the other flavor "notes") vary quite widely. Our old buddy Jason, the same year he grew those almost unusable Savinas, also grew Chocolate Habaneros, and I recall thinking they were quite mild.

You aren't the guy dancing around in a beer bottle suit on that page, are you?

Yeah, it's a crying shame. I was having such fun making fun of the show in the weekly Hot Topics. It's odd though... I appreciated the show MUCH more this season than last. I mean it STILL wasn't really about how a restaurant actually works, but at least it wasn't a bunch of manufacturered Front-of-the-House drama. Then again, maybe that's what people want to see. Mark Burnett has a "similar" show coming on about the Golden Nugget Casino. It will be interesting to see how much of that show is about actual business and how much is about cocktail waitresses and croupiers making out in the coat check room.

You know, when you are done eating all of the goodies disucssed by Steve, you can always clean up with a selection from The Modern Moist Towelette Collecting Website. Dude, they take this stuff seriously. There's even a theme song.

Plus, the acronym for the Flaming Orange Gully--F.O.G.--was cool on it's own. Generations from now it will probably just be called The FOG, but we get our moment in the sun until then... But I don't think we should try too hard to shoehorn ol' Gully in there again. He's a tough guy to get into a drink name and have it sound natural.

The big problem is that their "Belgian Sugar-Free Chocolate" seems to use that Malitol crap. I mean... pig and chocolate together isn't necessarily gross (as I sit here contemplating a Molé Poblano Smothered Pork Chop).

Too hot to eat? No. Only too hot to eat by themselves. In a vat of chili or a big pot of curry, sure... you can enjoy them. Red Savinas are a bit harder to use. I know Jason had a hell of a time with them.

I'm in New Jersey (which they claim is technically part of the U.S. still), and that was my original question: how can they have them if they're illegal? The guy at the place said that they're imported from China. The regulations were apparently revised recently. There's more info in our famous Sichuan Peppercorn topic. Thai Bird Peppers have no law against them... but if you've ever gotten a bit of one in your eye you might consider the wisdom of supporting such a law.

We could just hang around and make fun of Bayless in general...

Well Bass is just a Pale Ale, isn't it? There are literally hundreds of those. Bass certainly isn't bad though... it's just "safe". Dos Equis XX is... I think... a Lager.

Okay, just the site of that damn bag is making me want some. My stock is slightly better than some of the stuff left in local markets, but it's still stale compared to what I had in restaurants a mere year or two ago. The price isn't THAT bad either, although that quantity probably used to be about a buck.

They are very very very very (very) hot. Probably hotter than anything Grand Sichuan uses.

Did you bring me back a cupcake?

Follow up question... Michael Jackson... good or evil? (for those not aware of beer matters, this is not the question you think it is)

Okay, I'll put you guys on the spot a bit. Are there any styles of beer which you totally can't stand? Bonus points if you specify the very worst example of this style and your reactions to it.

I've wondered... is he the same Sam Sifton who got totally raked over the coals writing a book about how wonderful and unchangeable the new "E-Economy" was, which came out right around the time that E-Economy crashed and burned?