This coming Wednesday, my unindicted co-conspirator pal Earl Kress and I will be back on Stu's Show, the cornerstone program on Shokus Internet Radio, which is part of the teeming Live365 network of web-based broadcasting. Our topics this time will include, I am told, Beany and Cecil, David Seville, Milton the Monster, Batfink, Hanna-Barbera's cartoon interpretations of Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello, as well as a host of other stuff including De Patie-Freleng, Ruby-Spears, and what it was like for some of us to write for those studios. There will also be your live call-in phone calls and trivia questions with prizes and a whole lotta fun.
It all begins at 4 PM Pacific Time (7 PM Eastern) and runs for two hours. You can listen by going to this website then and selecting an audio browser. (Note: If you log in just before the show starts, there's a slight chance that you'll get bumped off when the show starts. If that happens, just log right back in and it shouldn't happen again. There's some sort of glitch in the Live365 software that occasionally does that when a station switches from pre-recorded programming to live.)
I'm going to jump all around in my report on my trip last week and today, I'm going to jump to the topic of Fast Food. In a way, this ties in with that long post I wrote last week about my weight loss surgery.
In the last few years, I've been increasingly disappointed in the quality of...well, now that I think of it, "fast food" isn't quite the right label. The kind of thing I'm thinking about is more like "pre-fab restaurant food." The fact that it's fast or even served in what we think of as a "fast food" ambiance isn't the problem. When I'm alone, I like eating swiftly and getting on to the next phase of my life. Running from meeting to meeting, it was handy to duck into a McDonald's or Sizzler and grab a quick meal.
But more and more, even before I significantly altered my eating habits, I was enjoying places like those and Arby's and KFC less and less. KFC has become especially awful and I don't think it's just me changing and losing my taste for deep-fried batter. I recall liking their food a lot back in the seventies, even back when Colonel Sanders was still alive. He was decrying how the company that had acquired his business had ruined the chicken, making it cheaper to prepare and simpler for a teenager earning minimum wage. The man whose face was on the bucket said it was lousy fried chicken and while I concurred it wasn't as good as it had been, it was still my best dining alternative at times.
I can't imagine what he'd think of the product today...and please remember I am not comparing it to gourmet foods made by a world-famous chef and priced much higher. I'm comparing it to what I used to get in the same garish-colored buildings a few decades earlier. There are health reasons not to patronize KFC and there are moral reasons having to do with the processing of their hens...and I don't have to even begin to sort those out because I stopped for a simpler reason: The chicken was, to me, inedible.
That's the most extreme example but I've also noticed a worsening of the cuisine, if you can call it that, at Arby's and Wendy's and McDonald's...and also at places that sorta resemble a real restaurant like Denny's or Sizzler or Fuddrucker's or Ihop. It isn't that they're chains. It's that they've configured — or in some cases, reconfigured — their product for consistency and ease of preparation. If there are people in the kitchen who know how to cook, they certainly don't have much room to flex those muscles. It's less a matter of freshness and more a matter of assembly.
There are, of course, exceptions. We have two West Coast chains that I like a lot — Koo Koo Roo and In-N-Out Burger, though I fear for both. Koo Koo Roo was acquired not long ago by the Fuddrucker's people and there's been a subtle drop in the quality since then. Meanwhile, the family that owns In-N-Out is currently undergoing some sort of upheaval and there are rumors they will soon abandon some of their principles and procedures in the interest of massive expansion.
Actually, I wouldn't mind losing the wonders of In-N-Out if someone would open a Five Guys outlet in my area. Five Guys is a Virginia-based chain that's now all up and down the East Coast. On our trip, Carolyn and I went to one in the firm's home state and I had one of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten and — probably — The Best French Fries. Like In-N-Out, they use real potatoes that are peeled on the premises, as well as beef that's never been frozen. Like In-N-Out, that's almost all they serve...and the food is surprisingly inexpensive. I've paid twenty bucks for a burger elsewhere that wasn't a tenth as good as what Five Guys (and for that matter, In-N-Out) sells for a tiny fraction of the price.
The secret to Five Guys fries seems to be not only the fresh spuds but that they fry in peanut oil. Some places don't, in part because they don't want to lose customers who are allergic to peanuts...or sued if someone has an attack and blames it on the meal. It has been claimed that commercial-grade peanut oil will not cause an allergic reaction in most people but everyone I know with a peanut sensitivity steers clear of goobers in any form. (In-N-Out uses plain vegetable oil.) Five Guys seems to have decided to just write off that section of the population in order to achieve the best french fry possible. In fact — and I'm guessing this is a deliberate move to alert such patrons — every Five Guys has big tubs around of peanuts in the shell and they're free for the nibbling. If that was the idea, it's pretty darned clever.
On the trip, I also had my first Chick-Fil-A sandwich...and I believe they also fry in peanut oil. Their fries are nothing special but I thought the sandwich was pretty good. The chicken tasted frozen and as I look over their website, it appears as if they're trying to give the impression that it isn't frozen chicken when, in fact, it is. Still, it was pleasant and the light batter on the fried breast was quite good. This chain is in Southern California but not in any location where I tend to travel so it was new to me. In fact, I was so new to Chick-Fil-A that it didn't dawn on me until I heard another patron ask for one that its name is pronounced, "chick filet." Duh.
None of this, obviously, is the healthiest food in the world for you. I have a friend who, even as you read this, is dispatching a hysterical e-mail to me decrying the ingestion of anything involving beef, frying or a server who wears a paper hat. He's probably right in some sense but I'm never going to eat the way this friend thinks everyone should eat...and I also don't eat much of this kind of food nowadays, especially when I'm home. The best I can do, for when I'm on the road, is to ferret out the better places and when I find one, pass it along.
I also don't think I'll be eating as many french fries in the next few months as I would have, had I not been introduced to Five Guys. It's the same as after the first time I had steak at Peter Luger's restaurant in Brooklyn. After that, I didn't eat steak as often elsewhere. I'd been spoiled. In fact, there's probably a great advertising slogan in there for some chain that stresses freshness: "Our food isn't spoiled so you will be."
Funny man, that Charles Nelson Reilly. And popular. He had an astounding career on Broadway and an even more impressive one on television, much of it playing himself on talk shows and game shows. He also did kid shows (Uncle Croc's Block and Lidsville) and commercials and he directed and did cartoon voices and just about everything. He had the reputation of being cranky and very difficult and occasionally out of his ever-lovin' mind...but all the same, he was quite beloved by those who knew him.
Not long ago, he toured for a time in an autobiographical one man show that I, alas, never got to see. It's the basis of a new documentary film about him and I've embedded the trailer below, plus there are more clips to watch on this website...
Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor at at Boston University who was usually described as a Conservative before he began speaking out and writing articles against the War in Iraq. Recently, his son was killed fighting in that action. On this Memorial Day, he reflects on his son's sacrifice and his own.
...but then you probably never knew I was gone. My friend Carolyn and I spent the last week in Washington, D.C. and Virginia. Two days in our nation's capital isn't much...though I think it's twice as long as John McCain was there in the month of May. I told people I was going there to impeach Alberto Gonzales because, well, someone has to. Alas, I never saw him or anyone else worth impeaching...although the Night Manager at the hotel in Virginia came close.
Carolyn wanted a couple of luggage racks for our room — you know, the kind you unfold and put your suitcase on. The Night Manager was shocked that we didn't have them and swore he'd find a couple and send them up. He didn't. We kept asking about them. He kept saying he'd get right on the matter. Finally, after the fourth or fifth time we asked, he sent someone to go to vacant rooms, grab up two luggage racks and take them to us. This person reported back to him that the other rooms didn't have luggage racks, either. It turns out this hotel doesn't have luggage racks in its rooms.
The Night Manager phoned to tell me this, voluntarily adding, "Boy, you learn something new every day. I've worked here two years and I never knew we don't have luggage racks. I've never gotten around to going in any of the rooms."
Go ahead. Tell me that isn't an impeachable offense.
Getting back to D.C.: If you think this website spends too much time canonizing dead people, you should see Washington. You can't take two steps without running in to a memorial to someone...especially war dead. There was something odd and sad about how much of the town is about soldiers who've died in the service of their country.
We took a bus tour and learned nothing about the inner workings of our government but the various tour guides (they swapped off) kept telling us over and over how John Adams used to go skinny-dipping in the Potomac in its less polluted days. One of the guides rattled off a list of semi-interesting nuggets of trivia but every other sentence he uttered was, "And that's just a little historic fact you can take back home with you." And about every twelfth historic fact he divulged was that John Adams liked to go skinny-dipping in the Potomac. I think that gives us all a better appreciation of our heritage.
I'm tired and there's unpacking to do so I'm going to knock off here, go to sleep and write more in the morning. In fact, I may serialize my report. Forgive any typos. Mark is weary.
May 29, 2007
