Saturday, July 11, 2015

A Gourmand’s Delight--Pangaea in North Bennington, VT

A chance comment from an acquaintance led me to happen upon Pangaea's in North Bennington. I had mentioned our quest to find the best local burger establishment and he asked if I had tried Pangaea. I told him that I didn't associate this very fine dining restaurant with a burger joint, but he explained that there is a lounge area that is quietly becoming known for its burgers. So, why not? Well, it is as close to a gourmet's delight as one may find in this quarter of the world, as the total on our burger assessment chart attests. Pangaea sky-rockets to number one with a score of 114 out of a possible 120, knocking The Bog into second place by half a french fry.


Pangaea
Juiciness10
Size Matters9
Sides10
Price8
Char-ability9
Meat Type10
Hand-ability10
As Ordered9
Server Issues10
Taste10
Ambiance10
Parking Lot9
114



A city can be schizophrenic, a drunken walk down the middle of a street at night, lamp lights blazing a hazy way home after a tipsy sample here and there. You try to maintain the dignity of a middle route, but try as you might, you clumsily wobble your way this way, leaning to leeward but then overcompensate and careening to windward. What I mean to illustrate, is that a city is one way toward the hill, the encampment of the doers and shakers, the makers and mighty king-makers and another way down the path to the hovels of the lower casts, the poverty stricken and the bean-pickers. The have’s; and the have nots, to say it in fewer words.


Yet a town, a small town--really, only a village--can magnify this schizophrenia, and where the city’s ailment is expected and some even might say enjoyably quaint, the village experience can leave one perplexed, and stunned to the point of stupefaction. And yet, this need not be an unpleasant experience.


Thus was the visit to North Bennington, VT, home of Bennington College, famed for its independent, liberal streak, its writerly and artistically inclined folk--Shirley Jackson comes to mind--but is also as down-home Vermont as one might imagine. The folks there are plain folk, honest as people sometimes are, hard-working and home-spun. The contrast is unmistakeable, palpable.

On a burger quest we had not factored in this schizophrenia; burgers, we thought, were found in the wild, in the bush, so to speak. We had not imagined a gourmet’s delight, a heaven’s fount of burgers, made of angel wings, with halos as buns, soft as clouds, where a waitress is more maitre'd or wine steward (except with ground beef).

Yet. We stood facing Pangaea, which really ended up being twin receptacles of a union of opposing qualities: the right side contained a more embellished--garnished, one might say--restaurant than one usually finds in a small Vermont town; while the left side looked suspiciously like a, well, bar, though it was noted above the door that it was instead a “lounge.”

We slid our business cards under the door and awaited some announcement. None was forthwith. My companion rapped thricely, and anon we made our appearance within the threshold. The lighting was dimmed and a pleasant young woman greeted us with a smile and said something which neither companion nor I could quite manage to decipher. Seeing our perplexed expressions, this young lady repeated herself and then I finally understood that she had spoken to us in French! “Ah, mais oui!” I said, reverting back to my youthful days during the Provence summers--it seems it is just like riding a bike.

We followed her to a table by the windows where we could observe the comings and goings of the quaint townsfolk that might appear--though they didn’t. Still. She expeditiously produced the menus -- we informed her of our quest for burgers and that a menu for our purposes was pointless -- and ‘she introduced herself as Julie. This was pronounced Jool-ee.  Companion--as he later informed me--felt Julie’s expression changed noticeably on the mention of a “burger.” I personally did not notice this. Still, she led us to believe that the hamburgers --she nearly choked on the word-- would be better described as  “la viande de vache hachée.” OK, we said. That’ll work.

Julie gave us a moment to reconsider our food choice, and suggested we begin with drinks. “Two beers,” we uttered, apparently in a tone fit for farm life and menial labor, for we noticed that our waitress was at the same time exasperated and startled by our taste for common brewskies. “But,” she mewed, “of what vintage, of what…” Here she seemed to struggle with the common tongue, as English seemed not her native language. “Ah,” she continued, “terroir! Of what ees zee necessary terroir?”

“Terwhat?” Companion was perplexed. “Just give us whatever you think best,” he said, finally realizing that this was the road less likely to cause major mishaps along the way to culinary absolution. She seemed quite pleased with the solution, nodding in our general direction as if to complement our good sense.

A moment later she appeared along with two pilsner glasses, one accompanied by a bottle of Altesino Brunello di Montalcino Montosoli di Hoppi, 2007. The other, setting it down before companion, she informed us was a singularly de-hoppified 2015 Budweiser. She mentioned that Companion did not appear to be the type to enjoy a finely crafted brew. And of course, she was correct.


Now, although Julie seemed immensely well-informed on all matters gastronomic, we stuck to our guns and ordered two plates of burgers and fries. “But,” she begged to inform us, “we do not have just burgers. We have... selections. You must...select.”  

The menu contained what appeared to be hamburgers but as we did not have a working knowledge of French, we were at a loss. Pointing at random, we made our selection, hoping the hamburger gods rained fortune down upon us. As Julie smiled, we thought ourselves quite the gourmands, and pretended to an expertise and familiarity that, truthfully, was quite beyond us.

After some minutes of scintillating conversation concerning the respective bowel habits of deer and bear (Companion has been known to partake of hunting trips up north), our waitress reappeared, presenting two plates of the most mouth-watering examples of beef--sorry, boeuf-- I have ever sampled. It was shown to us as if to kings sitting on thrones among a parley of nations. The meat, cooked to perfection, glistened dew-like, lightly salted, sitting on a garden bed of onion and lettuce with mushrooms flowing in a sauce of...oh, of some chef’s secret divising.

It tasted as if the French language could be lassoed and penned, then ground to a pulpy deliciousness, and mingled with an ancient vintage of Bordeaux aged in charred oak barrels. The burger--Julie coached us--should be sniffed first, allowing the aroma of the organic grasses which the cow had previously fed upon, to waft its way into our gullets. Then, satisfied with the smells of Provence and the Languedoc lingering upon the palate, we were instructed to bite a small bit of the burger shifting it from one side to the other, thus coating the palate with what Julie noted should be "Un repas de la gastronomique bonné et de la finalité!”

“Sure is!” we said. “Magnifique,” Companion chirped in.

“Now,” she fairly shouted, “spit it out!”

Not accustomed to spitting out our food, especially such delicious burgers such as we currently had within our very grasp, but not wanting to disappoint our waitress/drill sergeant, we did as we were told.

She said that all trained eaters --those in the know, the au courant, those apprized and educated as to what it means to...eat-- knew enough to sample the taste of something well-prepared, as one samples a work of art with the eyes, or a piece of music with the ears. “One does not insert a Picasso into one’s stomach,” she said.

“Certainly not!”I said. “Certainly not,” said Companion.

We took another small bite, moaned a bit, and spit it out onto our plates. Satisfied with her charges, she made a quick exit as other patrons were beginning to file into the restaurant.

As we were left to our own devices, we then made a mad dash to eat, and to our heart’s content. With every new bite, we became ever more enraptured, ever more passionate with our boeuf, our frites--which I must say were as croustillant mais aussi doux que le bas du dos de la femme.

What did that mean? I have no idea. I cannot say but only that Companion and myself became enraptured with French with every new bite of boeuf and frites so that by the end of our repast we were speaking in a language that, if Hugo or Flaubert were seated with us, they would have been perfectly at ease.

“La viande est particulièrement bien choisi, je pense, pas vous? Oh, oui, mais si les frites étaient moins parfait, il aurait tout gâché. Pourtant, nous ne devons pas nous inquiéter. La perfection est notre allocation.”

Ah oui. Notre nuit a duré aussi longtemps que la nuit doit. Mais maintenant, nous devons aller. La lune est pleine, l'estomac tellement. Bonne nuit, et toi, juste bien.

Julie, nous vous remercions. Nos vies notre plein-remplis maintenant!

Ah oui.
Ah oui!

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Kevin's and The Lottery in North Bennington, VT

Our first selection on our hamburger quest was Kevin's in North Bennington. The astute reader will puzzle him/herself regarding the lateness of our review, but it is due merely to the dull acumen of this author, who found himself pondering inexplicably on how precisely to frame the critique so as to best prepare new patrons of that establishment for what we found to be a superior dining experience (regarding hamburgers only, it needs to be noted, as we did not sample other delicacies, such as the odd fritatta or burrito--very odd indeed since Kevin's does not serve Mexican dishes to my knowledge, anyway).

After visiting Kevin's, we thought our quest a very short one, indeed. Kevin's, as I have noted before, was our first stop and we thought it so superior, of such high quality, that we questioned whether we could ever find another tavern to surpass it. (The loyal follower of this blog will have noted by now that we did indeed find another eatery that even surpassed Kevin's.)

Appended below, you will find our ratings. Kevin's achieved a very respectable 104.5 score, with both our burgers showing a high-caliber juiciness, taste and size (we gave Kevin's a nine on the size meter--it would have achieved a perfect ten but since this was our first stop on the quest we thought it best to give some room for a perfectibility that we in fact never saw surpassed). This reviewer has remarked that Kevin's locale is the same as in the famous short story by Shirley Jackson (who lived in North Bennington), The Lottery, which he assumes the reader is familiar with. Hopes, at any rate. The full story is found below the ratings queue below.

Juiciness10
Size Matters9
Sides9
Price9
Char-ability8
Meat Type8
Hand-ability9
As Ordered*10
Server Issues9
Taste9.5
Ambiance**8
Parking Lot***6
104.5



The Lottery @Kevin’s in No. Bennington, VT

The evening of April 27th was clear and moonlit, with the fresh coolness of a full-spring day; the flowers
were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. That is, they would be if it were but a month from now. Today’s blooms were still dozing in this half-frozen Vermont landscape. The villagers had been gathering for some time now around the village square, large piles of what appeared to be stones had been built up into little mountains by the boys nearby Kevins, a small pub and restaurant right on the main street.

Companion and I had set out for this establishment on hearing of its excellent fare and thinking we might settle for a burger and fries --as they had an excellent reputation for same-- we worked our way in through the crowd which seemed to have its epicenter on the eatery. The people seemed quite pleasant and asked if we were here especially for the lottery. “No, not at all. Just the burgers.” They laughed and let us know that some others had beaten us to it. A man, introduced to us as Old Man Warner, shook his head sadly, muttering only that things twernt what they used to be.

A few boys ran through, jostling as they went, and the bar keep, a Mr Dickie Delacroix, yelled after them to behave as better befits a sacred holiday such as it was--”and put those down!” He yelled, as the boys were seen stuffing their pockets from the corner pile.

It looked like we had a long wait, but two gentlemen--Steve Adams and Mr Graves--rose suddenly from their seats proffering to us their roosting place. “You new to town? Not for the Lottery?” Mr Graves wanted to know. Companion said that the only lottery he was after was to pick the best burger in the tri-state area. This received a smirk from Mr Adams, and a guffaw from Mr Graves, who moved on over to the mountain in the corner, which grew ever higher as we sat waiting for the table to be cleared and our order--already on our minds-- taken.

We didn’t have to wait overlong, as our waitress, a middle-aged woman with rosy cheeks, came and settled the area and began to orate on the specials for the evening. “Tut, tut,” companion let fly, “we have decided on the order; indeed we had decided weeks ago!” And with that we summarized our plan for discovering the greatest example of a burger anywhere (within the tri-state area, that is) . “Well, if my name ain’t Tessie Hutchinson! Hey, Dickie! These gents are here to review your burgers!”

After that we were transformed into minor celebrities. Numerous folk rose to greet us and shake our hands. Mr Summers, Bobby Martin, and Henry Jones, and his brother Bobby, all came up and made us feel quite at home. “Here for the Lottery?” they all seemed to want to know. “ “Just the burgers,” companion let on. And another laugh. Old Man Warner, who appeared to be as old as the ramshackle black antique box sitting on the bar, again could be heard to mutter, “Pack of crazy fools--I hear up north they be thinking of giving up the lottery. Ain’t what it used to be, sure to tell.”

Kevin’s was a small establishment, divided into a pub on the north side and an eatery on the south. We had seated ourselves in the area of liquid refreshments as they had several closely arranged tables there for pub fare. All total, restaurant, pub and kitchen, were not as long as a stone’s throw from end to end.

But as companion and myself have often found out, closeness within an eating house often brings surprisingly positive results in terms of flavorful concoctions as well as seasoned friendships. Here we had been bombarded with handshakes and hello’s and how-are-you’s. The place was a welcoming one, and the people seemed a  gregarious and affectionate sort.

Tessie soon brought out our burgers, large whelps of meat, heaped high as boulders! And lying next to them heaved a bed of fries that seemed more numerous than the gravel on the drive outside. Companion and I reached for the catsup at the same time and as we did so simultaneously squirted such a fountain of tomato-y goodness that it splattered all over and down our plates to the fries below. Ah, goodness!

The burger fit the reputation of the place, a rock-solid emblem of flavorful character that mirrored the villagers in their own standing in the town as men and women ranking high in station, honor, and rectitude.

After we smoothed down our hair and faces, now a bit tussled with burger-juice and catsup, looking as if we had been in a fight from dawn to dusk, we finished our meal in near silence, enjoying every bite, hardly pausing to comment on its savory goodness. And just as Tessie had delivered to us our bill, Mr Summers, in front of the bar, raised himself high on a three-legged stool and picking up the old black box, paused to show it to everyone’s satisfaction.

“Now, you know what this day means. Guess we better get started, get this over with, so's we can go
back to work. Anybody ain't here?" No one said anything, so he began the process, pulling slips--they appeared to be duplicate bills of fare from the day’s business--and read the names off methodically, one by one.

"Allen." Mr. Summers said. "Anderson.... Bentham."

He moved on through the alphabet until he came to the middle, as he paused rather dramatically. He turned the slip over showing a dark grease spot. “I can’t read this name,” he shouted. Tessie came over and read it to him, then turning in our direction, she then whispered into his ear.

Mr Summers stepped down off the stool and walked over to our table. “What is your name, sir?” he inquired, rather ceremoniously I thought for we had been introduced not long before. “All right, fellows.” Then he again lifted the bill high over everyone’s heads in order for them to better inspect the ticket.

“Who’s got it? Who is it?” we could hear people whispering throughout the crowd. “Is it Tessie? Did Bobby Martin get it?”

“All right, folks,” Mr Summers said. “Let’s finish quickly. Night’s almost here.”

The villagers made for the pile that had grown so high in the corner. After a bit, companion and I were in the center of a circle of townsfolk holding those stone-like objects. If we hadn’t been weighed down by the recent meal we might have high-tailed it out of there for such was the look of terror on the faces of those surrounding us.

But what we had taken as terror was in fact a look of some grudging resentment toward us, for we had apparently stumbled on a windfall of an entire year’s worth of burger and fries--or at least I had, for companion hadn’t paid a tuppence on the bill and so wasn’t even in the drawing. But the look of jealousy quickly gave way to acceptance as the townsfolk gnawed on the “stones” (which were in fact chocolate chip cookies as tender and moist as any I have ever sampled--do I need to openly declare the thoughts that had recently run through my brain?) with a wave of delicious satisfaction coming over each and every one of them--myself included as I raced to pocket a dozen or more.

You could have knocked me down with a feather.

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Foggy Notion, or The Life and Notable Adventure of our Knight-errant in New York.

[Foggy Notions, otherwise known as The Bog, has become our current leader on the burger meter, scoring an impressive 112 points (out of a possible 120). Leading the way were perfect scores in Juiciness, Sides, Meat Type, Handability, As Ordered, and Taste. We were going to give it a 9 for taste, just to give room for improvability, but that seemed such a remote possibility we are going to allow for the ten. As for Sides, companion had fries which were crisp, though companion did allow for some room for even more crispiness, and my own selection of onion rings were perfection, even allowing for the possibility that there could have been a larger quantity. I suppose one could always have more of a good thing, especially with companion's constant pilfering.]

...and now for our more detailed review: readers take note that this pushes the envelope.

Foggy Notion, or The Life and Notable Adventure of our Knight-errant in New York.

In a certain corner of New York, the exact name of which I choose not to recall--but oh yes, in Cambridge, NY, a city whose stature, if it were a person, would stand less than the average height of a green grocer, not that a grocer is necessarily short in stature but certainly, at least in this authors experience, less than that of a tavern owner--there came one evening, for the sun had dipped below the horizon some minutes before, a man of some ingenuity, if by ingenuity one means distracted to the point of lunacy.

It was this man that accompanied me--truly he bade me follow as a squire follows his knight, fully laboring under the weight of spare armor and carrying the saddlebags of sustenance that are necessary on trips far and wide, which knights are generally supposed to perform.

It was after many years of acquaintance with this personage, a man I would dub tranquil and sedate at most times (troublesome at his worst but that was seldom) and a man of some entertainment, not to be undervalued in that quarter, that I became most accustomed to his sometime variant tactics, for he would at times jump up off his seat to further some adventure. This normally would be an imagined jousting or swordplay; often it would be merely acting as governor of some island kingdom. And so, when he took me under his wing on this particular evening, it was not so unusual that I was led to believe that anything untoward would effect itself.

Now in this particular corner of the world there are sometimes occasion to fortify oneself in any of several inns that pockmark these tracts of lands, farmlands mostly, though a stone’s throw from any place you might find yourself standing will hit the broadside of some enterprising sort. Such is the picture of this occupied territory, energetic...yet not overly so.

My friend, after a days labor which left him huffing and puffing so that I thought he might have been taken hold of the consumption--or at least a very common cold--and after I had harangued for quite a long time concerning the unavailability of such foodstuffs that might be called sustaining and fortifying, I say my friend agreed that he too was in such a state of hunger that he might faint dead away if there were not found some ready nourishment at hand.

Just as my friend made use of these words, garbled though they were by much weakness occasioned by his famished state, he and I heard the cry of a thousand giants, or at least that was the thought which occurred within my friend’s addled brain. I do allow that the sound was quite deafening, a full-mouthed roar that Jove himself may have unleashed upon some poor shepherd in an Athenian meadow. But turning my head I spied what indeed was only just nearby, twelve or so bikers wearing skullcaps and black leather suits, and loudly accelerating their motors so that if it had thundered directly above our heads we would not have been made aware of it.

Still, fortune smiled upon us, for the bikes had been driven into the lot of a nearby inn, of the name Foggy Notions. At least to me it seemed an inn, a place of burgers and fries and ale, since within the windows I could see the lights advertising such fare.

Alas, to my friend’s addled mind the establishment was seen as a castle, and the bikers were but knights charging within. He made some mention of siege warfare and waiting thirty days or so till the castle surrenders itself, but as I made plain to him, we did not have one day to wait, much less thirty.

He agreed to charge the castle and take it, making use of my own strong right arm, of course, as well as his; and any and all within would soon be his prisoner. I averred that there still might be found a burger within, if we hurried.

And hurry we did. At the entrance, we were greeted by a maid (my friend thought her a maid, though I tended to the opinion that she was more likely someone’s grandmother) who thankfully did not seem to pay any attention to my friend’s protestations and accusations. When he stated--and quite forthrightly so I must say--that any and all within this castle (for such he still believed despite the barman’s presence and the families taking their leave of dinner, and the several televisions showing what must have been the latest Yankees vs Red Sox encounter), that any and all would be his very own vassals, she merely nodded, saying to him, “I’m thinkin’ I’ll have some of what he just had.”

Though I expected my friend to be joyous at his apparent victory, and the taking of a castle with nary a bruise or scratch, much less the severing of one’s more delicate parts which anyone will tell you is quite possible when attacking castles, is quite a good and fortunate thing. But though Lady Fortune seemed to smile brightly on my friend, he took a deep long sigh and seemed as doleful a knight as any that anyone might have imagined at that particular instant.

“I know what will cheer you up,” I said. “A burger and fries!”

“And ale?”

“And ale as well, of course!”

And our maid, or grandmother, as the case may be, soon brought our order to us, and not a moment too soon, as the Knight of the Doleful Countenance (as so I re-named him) was just about to attack the television set which he mistook for the one eye’d relative of Cyclops.

The burger seemed a potion of the order of the Balsam of Fierbras, which my knight friend explained could cure a man even after being cut in half on the battlefield, as long as the nurse was of sufficient beauty and continually said the Pater Noster while performing her necessary duties as nurse and surgeon. For he quite perked up and I thought even began to make some sense of the place when he looked up, finished chewing his burger, and stated quite emphatically, “I say, this is the best burger I have ever eaten and if that isn’t true then I am not the bravest knight in Christendom!”

I did heartily agree, for my own burger had found its way into my stomach so fast that one might have thought chewing to be optional. And the fries were, it should be noted, quite equal to the burger: crispy and cradled in oil--not overmuch--and salted just so that it made one wish for another ale...and there! One readily appeared.

Our blessing should have ended there, with a successful battle and castle taken, and a grandmother rescued to boot, as well a meal to match, but for another bout of madness on the part of my friend, who immediately after quaffing his drink, took umbrage at some leather-cropped biker making unchivalrous comments at the baseball game, which my friend again insisted was Cyclops’ brother-in-law.

I will not make a longer story out of one that already seems an epic even not including the details of the scuffle which ensued...other than to say that there were so many punches thrown (though seldom landed) that even I in my saner moments thought that perhaps Cyclops himself had found his way to come to the aid of his long-lost family member. Tables were tossed, and the air held such a quantity of dust and debris that I thought it opportune to hightail it out of there, and dragging my friend to his feet we somehow did manage to escape. But the Knight of the Doleful Countenance could not just leave the way he had come. A knight, after storming a castle, apparently leaves with some amount of booty, at least a horse that might match his own grace and stalwartness. And that is how we found ourselves riding off, he on a black steed, whose braided mane was whipped by the wind, and myself, riding a rather pink-ish bike that must have been that of a lady friend of the gentleman our good knight had punched in the face just as we made our exit.
But no matter. We had found our adventure, as well some awfully good burgers and fries. And as my faith abounds in the security that nature’s changing course affirms constancy in shifting sands, and that knights of doleful countenance must by now represent  some ill-bade fortune indeed, I can assert that though things be high or low, reasonable or foggy,  a good burger can make a bad day much better.


Juiciness10
Size Matters10
Sides8
Price9
Char-ability9
Meat Type10
Hand-ability10
As Ordered*10
Server Issues8
Taste10
Ambiance**9
Parking Lot***9

Sunday, April 26, 2015

MOK (Man of Kent)

Our quest for the perfect burger finds us in Hoosick, NY, at a pub named Man of Kent (MOK to the locals).


[Score: 94. Currently this puts MOK in second to last position, however this should only serve to educate the reader on the limitations of our scoring tabulation. The MOK scored low on Server, Price, and Parking lot. The burger itself was superb, and would have found itself floating to the top tier except for our having to wait for over two hours to eat (not strictly our server's fault but simply the nature of the establishment)--it is extremely popular and the hungry observer should find his/her way there only on off-peak hours...NEVER on a Friday or Saturday night which was the unfortunate timing of our reviewers. The price of the burgers was elevated, the highest of our participating restaurants, but the selection was also the greatest. And there was technically a parking lot, yet due again to the extreme popularity of the MOK it is simply overwhelmed by the following which is due a restaurant of the MOK's reputation: it draws from far and wide.]



The evening began with a certain joyful expectation, encouraged by the distant sound of a gleeful sort of gathering within what appeared to be a slightly magnified dollhouse, the words, “Man of Kent,” emblazoned next to the visage of an Englishman donning the garb of a foxhunt.

But companion and I couldn't just pop over; we were cut off by a defensive line of bulky Wranglers and Escapades and a Ranger with a rusty top. We had pulled off the road to access the line of scrimmage. It appeared too testy, a bit “argy-bargy,” and so we went down the road, turned about, and came back to see if there might now be an opening for us. There was. Like a halfback through his blockers we found our way through the threshold...only to be met by a queue as long as a Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica. We were approached by a MOK waitress with the words...mebbe half an hour.

Oh, were that only half as true as the gab tossed about the bar in what turned out to be a two hour test of wills between management (The Gaffers) and our as yet untested pack of flankers (The Tosspots).

We mauled a bit within the rugby scrum.

We set our mark. Made a move left; a right. A bit of a dodge. But the MOK were tested; they were firm and experienced. This wasn't to be an easy match--no not on either side. What we lacked in experience and manpower, we more than made up for with persistence and an uncanny sense of idiocy. We’d no burger in a donkey’s years. Two hours of sidling, and shifting. Two hours of the MOK mocking us with a, “Dun jus’ stan’ there lookin’ Gobsmacked!--Fancy a pint?;” and a “Innit a fine night, chums!” Chaps, we were buggered.

Just as we was about to “throw a wobbly” (companion can be a bit tetchy), a table cleared. But others sat down. Two at the bar disappeared only to be replaced by the backs at the openside of the pitch. We tried to catch the eye of the ginger tending bar. She looked back at us like we was only muppets who lost their way.
But would my companion--Nay! My blood brother on the Rugby Pitch, my Grubber of the Grail Grill!--and meself fail to score even a pint, er point? Even a drop goal? Sure to say, we nearly gave up hope for a try in the endzone, even a Chip Kick (look it up), but we weren’t leaving without at least a’kickin’ ‘em in the shins. And hard too!

After a bit more of shilly-an-shallyin’ we made our final push all sixes and sevens and there! On the far side of the pitch a table for two and we made certain we would not be moved by a scrum of outrageous proportions, even if the guv’na himself ordered our bums be put out out of doors.

We chatted up some patrons. The place is a tad wonky and everyone seemed on the skint side of life, still...Me and my mate were as happy as a dog with two tails.

We ordered. We e’t.
Blimey, the chips were heaven-sent, the ale a native’s cradle-to-grave National Health System--and that aren't codswallop! And the burger...Oh, as Bob’s my Uncle, the burger! We wafted, we wefted, we wended our way toward the end zone of our peculiar possession: Ours was the win; ours the triumph! If there was a burger to out-burger this of MOK celebrity, I have not met it. It was as savory as me mam’s Thai Green Curry (me mam, she hates English cooking!)

MOK? We fought. We drank. But Oh, at the last, this night two blokes walked away as
winners in a match well-fought, spot on, and proper! Cheers!


Juiciness9
Size Matters8
Sides9
Price7
Char-ability8
Meat Type9
Hand-ability9
As Ordered9
Server Issues                      ZERO
Taste10
Ambiance10
Parking Lot6

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Quality Assessment for the Burger Assay Test, Rensselaer County NY and Bennington County VT

For some time now, I and a friend of mine (hereafter referred to as "companion"), have made the effort to discover la mejor hamburguesa de la zona. La zona in our case is pretty much Rensselaer County in NY and the Bennington, VT area. We attempted to grade an establishment as well as the entree using an arbitrary scoring of 1 through 10, 10 being la mejor. The categories graded included the following:
Juiciness, Size, Sides, Price, Char-ability, Meat Type, Hand-ability, As Ordered, Server Issues, Taste, Ambiance and Parking Lot. Therefore there is the possibility of achieving a perfect score of 120. Some details need noting:
  • If the burger is labeled as 1/2 lb we assess the relative weight comparing said burger to a variety of objects, comparing for weight, ie a bottle of Pale Ale, and or a ketchup bottle whichever happens to be at hand. Usually Pale Ale.
  • A burger joint is allowably inelegant. Points will be added for alcoholic stills present in the front or rear. A burger joint's kissing cousin is the barbecue; barbecues including pig roasts will bias the reviewer to the tradesman's benefit.
  • Nota Bene: Due to the possibility of compromise and a server's possible prejudice against those of a metrosexual nature (within the burger business these "Fancies" are sometimes given the boot), the reviewer and his faithful companion have gone to some length to appear as common and indeed slovenly as possible. The term is, I believe, "lumbersexual." We are confident that we are as close to the actual denizens of the area as is deemed prudent.
The actual grading system is recorded under a spreadsheet titled, "Quality Assessment for the Burger Assay Test, Rensselaer County NY and Bennington County VT" but since this is far too large for an easy viewing within this blog I will reduce it to an average score for each establishment. It should be understood though, that a burger joint does not receive additional points for cleanliness, elegance, or general posh-ness. Rather the opposite is true. One expects a burger joint to be somewhat "at ease," disorderly, and if sawdust or some such is found on the floor, well, one might expect one's interest to be piqued. An ideal burger, one can assume, is to be found in a secluded camp with a distillery out the back porch, serving a burger large enough for two hands, delivered as ordered (medium rare for myself, rare-plus for companion) with a side of deliciousness, by a comely, agreeable waitress...and cheaply...oh, and being serenaded by a blue-grass band.

Though we never quite fit all the above within one meal we did come pretty close. Among the establishments we have visited thus far are the following: Man of Kent (Hoosick); Kevin's Sports Pub (North Bennington); Foggy Notions, otherwise known to locals as The Bog (Cambridge); Potter's Tavern (Brunswick); Brunswick Barbecue (Brunswick); The River Street Pub (Troy). We will be adding others as we discover them.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Cinderella and Life...a la Derrida and Hegel?

Cinderella, a tale of redemption. Or: Cinderella, a tale of redemption? [The Audacity of Cinderella, by Rebecca Reynolds, 4/15/2015 via The Rabbit Room at www.rabbitroom.com]

Dear Ms Reynolds,
You ask why it is that we find the story of Cinderella hither and yon. You speculate that perhaps it is because people everywhere need this story to lift them out of the cinders of their life. Might I also speculate? My theory is that, as with most of the Grimm tales (all?), we are given a myth, a story overladen with layers of meaning reaching into ancient times, ancient religions, and that as myths tend to do, they reach across cultural divides and poke at something quite in common, and that they are an expression of peoples everywhere. Myth comes from some touchstone to human existence that might crop up from the fertile crescent, the Indus valley, and the Nile...one could throw in the Mississippi and Yangtze as well.

You write: "Somewhere along the way, our worlds grew dim, we got discouraged, and we forgot how much the fairy tale meant." You say that you had grown cynical, but this seems to have picked your spirits up...because now you see--as you once did as a child--that a gracious good can come out of a good heart, and not be quashed by a cynical attitude.

I thought you might have put in an Amen in there somewhere.

You rake Hegel through the cinders (or at least his "fidgety spirit" but you graciously do allow that "quite a bit in Marx's time...needed critique.") and Derrida (for his dependable undependability and defying of narrative norms). But you seem overly concerned that deconstruction, with all its messy search for truth and all, leads to uncivil behavior. You show us what can happen when teenagers become obsessed with deconstructive intent: Grand Theft Auto! And worse: Shrek!

Though you might find that a predictable consequence, I personally do not. I wonder if these uncivilized behaviors are not in fact modeled on a hopelessness that comes from deep within a quite uncivilized society, a society that prizes power over fairness, a society that rewards unethical behavior (as long as it results in a billionaire's salary), a society that no longer sees justice for all, but does imprison--or shoots--the mentally ill (because, after all, they're sick). A society that allows health care to be a source of profit for corporations.

So I see Grand Theft Auto as a result not of the tearing down of walls through Derrida, Marx, and Hegel, but rather a failure by society to use the tools of Derrida, Marx, and Hegel. Is not Power and the lust for power--which they would examine and re-examine--at the root of this rising evil? And were not these the very men of genius that would/could save us from that lust of power? I think so.

Your pure narrative, I have to say, is not so pure. The telling of the story Cinderella is not pure, simply because you want it told as you first heard it as a child. The tale is one of ancient myth, full of soundings of fertility cults, of the Demeter/Persephone sort. It is also full of the truth of our everyday existence: and this existence is chock-full of death and life, of evil and good, of trickery and grace. It is a messy thing, life. A narrative that misses this untidy portion of life by portraying it as a simple tale is not a ray of light; it mistakes nostalgia for truth, it casts false shadows because it fears to see life as it really is.

I have not seen the movie, though I do intend to one day. Viewing it, I will still hope that the director will deconstruct the tale in order to reveal truth (something that all true artists do). I will still hope the voices of Derrida and Hegel whisper into his ear. I will hope that you, Ms. Reynolds, just got this whole thing wrong and that you were merely seeing through glass-slipper eyes.