In the wake of America’s love-hate relationship with the petrol pump, one fictional character has the intrepid spirit to take the steps of leadership that pandering politicians dare not consider. On Thursday, June 26, Jack, CEO of west coast fast food chain Jack in the Box, staged the restaurant’s first ever Two Free Tacos Day. Rather than gloss over the greater issue of America’s fiduciary failings, Jack chose to confront cash-strapped countrymen with a double dose of camaraderie.

Achieving what years of obnoxious phone company marketing could never have hoped to attain, this 99 cent holiday for the people puts the state of our lives into immediate perspective: Sure, gas may hit five dollars a gallon by the Fourth of July, but as long as we can buy two tacos for a dollar, do we really have any right to complain? Instead of making poorly guided attempts to deflate the truth, we may as well embrace- or at least characteristically disregard- our addiction to hyper-consuming lifestyles that well surpass the limits of reason and decency. If we’re lucky, history will seize the Jack in the Box taco for use as a cultural insignia, a glistening trophy of America’s incongruous accomplishments.

An explanation for those who are unfamiliar with this post-national flagship of fast food inventions: The Jack in the Box taco, a menu item as old as the restaurant itself, is a cross-cultural synthesis with the power to define a demographic (according to Jack in the Box, that demographic is men age 18-34). Its assembly requires factory workers to unite the organic with the industrial, deftly weaving fresh ground corn and near-fresh ground beef with seitan, soy, MSG, and all other kinds of wonders of the modern age. The result is a product that may contain within it the combined culinary character of our civilization.

The fact that this is the most shameless of gringo tacos stands in full reflection of its kaleidoscopic temperament. Cooked fresh then flash frozen, deep fried then adorned with cheap hamburger trimmings, the Jack in the Box taco is a sapphire of a socioeconomic metaphor. The corn tortilla says, “This land is your land.” The slice of American cheese, peeking out of the shell like a stars and stripes bumper sticker, says, “Resistance is futile. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own.” As we live off the hopes and dreams of immigrants while blithely degrading their identities, Jack in the Box offers a border-crossing reconstitution of culture that everyone can love- or at least, for one night, one that everyone can afford.

When the realities of resource management are fully brought to bear on America, it will become clear that the automobile’s time as an icon has come to an end. This is a good thing. Perhaps being forced to walk to Jack in the Box for the next pair of deep fried tacos will help the populace appreciate the genuine gifts this great country of ours has to offer.

On the morning of June 11, Federal Express dropped a large package on my doormat. It consisted of two wholesale boxes of Big Dipper Ice Cream Cones, bonded, sealed and shipped from Memphis less than twenty four hours prior.

The name on the return address was Matt Allen, the man I’ve been proud to call my boss since the day I responded to a Craigslist posting by a company named Ice Cream Man. Aside from being the most genuine and caring employer I’ve ever dealt with (I suppose it goes with the territory of running a business based on giving away ice cream), Matt has managed to win my respect through his love for all things soul. That said, I fully expected that a box shipped overnight to me from Memphis and bearing his name would contain some form of greatness. In short: I was correct. At length…

…The first layer of the package was a t-shirt from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As Ice Cream Man’s outreach director, I had organized a free ice cream social for the patients and staff at St. Jude, so while this gift was not a surprise, it was certainly a welcome addition to my summer wardrobe. Beneath the shirt rested a bundle wrapped snugly in a blanket of packing foam. The bundle itself was mummified in plastic and packing tape, taking up more space than a bottle of wine. Two paper bags flanked the Hefty cocoon, allowing the lasts wisps of the dry ice they contained to vanish as I exposed them to the warm Southern California air. I tossed the packing foam aside and tore through the adhesive and the protective to reveal a simple white take-out bag. After all of the fussing and fighting, I beheld an image I had not seen in well over a year, the time that had passed since I had last seen the banks of the Mississippi.

The dancing pigs, hooves locked in noble celebration as they turn to the tune of their own delicious demise, are the trademark of The Bar-B-Q Shop, my favorite BBQ joint in Memphis. On the morning of June 11, 2008, courtesy of the most famous ice cream man in the world, they surrendered their sweet song to me, 1,775 miles from their home and moments from their destiny.

While I’m not a member of the purist camp of American BBQ, I cannot overstate the difference that authentic slow smoking makes when it comes to a rack of ribs. Even I had nearly forgotten the unmistakable scent of Southern BBQ by the time it began to waft from the oven door. White flakes of coagulated fat melted, sizzled and popped as they were awakened from suspension. The complex aroma of grease and smoke tenderly filled the kitchen, as if history were paying a curious visit to the faceless parlor of suburbia. I inhaled the sweet, subtle soul of the meat. Then, I prepared to eat.

The pleasure of eating Memphis ribs is a sensation that can only be levied by a master of the craft. A subtle smoky flavor permeates every morsel of every rib, from the crisp, crackly, crust to the tender, browned meat to the chewy bits of cartilage subjugated by smoke for the diner’s consumptive convenience. No blackened corner is left untouched, no portion of the rack left unblessed: If cooked properly, a rack of Memphis ribs is enjoyable down to the bone and even two bites beyond.

This is certainly the case with The Bar-B-Q Shop, made apparent by the fact that I unknowingly gnawed my way halfway through a rib bone before realizing I was eating the skeleton of a pig. If that pig could still move, I’m sure its Danse Macabre would be nothing less than an invitation back to midtown Memphis, where the spirits of Soulsville have yet to rest, and dancing pigs aren’t afraid to do the dog right along with them.

The Bar-B-Q Shop
901.272.1277
1782 Madison Ave
Memphis, TN 38104

“I used to live here.” In our fragmented world of third person omniscience, stranger words are rarely spoken with such abandon. Mobility has become one of life’s most imposing axioms, redefining community and putting home on an auction block of opportunity. With every move, we check another brief lifetime off of our to-be lists, making carbon footprints with half-lives shorter than the best of us would like to admit. Capital flies. Time flees. Memories remain in light.

I used to live here- here being Elmwood Ave, a quiet, tree lined street deep in the heart of one of Berkeley’s most family friendly neighborhoods. Of course, the first memories to surface when I step onto the corner of College and Ashby aren’t of people, or families. After all, my year in Elmwood was inhabited by a revolving door of house mates I only interacted with on a need-to-know basis- more specifically, when I needed to know why the malfunctioning internet connection was forcing me to sit in my car to freeride on our neighbors’ wireless networks.

What I do remember when I see my old street is my long walk to work and back home from campus. I remember the disappointing bus ride I would take down College on the mornings I had failed to wake up early enough to take that walk. I remember sitting in the back row of the Elmwood Rialto’s cozy-to-a-fault theater, wishing I were in an armchair at The Parkway. I remember the thrill of approaching the drive-thru mailbox at the Elmwood Post Office, only to realize after I had pulled up alongside it that I was too far away to drop my letter into the box and too close to open my door and step outside the vehicle. I remember the laugh of the bicyclist who snatched the envelope from my hands, slipped it into the box and rode off in glee.

I remember the scent of clay ovens I would catch when making a quick run across the way for naan and the pleasing adequacy of lukewarm chai that the host would offer me as I waited for my bread. I remember the tiny chocolates at the counter of AG Ferrari that I would buy after ten minutes of staring at wines, meats and imported goods that I had no reasonable excuse for taking home. I remember the trips to Gordo’s I would take after examining my wallet and my shelf in the pantry, then deciding I was too lazy to settle for real food. I remember the one meal I had at Trattoria La Siciliana, and how the excitement of having dinner with an old friend and wearing a new pair of particularly expensive trousers distracted me from ordering anything worthwhile.

Indulging in recollections of buildings and food, I step under the eaves of La Mediterranee. Like the offerings of many restaurants in Elmwood, the food here isn’t exactly incredible, until you consider the fact that this, too, is home. Families and college students amble up and down the sidewalk, a bustling scene of collapsible community, a collective soul that takes root at the intersections of life, paying no mind to the physics of being so long as a meal is on the table. I haven’t sat here for almost two years. While life is certainly going on all around me, I couldn’t tell it from the bowl of soup sitting on my table.

The mild, almost quaint flavor of La Mediterranee’s lemon chicken soup is a reminder of the things that stay while the rest of us move on. Not too much cream. Not too much citrus. Not too much pepper. Not too much chicken. Just enough of everything in a soup that’s almost meant to be taken for granted. I dip a morsel of pita into the broth, and for a minute or two, I am home.

The main course, a beautifully prepared set of phyllo savories served with a noticeably tart side of hummus and a few slices of fruit and cheese, arrives with a bit more fanfare. There are probably more notable dishes on the menu, but chicken cilicia is the only thing I have ever ordered here. This marvel of a meat pastry, which wraps chicken, garbanzo beans, almonds & raisins in the fragile folds of thin, crumbly, delectably layered and sugar dusted phyllo, must make someone very proud every time it reaches the table. The fact that I’m eating each roll with my bare hands can only add to its case, I’m sure.

By the time I stroll back towards my car, the sun is setting, and the marquee of the Elmwood Rialto is flashing its neon welcome to the denizens of Elmwood. A long line of dessert seekers wends its way out the doorway of Ici, adding a constantly fidgeting landmark to the landscape of College and Ashby. Crowds shuffle about the entrance of La Siciliana, eagerly awaiting their chance to sit at a candle lit dinner table of their very own. Inevitably, a few diners peel off of the waiting list and head for the more convenient settlement of a Gordo’s burrito.

If home really is nothing more than sharing the same space for a minute or two, then this must be the place.
I really used to live here, and I can barely believe it myself.

La Mediterranee
2936 College Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94705
510.540.7773

I don’t know exactly when I stopped caring about video games (save the occasional evening of Rock Band, Mario Party or the original Super Smash Bros), but I’m sure the time of death wasn’t far from the day I played my first German board game.

During my years as an undergrad at UC Berkeley, I developed a love for European games: Their traditional aesthetic and focus on personable, interactive play presented a welcome contrast to the increasingly immersive and disorienting feel of video games, and as a result I was drawn immediately to the local game store while my peers flocked to the next Playstation release. To be sure, video games carry with them a limitless potential for complexity, sophistication and interaction, but the tangible pleasures of plotting my next move in neatly carved wood and trading quips with my opponents across the gaming table will always be more compelling to me than participation in any kind of virtual world.

When the Examiner announced that he would be making a stop in Diamond Bar en route to his motherland of Indonesia, we decided it would be the perfect opportunity for a night of board gaming, the likes of which we hadn’t been able to enjoy since he moved to Washington, DC over a year ago. It would also be a perfect opportunity for him to introduce me to one of his favorite childhood snacks: the hagelslag sandwich, a staple sweet invented by the Dutch during the late 1930s and imported to Indonesia through the advent of Imperialism. We decided to celebrate the journey, the country and the saturated fats of the occasion by opening the Examiner’s copy of Indonesia and concocting our own rendition of chocolate sprinkles on white bread.

We decided to start with Taiwanese thick toast. The slightly rich, delightfully fluffy texture of the bread would make the perfect base for a dessert, while the thickness of the slices would prevent the sweeter ingredients from throwing the sandwich aesthetic out of balance. Without toasting the bread, The Examiner applied a generous layer of butter to one side, followed up with a moderate blanket of De Ruijter chocolate sprinkles, then sealed the sandwich with the other slice. Exhibiting a flair for elegance, he then cut the crust off of all sides and served the sandwich in bite sized cubes of luscious, buttery flavor.

Elegance is the key word for the hagelslag sandwich. Seemingly destined for the tea parties of the obscure, its combination of white bread, chocolate and pure butter allows our most essential instincts of taste to meld in a way that makes the pairing of peanut butter and jelly seem far fetched. The rich fusion of chocolate and butter resembles the simple pleasure of chocolate ice cream, while the varied texture of the sandwich tickles the roof of the mouth just once before melting together into a swirl of joy.

Being the red blooded American that I am, I decided that the next logical step of our Indonesian invasion would be making another sandwich, buttering it on the outside, and grilling it to a toasty golden brown. The flaky, feathery feeling of white bread fried in butter and the warm, half-melted mass of chocolate inside sent the texture score of the sandwich skyrocketing into regions of pleasure normally reserved for coke addicts. While the original chocolate sprinkle sandwich would make the perfect end to a nice meal, grilled hagelslag would surely make a colonial magistrate’s breakfast for anyone bold enough to deliver the goods. The next time I have friends over to carve out pieces of history through the magic of economically themed board games, I can think of no finer snack to accompany the proceedings.

“Hey, stranger.”

The words crept out in a whisper as the bedside lamp turned on. I laid the back of one hand against my eyelids and circled the other around her waist. I mumbled something about the A-Team, that being the only thought that came naturally to me at this point of the night.

She rolled off of the bed and stepped just outside of the light bulb’s 40 watt jurisdiction. My eyes were still closed, but I had a knack for identifying the edge of darkness at the time. I heard the clinking of glasses and the long, cool exhalation of the freezer. I felt the weight of a bottle in her arms as she slipped back into bed.

“I never bought you that drink,” she explained as she kissed me on the cheek.

“Never too late to come around,” I affirmed, sliding my fingers off of my eyes and wrapping them around one of the glasses. “To mercenaries,” I declared as I clumsily tapped the brim of mine against the side of hers.

“To civilization,” she corrected as she placed her hand over the top of my glass. “Give it a minute,” she warned with a giggle of embarrassment. “This is bourbon, not Jim Beam.”

“Howlin’ Mad Murdock would never approve,” I replied in defiance.

I clasped her hand in mine and took a sip. A 65% incantation of the holy Kentucky ghost shot straight to my nose, bringing a tear to my eye and evaporating straight off of my tongue before the crime could be traced. As the warmth spread through my chest, I coughed and kissed her gratefully on the lips. She swirled her glass in loving derision.

We lay there for a few lifetimes, listening to the two-step of ice cubes taunt a chorus of cicadas who had missed their nightcap.

She broke the soundtrack with a long sip. I completed the silence with my own. It began with a gentle, rounded nose that wasted no time in reaching up along the roof my mouth, brushing a gentle bitterness along the back my tongue without making too much of a fuss about opening the front door. Once inside, a sharp, oaky spice kicked the back of my throat, then tiptoed back to the front of my palate. The spice transformed into a slightly sour kiss, which met with the vanilla tinged sweetness radiating outward from the center of my tongue to complete the motion. She was right: This was not Jim Beam… but it would do.

A late summer breeze broke through the curtains. I say it was late, but there really was no deadline. We let our empty glasses fall to the floor and withdrew into the covers.

The Venetian is quite possibly the most ridiculous of Las Vegas’ super resorts. Featuring over 7,000 suites, 120,000 square feet of gambling space and a five acre pool deck, this larger than life paean to the City of Bridges turns history into opulence like an art-loving dictator. After we had parked beneath the superstructure of the miniature city, it took us almost half an hour to wend our way through a shopping mall, a casino, another shopping mall, and the main lobby of the Venetian Hotel. Once there, an elevator ride carried us up the final leg of the longest road to brunch I’ve ever taken.

Stowed into a spacious corner above the Venetian lobby, the illustrious Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bistro is worth the journey. After wading through a sea of poshlost’ posing as elegance, we stumbled into a restaurant that bathes comfortably in the true essence of the word. The atmosphere is refined and ornate enough to be classy, yet open and bustling enough to feel casual. Tables and booths bask in the sun, and the bar offers New Belgium 1554 on tap.

While I am a sworn brunch defender, I’ve become a bit skeptical of the brunch ritual: Overpriced eggs, the perennial lack of grits and the placebo-like worship of an idyllic atmosphere have been the foundation for too many late morning outings to convince me that I should pay more than $6 for anything short of incredible. Fortunately, our parting meal at Bouchon was incredible in all the right ways. This became clear when the first complimentary baguette was laid before us, dressed only with a white cloth napkin. I broke off a piece, adorned it with butter and apricot jam, and greeted the morning with the sweet, hypnotic crunch of perfectly toasted French bread, finally understanding firsthand what an old friend once told me about the joy of eating a fresh baguette with breakfast every morning during his tenure in the city of Lyon. Under other circumstances, I would have happily made a meal of these baguettes, but my appetite had been piqued and the menu was open.

We began with a dish of sugar and cinammon beignets. Delicately crisp and crumbly on the outside, ethereally weightless on the inside, Bouchon’s rendition of this brunch classic was as skillfully executed as its baguette. By hiding its mastery of textures and flavors in an innocently plain morsel of bread, it was as if Bouchon was deliberately highlighting the irony of its own existence behind the inflated facades of the Venetian. Likewise, the breakfast Americaine, complete with fresh squeezed orange juice, French pastry and pomme frites, made no effort to hide the fact that it was in fact nothing more than a well cooked breakfast. All of this grace still wasn’t enough to justify the platter’s $22 price tag, but for a fraction of that cost I did have a taste of its highlight: Bouchon’s country sausage, which was roasted to a level of flavor that dwarfed the peak of the Stratosphere.

My other selection was Bouchon’s bread pudding style French toast. Distinguished immediately by its artful construction, this dish selfishly robbed the rest of our entrees of their humble charms. Each rich, porous, buttery layer concealed near-melted slices of baked apple and thin blankets of custard, all married within a deep ribbon of sweet maple syrup and topped with impeccably shaped cuts of fresh apple and a dash of powdered sugar. Put romantically, it was an ivory tower of brioche peering over a land of indentured breakfast rolls. Of course, every tower of Babel must eventually fall, and I was happy to devour my elaborate edifice of a meal before its fragile folds could collapse of natural causes on my plate. If the Venezia Tower were made of brioche, I’d do the same for it as well.

There are many reasons why I could never live in Las Vegas. The staggering hubris of the Venetian is one of them. The warm weekend brunch at Bouchon is not. Nothing short of a robotic Michael Jackson will convince me to renegotiate these terms. Having affirmed this lesson in understatement, I said farewell to the bookhouse boys and drove off into the midday Nevada sun.

Bouchon Bistro
3355 Las Vegas Blvd. South
The Venetian Resort, Venezia Tower
Las Vegas, NV 89109
702.414.6200

PICARD: A lot has changed in three hundred years. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of “things”. We have eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We have grown out of our infancy.

RALPH: You’ve got it wrong. It’s never been about “possessions” - it’s about power.

PICARD: Power to do what?

The fact that Star Trek: The Experience, a testament to Gene Roddenberry’s most idealistic vision of humanity’s potential, stands in the epicenter of humanity’s most quintessentially defacing behavior makes it one of the more compelling curiosities of the Las Vegas Strip. Outside, Starfleet’s insignia, an elegant symbol of the human race’s ongoing quest for truth, knowledge and self-improvement, towers below the Hilton marquee. Inside, our technological and cultural development is elaborately recounted in a museum of future history, where television panels intermittently replay anthologies of Star Trek’s most ambitious imaginations of an evolved species. Guests are beamed into the 24th century, brought face to face with the Borg Queen, and reminded by Starfleet’s finest that each of us holds an opportunity to build a better future.

Shortly thereafter, a costumed employee delivers a pointed reminder to visit the Promenade for the best Star Trek merchandise this side of the Alpha Quadrant. There, two and a half gift shops are filled to the brink with the greatest collection of franchise merchandise I have ever convinced myself to buy. The irony of paying hard-earned money for exaggerated recreations of an unattained evolution is outclassed only by my warp speed consumption and the happiness that ensues. At the end of it all, we fork over a sum of $50 for each of us to take home a photograph of the bookhouse boys on the bridge of the USS Enterprise D, a decidedly material keepsake of the future we can only dream of realizing.

Despite our acute awareness of the fourth wall, the wondrous illusion of The Experience manages to maintain its structural integrity. That is, until we make our way to the recreation of Quark’s bar and Restaurant, Deep Space Nine’s marker for the idea that the economy of waste is indeed a constant of any universe. We are greeted by Rog’l, the spitting image of a Ferengi restaurateur, and left to muse over the hilariously, almost self-deprecatingly thematic menu choices. Three of Six, an uncharacteristically engaging and tourist friendly Borg drone, chats up a group of visitors at the bar, offering to pose for a photograph with his newfound friends.

We decide to break our fast with pints of intergalactic beer, all of which are quite refreshing, if a bit inoffensive. The Klingon Blood Draft, a washed out imitation of a German Märzen, goes down nicely but lacks the round, mellow body of the real thing. The amber hued Dominion Lager is clean and crisp, but similarly devoid of any memorable flavor or texture. The Romulan Ale, a beautiful glass of fanboy nectar, easily outshines both of its flanks, offering a perfectly accessible balance of floral hops, malty sweetness and green food coloring. By the time we finish our first glasses, lunch has arrived.

Sadly, it seems Rog’l has gotten the best of us (as any Ferengi should), passing off some of the most poorly replicated dishes in this sector as the homemade Federation favorites. Picard’s Pockets, a glorified cross of a Jack-in-the-Box pita and a New York gyro, manages to ramp up the arrangement of both while retaining the quality of neither. The French Dip sandwich, a curt nod to a 20th century Earth staple, sheds some light on the 20th century phrase, “I’m so hungry, I could eat at Arby’s!” The Petrokian Sausage Jambalaya, constituting its own personal insult to the honor of the Sisko family, successfully assembles all of the human race’s most historically popular meats in a joyless mess of synthesized satiation. The Class-H taco pizza, adorned with ground beef, lettuce, tomato and quacamole, actually isn’t half bad, but maybe that’s the Romulan at the table speaking up.

The biggest reality check at Quark’s Bar, however, is the Borg Sphere, a ten shot monstrosity of a novelty drink served in a steaming glass orb. Disillusioned by our lackluster meal, we place our order for assimilation, hoping that an absurdly gaudy daycap will rejuvenate our spirits. True to its namesake, the mechanically conceived, over-sweetened blend of cheap alcohol and synthetic mixers does nothing of the sort. It tastes like a combination of Sprite, your college roommate’s plastic jug of vodka, and a 25th century in which all the cultural nuances of Earth’s libations have been successfully downloaded and destroyed by the cybernetic mind of the Collective. As we drain the last drops of lifeless liquor from our orb, a Klingon warrior laughs and orders another round of blood wine for the wedding reception next door.

Hours later, we find ourselves once again sprawled across the hotel room, sipping on the finest bourbon I have ever tasted and throwing away another $11.99 so we can drunkenly criticize bad pornography with a real time example on the television. I look out the window and over the construction site of Las Vegas’ next citadel, a vice of ambition seeking its place among the desert stars. Tracing the outlines of scaffolding and spires, illuminated by the peripheral glow of the Strip and offset by the soundtrack of Super Naturals Vol. 5, I know that the evolution of humanity into a more noble species will not take place in my lifetime. While the mass production of tasteless, overpriced replicator-grade meals has already been perfected and grandiose feats of architectural oneupmanship can be brought to fruition with the wave of a contract, the experience of a civilization freed of primal needs and resolutely united under the banner of exploration is one that, for now, can only be realized in the throes of a weekend getaway.

RALPH: And then what will happen to us? There’s no trace of my money. My office is gone. What will I do? How will I live?

PICARD (amused): This is the twenty-fourth century. Those material needs no longer exist.

RALPH: Then what’s the challenge?

PICARD: To improve yourself… enrich yourself. Enjoy it, Mister Offenhouse.

I’ve been told that carpeting patterns in casinos are meant to be disorienting. Not only do the elaborately hideous murals lining the floors of Las Vegas make it harder to notice the stains of drinks tipped past, they guide the attention of casino guests away from any kind of aesthetic ruminations and straight to the clarity of the coin. It’s a fitting dynamic for the city of sin. One hand of Las Vegas shakes down your senses with an absurdly glorious mashup of amusement park sensibilities and unabashed sleaze. The other shakes down your wallet with the great lie of fortune. Somewhere between the motions, the American soul hitches a ride and hopes for a soft landing.

When I stepped out of the car in Vegas at high noon, I had another kind of sensory overload in mind. For months the bookhouse boys and I had been planning a sojourn to two of the city’s lesser known hallmarks, and our hotel reservations placed us within walking distance of the primary target: the best Thai restaurant in North America. Since every member of the crew was fatigued either from a four hour drive or a 5:00 am flight, we spent an hour sprawled across our hotel rooms before making a trek through paved desert winds to a stuccoed oasis of curried delight.

Tucked into a gargantuan plot of faceless asphalt in the northeast corner of the Vegas Strip area, Lotus of Siam has been attracting Thai food pilgrims for years. The calm that ensconces the nondescript strip mall building and the unassuming decor within provide a stark contrast to the unceasing, unblinking movement of Las Vegas Boulevard. Like every great Thai restaurant I’ve had the pleasure of visiting, Lotus of Siam makes no attempt to distract its diners from the brilliance of its food. There is the confusing exception of a middling lunch buffet in the center of the dining room, but I suppose anyone who walks through these doors worried more about the buck than the bang deserves all the steam trays this city has to offer.

Lotus of Siam’s humble design, also like that of every great Thai restaurant, betrays the wonderfully shocking flavors of its dishes. One spoonful of head chef Saipin Chutima’s Nam Kao Tod doesn’t begin to do justice to the word. Explained modestly as “minced sour sausage mixed with green onion, fresh chili, ginger, peanuts, crispy rice and lime juice,” this appetizer delivers time-bending ripples of spice, salt and citrus over a constantly changing landscape of fresh ingredients. In seconds the relative stillness of isolation from the Strip is swept aside, replaced by a flood of sensory input that puts the “b” in “subtle.”

A similarly taste bud scattering experience can be found in the restaurant’s rendition of Thum Ka-Noon, a “local” dish made of shredded jackfruit, ground pork, tomato, and a plethora of minced and blended spices from the North of Thailand. The softer texture of this dish makes it a tame counterpart to the fireworks show of the Nam Kao Tod, but the Thum Ka-Noon is no less sophisticated in its parsed delivery of myriad flavor.

Illustrating the diversity of the menu, Lotus of Siam’s northern red curry eschews the coconut milk of central and south Thai dishes for an unforgiving intensity. Without the cushion of the richness and sweetness that is typical of Thai dishes in America, this vegetable heavy blend relies on the freshness of its ingredients and the purity of its spices more than anything else on the table. At a spice level of eight, it attains a steadily blistering burn while retaining the feeling of refreshment that comes with the snap of a good green bean and the muted crunch of a perfectly simmered cabbage leaf.

On a more familiar front, duck curry, a staple gem of Thai restaurants, makes an appearance here to put its understudies to shame. Starting with an exceptionally lean cut of duck and a bold red curry base, Lotus of Siam’s roasted duck curry avoids the twin perils of fatty, self-contented meat and timid, hyper-rich sauce. Chutima cuts the curry with a restrained touch of coconut milk, then spikes the dish with a creative mix of pineapples, bell pepper, cherry tomato, basil and red grapes, doing so in a way that preserves the distinct contribution of each garnish as it adds its note of sweetness to the savory composition.

Outdoing both of these dishes, however, is Lotus of Siam’s Khao Soi, a northern red curry that unapologetically wraps itself deeply in coconut cream. This alfredo-like blend is then folded over a heap of boiled egg noodles, garnished with a sparing amount of onion, lime and cilantro, and topped with a second helping of egg noodles, this time deep fried. Mixing the fried noodles with the rest of the dish before eating unlocks an addictively unpredictable combination of textures, again preventing the diner from settling too easily into any single sensation before the next turn of the palate is reached.

In comparison to the dizzying array of spices that populates the menu, Lotus of Siam’s whole fried catfish turns out to be one of the milder, if more exotically presented, dishes the restaurant has to offer. Plar Dook O-Cha, which arranges the golden brown fish on a bed of cabbage, peanuts, cashews, and thin slices of fresh green apple, turns what could be the fiercest of dinner platters into a surprisingly light piece de resistance. Chunks of catfish break away perfectly from the body, and the almost non-existent seasoning of the meat is complemented perfectly by naturally light touches of fruit, vegetable and nut. Yet another synergistic peak of stimulation is achieved when crunch collapses into tenderness and you’re left to wonder where the untouched constituents of your mouth have been hiding all these years.

We stepped out of Lotus of Siam in a complete daze and headed back toward the Strip. Having ceded complete control of our most primal appetence for the day, we caught a cab heading east to indulge our remaining senses in a feast of entertainment.

The Pinball Hall of Fame has been standing at the corner of Tropicana and Pecos for less than three years. Featuring over 200 games, including modern wonders, drop dead cool classics, and noble experiments, it has already established itself as a bastion of bells and whistles unlike any other in the world. In addition to three full aisles of historic pinball machines, the museum also houses a row of classic arcade games and a classic arcade simulator that includes over twenty games for 25 cents a play. It was at this machine that I finally reached level three of Burger Time. I went on to set the day’s high score for Ms. Pac-Man, cheered on by a rapt six-year old girl who proudly announced my conquest of each level; that is, until she inexplicably realized the absurdity of my mastery of 8-bit timing, cavalierly declared, “I’m never going to be a man!” and stormed off, never to be seen again.

After a few drinks at the sports bar next door, the bookhouse boys and I caught a bus to the bottom of the Strip and strolled along three miles of the most morally contradictory distractions gathered in one place. As we set out from the chivalrous spires of Excalibur and passed a charmingly displaced reconstitution of the Brooklyn Bridge, a row of immigrant workers shoved handfuls of escort trading cards into our hands, promising girls in our hotel room in 20 minutes or less. A young couple passed by, strolling their newborn babe under the eyes in the sky and sipping on $1 frozen margaritas in plastic cups. Every building sported an untold number of faces. Every which way led to an ornately carpeted chamber of vice installed in the graces of family friendly frivolity, and every flat surface surrendered one of its corners to an ashtray. In the twilight city, the devil has lungs to spare, and we had only taken our first deep drag of disorientation.

With every report and news analysis that hits the presses, it becomes clearer that the United States is cradled in recession. Yet, for all of the deep-seated flaws that our nation’s thinkers and decision makers have unearthed in purveying the state of the economy, our first instinct is to reach for the security blanket of consumption rather than, say, learn to read.

Of course, six hundred dollars of shotgun tax revenue can buy a lot of desserts, and with the frogurt renaissance of Southern California showing no sign of abatement, consumers continue to flock to PinkBerry and its cold war rivals, still establishing satellites throughout the Southland. The most commanding of these second generation frogurt boutiques move their product in the spirit of Pareto efficency, offering customers a wide range of self-serve options and charging by the ounce.

The result is a microcosm of sorts, swirling our obsession with choice with our limitless urge to consume and wrapping everything up in a true sunshine trend. When faced with the almost intimidating array of machinated dessert components at Yogurtland and Cherry on Top, most customers dart from flavor to flavor in a frenzy of impulse intake, allowing their cups to overflow with the chaos of freedom before even making it to the topping bar.

Notwithstanding his approval of the remedy of consumption-bent tax relief, Ben Bernanke would be ashamed. In a lengthy spotlight on the Federal Reserve, the New York Times outlines the technocratic chairman as “exceptionally methodical…He once told Alan Blinder, his Princeton colleague, that you can learn a lot about people by noting when they fish their car keys from their pocket; Bernanke does so as he leaves the office, long before he reaches his car.”

Speaking from the dinner table of one who reaches for his keys before the office door has a chance to close, I’ve discovered a much sweeter indicator of the method man: the amount of effort expended in the self-service of frozen yogurt. As the rest of the frogurt populace blithely dips its spoon into the sweet pool of extremes and diversions, I am building a more elegant, albeit less exciting, testament to the old fashioned sundae.

First, I layer two primary flavors of frogurt in rings to establish a base. Then I level a third flavor into the center, drawing from years of experience as a spectator at Foster’s Freeze to sculpt a soft-serve sundae crown worthy of The Outsiders. If the parlor isn’t too crowded, I take the time to layer my toppings, placing more substantial items like brownie chunks and cookie dough at the bottom and sprinkling the lighter ingredients evenly over the top. My aim is to channel choice into craft. By favoring an economical design, I miss out on 90% of the offerings on any given night, but walk away with a pure symphony of sugar. My dessert is fashioned as deliberately and single-mindedly as an Ayn Rand character, with the added benefit of a soul.

At the end of this economic morality play, though, I’ve spent just as much money as the girl mixing seven different flavors of yogurt at once. My rationalization of added value can’t obscure the fact that when it comes to consumption, I’m as eager as the next American to be a part of Jack-in-the-Box’s latest three dollar deal. While my neurotic and artistic sensibilities may prevent me from joining my countrymen in frogurt suicide, they don’t prevent me from recognizing the necessary glories of an unfettered yogurt land. God Bless America, and may our tax refunds be spent as sweetly as the carbohydrates of which our laurels are made!

When March rolls around, hundreds of music makers roll out to the city of Austin, flanked by armies of fans, suits, marketers and drunkards for the biggest weekend of live music in the world’s set list of mass performance. Parks become stadiums, bars become concert halls and holes in the wall live out their namesake in epic fashion as the entire city transforms into a boundless channel of song. The metamorphosis at once defies and embodies all commercial logic, tightening America’s proud grip on a culture of music that continues to grow new sets of wings as its body sinks further and further into the abyss created by its own evolution. In four short days, the amplified sound of this paradox fades away, vans and trailers fleeing into the desert as surely as they arrived for the onslaught.

I spend these four days not in the clubs of Austin, but on the streets, giving away free ice cream to springbound music lovers. Our mission is as improbable as that of the musicians: the massing and merging of happiness and commodity without a second thought given to profit. Bouncing between venues and street corners, we wave the banner of unwarranted happiness that has enveloped Austin. After 1,500 performances and over 11,000 free ice creams, South by Southwest 2008 has come and gone. It is a tiring triumph. All that remains is breakfast.

The Homesick Texan has already written extensively about her great big state’s great little secret. While central Texas at large has much to offer in the way of smoked meats, I shudder to think of anyone visiting the city of Austin with his hopes pinned on its mediocre BBQ offerings. The breakfast taco, distant Tex-Mex cousin of California’s breakfast burrito, is the capital’s true currency of flavor. Prepared on the daily at restaurants, taquerias and fast food outlets throughout Austin, these sunny pockets of the Lone Star fold any combination of eggs, meat, potato, beans and cheese into a wondrously bite sized building block of satisfaction. Whether they’re consumed as a prelude to a long day, in epilogue of a long night, or in the back of a 1969 Chevrolet Step Van atop a mountain of emptied ice cream boxes, breakfast tacos offer the diversity, value and convenience that cumbersome breakfast burritos only pretend to offer. They are the minutemen of hunger, bacon and chorizo peeking out from under a blanket of eggs and salsa, ready to offer their Tex-Mex style comfort at a moment’s notice.

After taking what may be my final bite of Austin for a full year, I throw my bags into Bessita and stretch out for the twenty hour drive to San Gabriel Valley. There’s gotta be a better way for me to tie this post into Supertramp’s Breakfast in America, but seeing how I’m still recovering from the trip, I’ll quit while I can still think.

If you’ve ever met an omnivorous Californian, you know that the surest path to his stomach is laid out on two and a half words: “In-N-Out.” Among the many topics left-coasters will waste no time picking up and taking down in a string of verses winding their way around a dispossessed yet domineering tirade, In-N-Out Burger ranks as highly as unnaturally omnipresent sunshine and artificially enhanced confidence.

It’s important to note that in the case of In-N-Out, we Californians are verifiably correct. There’s something to be said about the flashback value of fast food (and its availability at the drunkennest hours of the night), but the quality of an In-N-Out burger easily dwarfs the lifeless grease-and-paste bombs of its drive-thru counterparts. Having sustained a consistent vision of quality, simplicity and relentless geographic domination for the past 60 years, the In-N-Out dynasty has achieved what most fast food chains fail to even consider as a possibility: the making of an edible legend that is at once authentic and mass produced.

That said, when Rexasaurus offered to take me to “The In-N-Out of New York City,” I signed up immediately for a taste. Our destination was the Shake Shack, a hallowed hamburger stand tucked into a corner of Madison Square Park in Midtown Manhattan. The food here is indeed worthy of the overwhelming praise it receives from native New Yorkers. What is more striking about Shake Shack, though, is its similarity to In-N-Out as an emotional anchor of the burger. The ritualistic pride attached to these establishments betrays the extremely divergent paths of their food, their aesthetics, their histories and their customers.

For a visualization of this paradox, I turned to Flickr. The photographs of loyal fans of In-N-Out and Shake Shack produce a collage of memory in appetite that underscores the junctions and splits of both.

The sentiment uniting these photographs is nostalgia. Just as In-N-Out has been seared into the epicurean memory of California, the comparatively newborn Shake Shack has already become an institution for New Yorkers. Both sides cling fervently to the subject of their burgin’ delight, using cameras to make icons of buildings and capture the significance of the folding patio chair.

Flickr’s public collection of Shake Shack photos imparts the more traditional bond between food and place. The number of possible angles from which to shoot the hamburger stand is limited to a handful of reoccurring viewpoints. Each one seems to capture a moment in time, bringing to a standstill the vibrant, bustling life of the Big Apple. Diners feature prominently, populating the lush backdrop of a singularly recognizable piece of earth. While a meal at Shake Shack is not yet a historic rite, its Flickr catalogue opens a window into precisely that quality, giving viewers the impression that, by peering through the lens, we too share in one of New York’s most intimate and treasured traditions.

In stark contrast, Flickr’s public collection of In-N-Out photos depicts the imperial sprawl of a singularly recognizable insignia. The almighty arrow towers above all else, protruding into the sky and claiming dominance over all that lies below and above its monumental banner. Rather than present a single moment in time, these images present a consistency of conquest and an ever present sun that differs wholeheartedly from the more subdued natural lighting of New York City. Where one would expect to see life in motion, there are only the vessels of life and the symbols of its progress: cars, planes, buildings, and the planned palm tree. In a way, it’s uncertain if these photographs provide a window into a living world of which we are all members or if they offer a glance at the emptied ruins of a burger civilization.

Yet, for all of its sterility, the glow of the In-N-Out arrow ties together the diffuse icons of its existence just as well as the evening lights of Shake Shack frame their cozy scene of the city. A certain warmth is shared by all of these images. Whether the impression being captured is humble or grand, organic or manufactured, spontaneous or mechanized, it is still an inspired reflection of the human spirit. And it is delicious.

Instead of writing an upcoming post on hamburger nostalgia, I’ve spent the past week transferring every chapter of Death By BBQ from my Livejournal to this blog. The entire story is now readable right here on The Eaten Path! Click “DBBBBQ” on the menu bar to give it a read.

I’ve also made some design changes to the site, in hopes of producing a more reader-friendly interface. Tags can now be browsed directly from the main page, which now features the twenty most recent posts instead of just one. This means less work for you, and more food on the table :D

If you have any other suggestions on how to make this blog easier to read and browse that doesn’t involve reducing the number of obscure references I make in each post, please let me know. As my next set of renovations will involve networking and search engine optimization, I would also appreciate any words of wisdom on how to increase traffic to the site. I love hearing from anyone who’s reading.

Until the aforementioned hamburgers hit the page, enjoy the following Kool-Aid pickle tutorial, which I wrote for Ice Cream Man’s third issue of Off the Wookie. The zine will be distributed during South by Southwest Music in Austin, TX.

Stay hungry!

My first exposure to the barbecued rib was delivered in the final forty seconds of every showing of The Flintstones that I watched as a kid. The closing sequence plays as follows: Having just watched a thirty-minute episode of his own life at the local drive-in, Fred Flintstone immediately pedals his granite rolling pin-mobile to the nearest burger shack, where he proceeds to order a rack of brontosaurus ribs so magnificent that it knocks over his vehicle, placing his entire family (his wife, a purple dinosaur, and a domesticated saber toothed tiger) in mortal danger. By the time they get home, the ribs have clearly been consumed and not a single person is hurt. Really, what didn’t I learn from this show?

Twenty years after my Bedrock education, I stumbled upon the world of competitive BBQ criticism, a hotly contested arena of legalism and metaphysical induction that bears precious little of Fred Flinstone’s Stone Aged grin. One of the most controversial of America’s contemporary culinary topics, the quality of a rack of ribs seems to call into question the very honor of its consumer in the world of the food obsessed.

Having spent a considerable amount of chewing time on my quest to deconstruct and devour the many facets of American BBQ, I’ve gained a healthy sense of skepticism when it comes to arguments over authenticity. While good Q does have its tales to tell, more smoking time doesn’t always lead to more smoky flavor, and sauce is not always something to be taken or left as a given. When mass consumption and unapologetically unrefined power are themselves American traditions, it’s sometimes hard to tell who’s being more dogmatic in the fog of BBQ war: those who refuse to touch a piece of meat that hasn’t been wood smoked in a backwoods shack for at least half a day, or those who will blithely wolf down a completely uninspired meat train at the local chain restaurant and frame cries of protest as paeans to food snobbery.

Home to a naval armory, a national wildlife refuge, a gated community of over 9,000 senior citizens and the second longest pier in California, Seal Beach has no history of BBQ culture. Yet, in this quaint coastal enclave, one restaurant has made a compelling statement for authentic, accessible Q at the gateway to Orange County. With a warm, inviting approach to its craft, Beachwood BBQ is showing local diners that that the undeniable edge of tradition can be a brink of joy, not intolerance.

The baby back pork ribs here won’t knock over any Stone Age autos, but I couldn’t imagine genuine brontosaurus being any more delicious. Striking a considerate balance between meaty and gritty, these just might be your grandfather’s ribs, summoned from the grave of subtlety to deliver a much needed sermon to the over-the-top BBQ fronts of super-sized America. Smoked for fifteen hours and instilled with a delightfully deep-reaching dry rub, Beachwood’s ribs retain the crackly exterior of Memphis’ finest half-rack. In defiance of all proponents of “fall off the bone” litmus tests, the texture then slips artfully into a slightly tender layer of pork that acknowledges backyard cookouts and the fun of tearing away that last stubborn morsel of meat. True to their heritage, these ribs offer a sophisticated flavor and juicy consistency that make sauce entirely unnecessary, but a variety of sauces are happily offered to those not quite ready to convert.

Refusing to rest at the die-hard judgment of ribs, Beachwood also offers a slew of West Coast tinged Southern specialties. The deep fried pickles are a praiseworthy nod to Dixie dining, but the real prize is their fried green tomato, adorned with fresh mozzarella and field greens, then doused with vinaigrette and sandwiched by a ciabatta-like potato roll. Like Pie in the Sky’s signature slice, Beachwood’s fried green tomato sandwich brings a time honored staple into the produce profile of California, resulting in the best vegetarian meal I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing.

Beachwood’s side dishes do fall a bit short of the high marks garnered by its entrees. The collard greens are laced with beloved pork gristle, but are a too uniformly salty to qualify as addictive. The baked beans are neither bland nor memorable, and the smoked white asparagus, though attractive, has little to offer in terms of flavor. The sweet potato fries are beautifully crisped, but only ephemerally pleasing. The creamed corn is so hearty that it almost constitutes a bowl of corn chowder. The tangy slaw, an interesting tribute to the vinegar slaws of Carolina, leans a little too far into the garnish arena when it could easily present itself as a bona fide appetite spoiler. And the BBQ fondue, while tasty, is more of a novelty than anything else.

None of these faults, however, act as obstacles to satisfaction. Nowhere to be found are the canned and boiled accoutrements of the typical Southern dinner, drawing a paycheck from the coattails of BBQ as if vegetables are to be treated like Congressional earmarks. The sides at Beachwood BBQ, while far from perfect, round out the picture of comfort and care quite nicely.

Completing this picture is the staff at Beachwood, all of whom are friendly, attentive, and read