All hail the Guberburger!

So I went to see the film Hamburger America at the Enzian Theater yesterday, along with This is My Cheesesteak. Both films were wonderful takes on food in America. I’m happy the Florida Film Festival included these films this year, because I am such a food lore geek, and I love hearing about the history of little mom & pop establishments, even if they’re serving up a bunch of meat I don’t eat.

This is My Cheesesteak focusing on the iconic Philly cheesesteak sandwich and a few of the sandwich shops and their owners who have made it such an institution in the city. It was a visual love letter to the authentic cheesesteak. My favourite scene was when the cheesesteak owners were shown sampling a Hot Pockets microwavable Philly cheesesteak… and all that were shown trying it spat the bite they took out! It was great. If you want to find out more about this film, the documentary has a website: www.thisismycheesesteak.com. There’s a schedule of other film festivals it will be appearing at, as well as a film trailer, and apparently you will be able to buy the DVD online soon. There’s also a listing of the steak shops featured in the film, with nearly all of them having their own website, so if you’re planning on making a visit to the city, you have your selection of cheesesteaks to try… unless you’re veg like me. Take photos at least, though, because these sort of establishments are a part of food history.

While This is My Cheesesteak showed American cuisine in one city, Hamburger America went all across the foodscape of American to tell these amazing stories about the small businesses and local chains that make up our food culture identity. It fascinated me how these little places scattered around the country are so unique in their history and also their take on the classic American hamburger. The film starts out in Memphis, Tennessee, with a burger whose burger meat is deep-fried, which should come as no surprise to the rest of the Southerners out there. The real kicker is that the meat is fried in grease that’s over 90 years old. The grease is strained and filtered, but essentially it’s still the same grease that was being used nearly a century ago.

As well as Wisconsin’s Butterburger, where a healthy(?) dollop of butter is added into the burger, New Mexico’s burger with chiles, Connecticut’s steamed meat patties (which I actually found more bizarre than the deep-fried burger patties… but then again, half of my heritage is from people raised on vitamin G–grease), there was a little place called the Wagon Weel out in some fly-over state that puts peanut butter on its hamburger patties. Ah yes, hence it’s known as the Guberburger. During the Q&A section with the director afterwards, someone had asked him which burger was his favourite, and he earnestly said he liked all of them, but he regularly makes the Guberburger at home because of its ease of replication: just add peanut butter.

This inspired me. Later on that evening, with the help of my wonderful friend Marie who bought me a few of the rather essential ingredients, I created a Southeast Asian/vegetarian hommage to the Guberburger. I put lettuce and a sliced-up cherry tomato on the bottom bun, then added some fresh basil leaves, then cooked up a veggie burger patty and plopped in on top. While it was still hot from the pan, I put on a layer of non-hydrogenated peanut butter (stir, stir), then sprinkled on some crunchy bean sprouts and squeezed a proper bit of lime on top of that and on the underside of the top bun as well. It was gorgeous! I forgot to take a photograph, as I was so caught up in wanting to know what it would taste like, but I’ll definitely include another entry of making it with a photograph for my Open Source Food profile. It will be brilliant.

If you missed out on the film, you can buy it on DVD from the Hamburger America website. In addition to the film, George Motz is putting out a book that will showcase more burger establishments in the United States. There’s also a Hamburger America blog, which should keep you up-to-date about the upcoming book tour in, as George Motz put it, the Burger Belt.

Praise the man or woman who came up with the concept of putting peanut butter on a hamburger, and praise films like this that champion the small establishments that contribute to America’s flavour.

Florida Film Festival: Eat it Up

This weekend marks the kick-off of this year’s Florida Film Festival. I’m excited, as there are a few food-related films that are being showcased along with other interesting-looking films. Earlier today, I bought the Cinematic Sampler 4 Pack, of which I traded two of the vouchers for a couple of tickets for upcoming shows: Hamburger America and the Shorts Program #5: Animated Shorts.

Hamburger America is a documentary film on one of the quintessential American dishes, the hamburger. The movie goes all across the US, showcasing eight different and unique burger joints. Although I don’t eat meat, I love food folklore, and this film seems to showcase the sensibilities of people passionate about the food they serve.

Also, one of my foodie icons will be a guest of the film festival. Anthony Bourdain will be there, although the event Kitchen Confidential was already sold out by the time I found out about it (damn!). He’ll be doing a celebrity book-signing, though, this Saturday at the Borders Bookstore in Winter Park Village from 4:00 pm until 5, so I’ll be heading over there after I finish watching the hamburger movie so I can be ready to try out my first moments of celebrity-stalking.

The Florida Film Festival will be showing films in two main venues, save for a viewing of Babette’s Feast at a restaurant which is already sold-out: the Enzian Theater in Maitland and Regal Cinemas of Winter Park Village. You can view the film festival schedule to see the film times. I’ve been a fan of film festivals here in Florida as well as the two I experienced in Thailand, where I was one (of many) who absconded with a huge banner for the Bangkok Film Festival of 2003. As my American companion of the evening and I both reasoned, it’s not stealing, it’s “liberating.”

Still, please don’t liberate anything from the Florida Film Festival.  If you do, then I had no part in encouraging you.

Food Nostalgia: Crépes & Co.

Around five years ago, I was living the last of my days in a hot, sticky country known as Thailand, renting a small efficiency apartment in the Royal King Garden Inn for a month until I moved on back to Orlando.  During that month, I packed in as much enjoyment as I could in visiting my favourite eateries and bars, often in the company of my two very good friends, Gary and Alli.

While living it up, I was blessed with the opportunity to go to Crépes & Co.  It’s a fabulous place off Sukhumvit that Tanya, a friend of a friend, had shown me.  Although I had only the opportunity to have gone there once, I’m still gladdened by its web presence, as it is giving me hope that the place will still be there whenever I get around to going back to Bangkok… which will happen!  :::shakes fist!:::

I can’t remember exactly what I had gotten, but I loved both the entrée crépe and my dessert crépe.  If you happen to be in the area, I suggest you give the place a go, as it’s a fantastic concept for a light lunch or dinner.  Although I’m sure I was well-satiated after my meal at Crépes & Co, should you be hungry, the streets of Bangkok used to house the best street vendors in the world.  It’s true.

Now I have heard of a crépe place here in Orlando that I haven’t yet been to.  La Creperia Cafe has been visited by my friends Fran and Joe, and they told me it was pretty good.  Curiously, the location they went to, which is the only one in Orlando, is in the Orlando Fashion Square Mall.  It’s not a place I find myself often–I’m at the mall once a month at best, and normally at the Mall of Millenia–but I’ve been tempted to brave the crowds of shoppers for a taste of tasty crépes.

Then again, with the way the economy is tanking in the US at the moment, the crowds of shoppers are probably not really “crowds,” but perhaps more like “small contingents.”

Take-out Diary #2: O’Naturals

Working in downtown Orlando, one would think that my options for lunch would be plentiful. Well, in a way, they are, but in a way, they aren’t. My lunch break at work is limited to thirty minutes, which doesn’t really give one time to lounge at a restaurant, waiting for your food or the bill. Instead, the food is planned ahead of time, either ordered in for delivery, or one musters the gumption to walk out into the concrete wilderness to stake out a territory marked out in so many blocks, foraging for a quick meal.

With all this pressure of finding the right meal in the right amount of time, often I resort to bringing my lunch, and enjoying the pre-lunch time with no questions of what to eat, no deliberating of where to go. I am at peace with my homemade food, or the left-overs of yesterday’s dinner out.

Today was not one of those days.

Although I had made two recent trips to grocery stores, I made nothing to show for it as my lunch this St Patrick’s Day, so I went through the stash of menus we have in my department, and made a selection. This was my second go with the O’Naturals location housed on Central Boulevard, as I found myself in a similar situation on Friday, getting their Mediterranean flatbread sandwich, consisting of organic hummus, lettuce, red onion, roasted red peppers and Swiss cheese, although I didn’t realise there was red onion in it, because their printed menu in the store didn’t list it but in a separate place, so I had to toss it out later. The sandwich was okay… but not great. The hummus seemed a little runny, and the bread had tasted bland to me.

However, today I opted for their Goat Cheese flatbread sandwich, which boasted the roasted red peppers, carrots, cucumbers, sprouts and the aforementioned goat cheese. I also asked for lettuce and tomatoes, but emphatically stated “no onion!” to the poor man who made my sandwich.

I picked up the sandwich on my fifteen-minute break, and then sat down to eat it about 45 minutes later, and it was excellent. I was much happier with the Goat Cheese sandwich in comparison to the Mediterranean I had tried previously, as it seemed much more flavourful, with the familiar tang of goat cheese mingled in with some salted herbs and the coolness of the tomatoes and cucumbers. The sprouts and the red peppers gave it quite a bit of heft, and it was packaged well in a bag-type sleeve that allowed you to eat the sandwich without getting the cucumbers and other fillings to fall into your lap. All in all, it was an ace pick, and with the place’s employees being so nice and all, I don’t think I have to fret too much the next time I can’t make my lunch ahead of time.

That is, of course, unless I don’t have any money.

One word of caution: the number listed on O’Natural’s website, and all their printed matter, isn’t working as of this post.  I had given it a dial in an attempt to expedite the service, and there was a recording stating the number was “temporarily out of service.”  Turns out I didn’t really need to call in, as my food was made right away, but still, it would be handy should I ever want to order some selections from their noodle menu to pick up.  Sandwiches can sit around for an hour or so, but the noodles would get cold.

Bikes, Beans & Bordeaux

Earlier this evening, I went to Stardust with the intention to have dinner there, but with the parking lot full and the chairs loaded with people, I opted instead to check out a new place I had my eye on as it was opening.

The sign for Bikes, Beans & Bordeaux had intrigued me when I passed by the little strip mall the restaurant was nestled in, or rather, going to be nestled in. At the time I had noticed it, the cafe was still in the process of “coming soon!”, so I was sort of waiting until I had seen it was open for business. Sometimes, the time it takes for a restaurant to open can be lengthy, but it didn’t seem so with Bikes, Beans & Bordeaux. I believe it was sometime earlier this week or last week that I had seen its little “Open” sign alight above some curtains.

Since Stardust was crowded, and I wanted to try out the place anyway, I scooted on over to Bikes, Beans & Bordeaux. Now, when I think of people who ride bikes in Orlando, I’m more inclined to think of the group of youngish folks behind Orlando Critical Mass: the bike punks who work it with their cut-off jean shorts, longish hair, tattoos and a disdain for automobiles. I had fully expected for Bikes, Beans & Bordeaux to be a bike punk haven, but when I entered the small cafe and was met with light wood veneers, little tea candles and low lighting, “bike punk chic” was not what I had gotten.

The proprietors, a husband and wife, greeted me eagerly behind a couple and baby seated at a little bar area. The husband, who later introduced himself as Darrell, kindly directed me to the menus in a couple containers mounted on the wall near the entrance. “The Beer & Wine menu is two pages!” he informed me as I looked at the fixtures. I grabbed them, although I went with getting some organic English Breakfast tea in the end, but it should interest you to know that their house beers, served in bottles, include beer from Orlando Brewing, and there’s a bunch of wines I’m woefully unfamiliar with, because I’m not a wine person, but I’ll list some for you winey folks: Chateau Paradis Casseuil Blanc, Bordeaux, France; Moon Mountain, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sonoma Valley, California; Echelon, Pinot Grigio, Clarksburg, California; Chateau La Nerthe, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Rhone, France.

Although I was not interested in getting any beer or wine, I was very keen on getting some food, and was torn between the Tour Mediterraneen and the Caprese Panini. After a fevered deliberation at the cash register, I decided to go with my first instinct and ordered the Tour Mediterraneen: Smothered with hummus, this tasty creation is served up with lettuce, tomato, red onion, sprouts, olives, cucumber, feta cheese and drizzled with Greek dressing on Italian bread. Upon ordering the sandwich sans onions, I was told that they were out of the bread, but offered multigrain or honey wheat in its stead, of which I chose the latter.

When I got the sandwich, it came with a bag of Sun Chips (although you could also opt for carrot sticks), a pickle and, interestingly, a tiny bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans, which I later tucked away to eat in whenever I got in a candy mood, or to give away to someone, as I’m not particularly big on jelly beans. My sandwich was delicious. The only thing I would have liked to have made it perfect was to have had a fork to scoop up the stray tomatoes, olives and feta that would slip out from between the bread. I loved the flavor of the Greek dressing, and the cucumbers tasted so wonderfully fresh and crisp.

Ah, Sandwich Nirvana.

I had texted a few of my friends while I waited for my sandwich, because as I studied the menu, I could definitely see many of my friends liking the place. The food is both vegetarian and non, and in addition to beer and wine, they have a nice selection of different coffee drinks and organic teas, as well as smoothies. Plus, they’re open at 7 am every day for breakfast, except for Monday–they’re closed.

As I ate my sandwich, drank my tea and read a book I had brought along with me, the place began to fill up, and what struck me was how warmly the owners greeted these customers by name. There was a group of men who came in and grabbed some beers after handshakes and chit-chat with Darrell, and sat in the facing leather couches under a flat-screen television showing, from what I could tell from a few glances at the screen, the Cycling Network. Is there such a thing? There were a couple of guys who came in on their own, one of whom was visibly taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi in the cafe.

If you’d like to check out the menu to see if you’d like to make a visit to “B3,” you can visit their website: www.B3Cafe.com.

2008: The Return of the Green Fairy

For those of you who didn’t know, the ban on absinthe in the United States has become relaxed enough for a few distillers to start selling the drink on US shores. The United States now joins the European Union with a renewed look at an old and vilified drink. Per this article from the New York Times, “One reason legal barriers have fallen is that, as The New Yorker reported in 2006, the regulated chemical thujone, found in wormwood and once thought to have been the cause of absinthe’s lure and its dangers, did not show up in any significant quantities in analyses of historical absinthe. So these authentic replicas, despite containing wormwood, do not pose a legal challenge” (emphasis mine).

This revisit of the Green Fairy in the US can be attributed to an attorney by the name of Robert Lehrman, hired by Kübler of Switzerland, makers of… yep, absinthe. The inquiries began in 2000, and the regulations were only loosened late last year, so Lehrman had a seven-year fight on his hands. Granted, this is good for the Kübler distillery, but also good for other distilleries who are willing to be subjected to the rigorous approval process by the US government.

In Alameda, California, St George Spirits distillery has become the first in the United States to introduce American-made absinthe onto the market since 1912. At the moment, I’ve only been able to find information on only two other makers of absinthe who have been given the green light to sell in the US market aside from Kübler and St George: From France, Combier Distillery’s Lucid Absinthe Supérieure, imported by Viridian Spirits LLC, and a South American brand I haven’t been able to find further information on aside that it might be Brazilian in nationality. I found Absinto Camargo online, which is a possible candidate for this mystery. Any help in clarification would be greatly appreciated!

When Hao and I had initially found out about the loosening of the ban, we went to the nearest Total Wine (also known among friends as the Alco-Mall) to see if we could possibly procure a bottle. We roamed the aisles with no success, and upon asking a store employee, I found out why: it’s too new. Having done more research online, which I am now sharing with you, with only a small handful of distilled versions of absinthe being sold legally inside the US, there isn’t enough product to flood the market, or at least the shelves of our local Total Wine… yet. Perhaps within this year, as more absinthe producers apply to import into the US, or as more home-grown distilleries create some Yankee absinthe, we may see a bottle or two show up at Total Wine and ABC Liquors, along with other mom & pop liquor stores.

If you’re interested in consuming the Green Fairy, you will probably want to do a little research in order for you to figure out where you can purchase absinthe, as well as what brands to buy and what “Absente” to avoid. One of the websites I recommend is The Wormwood Society, which will explain to you the current US policy towards absinthe (10 mg of thujone per liter or less is acceptable for sale and consumption), and has recipes for absinthe cocktails, lists a review guide, showcases top-rated bottles (some made and packaged before the ban, making the bottles nearly a century old!) and a segment on “Absinthe Science,” dispelling the myths and hype of wormwood.

For more on absinthe, follow these links:

Websites

• The Virtual Absinthe Museum - Loaded with FAQs, absinthe history & lore, as well as a place to buy prints of absinthe posters and so forth, the Virtual Absinthe Museum is a wonderful primer for people wanting to learn more about this illustrious liquor.
• La Fee Verte - This website has a ton of information, especially notable for its Buyer’s Guide, which should steer you in the right direction as far as what absinthes may be right for you, and which ones you should avoid. There’s an exhaustive list of different brands from all over the world, and some of these have ratings and reviews. Very comprehensive!

News articles

• Reason The Green Fairy Gets a Green Card
• Wired Barely Legal: American Absinthe Passes the Taste Test
• The New York Times Absinthe Returns in a Glass Half Full of Mystique and Misery

Where to buy

• Absinthe Classics - Six ranges of absinthe are sold on this site, sent from the United Kingdom by courier to the United States and Canada, as well as other parts of the world. Prices are given in Pounds Sterling, so please use the online currency converter to figure out how much it will be in your nation’s currency.
• D&M Wines and Liquors - Currently selling Kübler and Lucid on its website.
• K&L Wine Merchants - Also currently selling Kübler and Lucid, as well as some liquors made without the grande wormwood, which would explain why the bottles are half the cost of the real absinthes.
• The Jug Shop - Selling Lucid and Kubler, but is also listed as a seller for US-made St George… but out of stock at the moment.
• HiTimeWine.net - Also selling Kubler and Lucing, with a listing for St George, which is also out of stock.

Please note I cannot personally vouch for any of these retailers online, having not yet purchased absinthe by any means at the present time. In other words, I’m providing this information for you to do as you like with. Don’t come crying to me if the shipping costs are painful, your booze gets lost, or it turns out you don’t like the flavour of absinthe after all.