Today it’s a reflection on Friday, in particular burgers and entertainment. I wanted to write, briefly but introspectively, about Feynman, inspiration, and a dynamic between learning and doing, but I got distracted by ‘bad’ 90s movies.
1.
I’m the omnivore; Ms. S. strives to be vegan. In practice she slips (albeit only slightly) and I just eat food. Mostly vegetables. And less of it. Neither of us can pass up a good burger — who can? — but the problem is neither eating nor not eating said beast, but rather finding and defining it in the first place.
My more recent test, going back three to four years, is pretty simple: medium-rare, quality ingredients (preferably locally grass-fed and organic, etc.), and best if it’s homemade, since I’m not likely to find what I want at a reasonable price at a restaurant. When I first moved to town in August of 2010 I’d often walk home in the evening humidity around 8pm and stop by “Jack’s” for a cheap burger and fries. I put on my share of pounds that way. There was no mistaking them for ‘quality.’ Ms. S. introduced me to Milo’s, and sometimes the ‘best burger’ for ‘right now’ is a guilty pleasure that has little to do with ‘quality.’ I still want to make lamb burgers and the like.
Where this takes me is just that I’m not likely to buy big logs of generic ground beef at the store or even frozen patties, and none of the ‘fresh’ ground beef at any of the local grocery stores is really any better. Target sells some grass-fed organic for about $6-$7/lb., but that’s the best option unless I hit the road to Birmingham and stop by Whole Foods or its analogs. Ms. S., on the other hand, looks to various veggie burgers more as a protein source than as an echo of burgers past; they’re a staple for her, whereas I’m more likely to have fish or eggs when I’m looking for Omega-3s and a protein boost.
I already knew that black bean burgers were a great flavor, texture, and nutrition option, and when we stopped by the Gray Dog Deli in Mineral Point, WI, Ms. S. had what she considered was a great example of that style. Somewhere along the way I heard about using beets in veggie burgers; when on a planned splurge-outing to the Cheesecake Factory we leaned about the use of beets in their veggie burger Ms. S. opted to give it a try.
Then on a recent shopping trip, to Publix, I believe, we found a good deal on Lightlife’s “Kick’n” black bean burger (85g, 180 calories). The other day Ms. S. picked up a bag of Gardein’s “ultimate” beefless burger (130 calories). Both gave me an opportunity to make basic and relatively quick buns (2 buns: 90g of flour, 60g water, 1/4 tsp yeast, 3g oil).
There are a lot of reviews of the Gardein burgers only, some positive and some just positively nasty. It’s a pretty typical veggie burger, but it’s not about “veggies,” but about roughly imitating the texture, color, and consistency of a regular, thin beef patty. Contrast it with another that Ms. S. likes, the Dr. Praeger’s California Veggie Burger, which in no way is ‘fake meat’ … it doesn’t even pretend, and bits of vegetables will fall out of it when you cut it open. The Lightlife black bean burger has a strong, distinctive black bean flavor and spice profile; it’s “meaty” without resembling meat. It’s a thick meal of its own. If I were picking one of the two as “better” or choosing which I’d prefer to eat, I’d clearly take the Lightlife, but where the Gardein shines is in imitating a certain kind of hamburger.
On my burger last night I employed the bun I baked along with the most minor hint of mayonnaise, a good spoonful of dijon mustard, freshly sliced tomato, spinach leaves instead of lettuce, and with a few sliced jalapenos. The patty itself was just a complement, not the star. If I want to mimic a generic fast food hamburger with several condiments and toppings, something like the Gardein “ultimate beefless burger” does the job and disappears into the vegetable background and scenery. The Lightlife, though, wants to be a superstar and not share the stage. It would grudgingly accept a spot with a slice of cheese, but it would rather let some aioli open for it, it’s that kind of burger.
See also:
- Veggie Burger Reviews
- Product Review: Gardein Ultimate Beefless Burger
- Gardein Beefless Burger
- Adventures in Fake Meat: Gardein Ultimate Beefless Burger
- Vegan Butthole Explosion: Gardein Ultimate Beefless Burger Review
- Lightlife’s NEW Vegetarian Frozen Fare!
- 10 Best Veggie Burger Recipes
Bonus: Mustard Greens and Sweet-Onion Saute
2.
Here we were last night around midnight watching John Woo’s “Face/Off” (1997) with John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. This last week the Onion A.V. Club spent Monday through Wednesday posting their 50 best movies of the 90s (spoiler alert: few of them won ‘best picture’ Academy Awards or were in nominated, and to the consternation of many such ‘obviously’ great movies like “The Silence of the Lambs” missed the list entirely), and on Thursday and Friday the article authors added their personal favorites that did not make the cut and the movies they hated. “Face/Off” was a personal favorite for one, a target of derision for another.
Ah, such an almost symbolically relevant split.
While neither Ms. S. nor I are huge Travolta fans, I think we’re both disappointed that he followed up the career resurrection offered by “Pulp Fiction” (1994) more with works that resemble “Battlefield Earth” (2000) than those like “Face/Off.” On the other hand we both love Cage, and this film contains almost all the classic elements of a Cagetastic performance.
The strength of the movie is that it’s all Woo, through and through. It has extraneous slow motion, doves, fluttering coats, leaps and falls, obvious ‘symbolism’ hardly worthy of the word, and nearly non-stop action. Like that enjoyable Cage vehicle “Drive Angry” “Face/Off” believes in making almost every moment awesome rather than in developing up-and-down waves of tension and narrative flow. It is a relatively well-structured story, bookended by a son lost and a son gained, but in a way that’s just a restoration of the expected familial status quo. Chekhov’s knife appears; when Travolta gives Swain a switchblade you just know it’s going to be used.
As with so many formulaic fictions, the narrative is essentially conservative and resists any real or especially radical reevaluation. What if the bomb had never been defused? What if by taking on the face and voice of the other — and it was already established that both Archer and Troy (Travolta’s and Cage’s respective original characters) are obsessed with and knowledgeable about the other — hero and villain determine that they prefer their new lives? That “normalcy” is not reestablished? Or that not being Castor Troy that makes one a villain, but being played by Nicholas Cage? I know, I know … that’s the hybrid with “Stranger than Fiction” or some other more postmodern movie that Woo cannot deliver.
Unfortunately everyone except Travolta and Cage is but a plot token to be moved mechanically and mindlessly around a limited game board (again, the interchangeability of the non-leads would have been another nice meta-commentary), and the movie seems like a waste of name-but-non-lead actors (C.C.H. Pounder, Joan Allen, Gina Gershon, Thomas Jane, Margaret Cho, Nick Cassavetes, Colm Feore, etc.)
Still, I’m happy enough just to have such enjoyable low-hanging fruit to complete my Friday evenings with Ms. S.
Today I wake up and peruse “Three Dimensional Facial Sculpting,” edited by Edward O. Terino (New York: Informa Healthcare, 2006) and cannot help but imagine it as a manual of sorts for the movie we rewatched, or, better yet, something in the mold of “The Philosophy of Face/Off” (a book that, alas, does not [yet] exist) and other “Philosophy of …” (fill in the blank with the Matrix, Star Trek, Mad Men, Harry Potter, and so on).
Another movie that made the “personal favorites” and “most hated” lists was Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 “Point Break.” Although “Strange Days” is among Ms. Q.’s favorites, “Point Break” is a movie she’s never seen. We may have to remedy that, and then I’ll need to see what related book I skim afterward.
3.
It’s Saturday and as I type I have an extra monitor plugged in, on which ESPN3 gives me college football, which I let seep in to my mind through my senses.
Football is always treated as a metaphor for war. It’s two sides, it’s violent, it has different types of troops, offense and defense, various strategies and tactics, and so on. As technology advances so does the game. The quarterback may be your general; perhaps it’s the coach. In the trenches … between the hash marks. Dig in, grind it out, air raid …
The metaphor is used as both a positive and a negative, depending on your predisposition. It’s nasty and brutish, appealing to the most base of emotions. Look at inevitable war crimes; observe the all-too-frequent criminal behavior by players. It’s a “male thing”; women need not apply. Or when you transition from the field to the field marshals it’s a game of brains, of strategy, training, staying at least one step ahead.
It’s not so much simulacrum as surrogate, a replacement, some might argue. But it’s not the only metaphor: it’s (part of the) culture. It’s (like) religion (in the South). Perhaps we are just too driven to explain what “games” or “play” are “for.” Their “purpose.” We would often rather define something as what it is ‘not’ than accept it for what it is, if what it is doesn’t make enough sense to us (‘why’ and ‘purpose’ and ‘meaning’).
But this sells it short, not in that it’s “more” than these figurative phrases, but in that through them it doesn’t get to be itself. Some things — ‘things,’ such a vague word, a placeholder without qualities except that it ‘is’, yet Kant reminds us that existence is not a predicate … — may exist only through their metaphors, or, more weakly, only be known through their metaphors.
“Face/Off” submits too readily to its formula and facile symbols; it doesn’t have the courage to just “be” an action movie (without adornment) or dive into the deep end and explore being the movie about identity that it simulates.
Maybe that’s what Ms. S. and I have come to love about tempeh: it’s tempeh, it’s not “fake meat.” It’s tempeh, not a burger surrogate or bacon replacement. Tempeh: it’s what’s for dinner.
