Hamburger America: the book AND dvd!

I pestered my local library to start carrying Hamburger America, the book, and they got a copy, which I have now checked out. When I took a look at the cover, there’s a sticker the library put on that says “1 disc included.” Do you know what that disc was?

That’s right, Hamburger America, the movie!

So, you realise I have to share the film with as many people as possible, yeah? I’ve already made my parents watch it, and I thought my father was going to have a heart attack merely watching Solly’s butterburgers being made. “Oh my God, that’s BUTTER?!” he freaks while watching a woman slab on a hefty dollop of butter onto a bun before mushing it down onto a burger.

Potential food rule: Butter makes everything better. This rule may have to be tested out on a butterburger of my own with a veggie patty. Yes, I’m game enough, but I don’t know if I’d want quite as much butter as Solly’s Grille tops theirs with. Seriously, the camera zooms in on these burgers, and you can see the golden liquid dripping on the sides! The film even shows a patron sopping up some of the butter with half of his burger. It should also be mentioned Solly’s Grille is right across the street from a medical center treating heart diseases. Surprisingly, though, the owner of Solly’s Grille mentions two men in their 90s who’d been coming to Solly’s Grill for decades, and seem to be doing just fine.

Potential food theory: Butter makes you live longer.

I can imagine cardiologists cringing at the thought of a butterburger, but I’ll bet a few of those people that work at the nearby heart care center make dashes across the street to get their butterburger fixes.

Eventually, I’ll have to break down and buy this book, so I can have the book and dvd on hand for future reference and edification, as well as to share it with people who aren’t yet my friends, but someday will be (aw!). Yesterday I began reading the book, and currently I’m in the Louisiana section, where Port of Call in New Orleans is listed. There is only one place listed in Florida, Le Tub of Hollywood. In America, it seems the best states for burgers, according to George Motz, are California (9 entries), Oklahoma (7 entries), Ohio (6 entries), Connecticut (5 entries) and Texas (8 entries).

If you want to know more about Hamburger America or George Motz, the brainchild behind the projects, go to the website: HamburgerAmerica.com. Motz has a blog where you can catch up on what’s current–at the moment, the most recent entry is on the book tour he’s doing. If you live in Orange County in Florida, you’ll be happy to know that the Orange County Library System has two copies of Hamburger America, both of which are currently checked out–one by yours truly. Don’t worry, I’ll be returning mine shortly once I’ve finished reading it and have made a few of my friends watch the dvd. If you can’t wait, though, you can buy it online through Shop OCLS, with Amazon.com, or get a used copy with Abebooks.

What I’m reading, what I’m keen on

Per NPR’s recommendation, I’m putting The Fortune Cookie Chronicles down as a “to-read” book in my Goodreads profile. It looks awesome, especially because it’s about food and exploring one’s heritage as an Asian-American.

Right now, I’m reading Kim Sunée’s Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home.  It’s wonderfully written, although sometimes Sunée has a way with words that seem too fanciful for me, too much like the poet she seems to be.  I still have a bit more to go until I complete the book, but an interesting thing to note is that at the end of many chapters, Sunée includes recipes, often those which pertain to the point in her life at the time: whispery eggs with crabmeat and herbs, croque-madame, Jansson’s frestelse, chocolate cake with mascarpone-chestnut cream, kimchi soup.  In sharing these recipes, the author shares part of her history, her personal food memoir, along with the written words of her life and emotions as she finds her place in the world.

Kim Sunée has a website, which includes a lovely blog and a travel & food section, which I hope to explore should I ever find myself in the cities… and with the money to back up my appetite and aspirations.  Any and all who may care to sponsor my dream, please contact me!  I will write a book and include you in the acknowledgements!

Things are better with kalamansi power

My mother made my father pick kalamansi from their tree last week. The kalamansi, also known as the calamondin, is an awesome little citrus plant that is well-used in the Philippines for an assortment of home and health care activities. It’s used in cooking, skin care and also used as a remedy for a sore throat and cold, hence why my father was plopping several of these little guys in a small Office Depot bag for me on Superbowl Sunday.

Since Hao has unfortunately caught a bit of my cold, I took a big handful of kalamansi and mixed it with hot water and a wee bit of sugar to make a drink for him. It was something similar that my mother made for me once when I was sick in the Philippines on a trip we took back in ‘04. I think it really helped me out back then, and Hao doesn’t seem to be as sick as I was days ago–thank goodness.

Granted, Hao and I have different immune systems, and it could be something totally different, but I think kalamansi helped a good deal with its tart punch of vitamin C.

So give it a go the next time you have the sniffles. Tell my ma you’re sick, and she’ll go get my pop to pluck some kalamansi for you. Just don’t make the mistake of just popping one in your mouth like this guy on YouTube.   If you want to taste the flavour of the kalamansi, but don’t want to be sick to try it out, the Burnt Lumpia blog has an awesome pictorial entry on making a Kalamansi Granita.  Go make some, and I’ll try it out and tell you how you did.

Food Sense article

I came across another WordPress blog with an interesting article entitled Freaky Fast Food Facts, and I’d like to recommend it to anyone who eats fast food on a big or little scale, as well as those of you interested in any sort of “food reform” in the United States. The blogger is Diane Carlyle, whose modus operendi can be read here:

As a certified health counselor, I know that good health has to do with more than just the food we eat. How much we exercise, how we handle stress, how we choose to nourish our spirit and our relationships, and even how much we laugh all have an impact on our health. What’s more, food or a dietary regimen that is beneficial for one person may not be beneficial for another!

With so much information out there - and with a lot of it seeming to change overnight - it can be confusing to know what to eat or what to do. Keeping up with the latest food recommendations, diets, health tips, and opinions is a passion of mine, and so I created this blog to be a go-to resource to find out what’s new, all of it tempered with a healthy dose of commonsense based on my experience and training as a health counselor.

So far, there are only two articles in the Food Sense blog, but I’m looking forward to seeing future writings, as I’m interested in this sort of thing, being a lover of food and all, and having read a bit of Marion Nestle’s books (but not enough, unfortunately) and seen Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me.