Daydreams of Cheeseburgers

Remember the cheeseburgers of yore? You know the ones I mean - the ones eaten at roadside stands, while riding in the backseat of the station wagon?  Or maybe at the snackbar stand at the City swimming pool on a lazy, chlorine-scented summer afternoons?  From a portable trailer at the County Fair while the Tilt-a-Whirl grinds away nearby?

That's the way I remember cheeseburgers. Wrapped in paper, a mellow yellow slab of American cheese melted over a thin fried patty, crunchy iceberg lettuce and tomato on a toasted buttered bun.

LA is full of deluxe burgers, thick and juicy, made with organic grass-fed beef, served on glossy-domed brioche buns, often with exotic house-made chutneys or compotes and imported cheese. These are all culinary marvels, a bit over-the-top, but good.

But sometimes I want a burger like the ones I remember from childhood. And there's a new place to get them in Santa Monica - Pierburger.

On the Santa Monica Pier just in front of Pierburger is a sign designating this spot as the western terminus of historic Route 66.

Tourists from all over the world flock to the Pier, many of them posing for photos in front the the Route 66 sign.

We'll indulge, them, even though it's not precisely true - Route 66 really ended at the intersection of Olympic and Lincoln Boulevard.

The Pier just has the right vibe.  Pierburger does too. You walk inside the wooden screen door, and order up your burger. Prices are right - $4.50 for a single cheeseburger. The fries are already "supersized" - a regular order easily feeds two people.

The menu includes a hot dog I'll probably never order, a chicken sandwich, and a white seabass sandwich that maybe- just maybe - I'll try someday.

The rest of the menu is devoted to frozen treats. You can get a shake, a float, or a cup of frozen custard. You can also get what they call a "concrete" - frozen custard blended with ingredients like strawberries, bananas, cookie dough or peanut butter cups.

You can sit inside the small store, or you can take a picnic table in the shaded area out back. Pump your ketchup in a little cup and wait for your name to be called on the PA.

The burger comes in a little waxed paper bag, nestled with your fries in a cardboard box. The burger itself is not a thin piece of shoe-leather, but a nice, 1/2 inch burger, slightly pink in the center. The cheese is good, creamy bland orange American cheese. There's a pleasing, pinky-mayonnaise sauce that pulls all the tastes together. One of the things I notice consistently is the high quality of the green leaf lettuce and ripe red slice of tomato  - no pale pink slices here, really ripe tomato.

Oh, yeah. It's a good burger - just like in your daydreams.

The sequel

Like every Hollywood disaster movie, there's a sequel.

It's Carmaggedon II!

We're spending the weekend in self-imposed house arrest, to avoid the traffic. Steak on the grill and a couple of cool ones on the deck. Oh, and all the laundry is done and folded and put away!

Little altars everywhere

Click all photos to "embiggen", of course!

A tourist's life in Venice is one of depraved indulgence. You shop, eat, wander, drink. You laze at outdoor cafes and watch the ever-changing parade of other tourists. A good place to do this is at the broad campo near the Rialto Mercado vaporetto stop. Here, the venerable old building that once housed Venice's thirteenth century bank, now houses several cafes and bacari where you can sit and enjoy a spritz or a glass of wine while overlooking the grand canal.

Ah, the hedonistic decadence of such a life!

Monster in the kitchen

Tonight I encountered a monster in my kitchen.

She flew into the sink and clung to the side of an empty jar of pasta sauce that was soaking clean. She fluttered down and her wings became drabbled in the water.

I fished her out with my fingers and startled at her raspy, thorny carapace, I dropped her on the floor. She raced past [The Man I Love]'s feet.

Finally I scooped her up with a paper towel and laid her on the dining table. She clambered up into the flower arrangement there.

She's a little monster. A California praying mantis, or Stagomantis californica.

"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille."

Her compound eyes sit wide apart in her arrow-shaped head, which can swivel around 180 degrees, all the better to seek out prey in the form of other bugs - and other manti.

The praying mantis can truly be characterized as "The Worst Girlfriend in the World," because she's just not a nice girl. She doesn't play well with others.

Shh! Don't speak!

A solitary animal, really, except when they mate, but even then, she's not much for conversation. Sometimes during the mating ritual, the female mantis eats the male's head while he's in the middle of the act.  It doesn't matter to her - she wasn't paying much attention to anything he had to say.

She could use a manicure.

The streak continues

Well, I'm still dodging seagull poop.

Continuing to cover for my out-sick coworker, I just submitted a dozen entries into our institution's financial software, in order to pay some bills.

I just found out they've all been rejected by Accounts Payable due to errors. Apparently, I failed to comply with some data entry protocol in one of the fields.

I have to re do them all.

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Angel atop San Stae church in Venice. With bird

Sometimes you can't avoid the pooping seagull.

A co-worker is out sick. Another co-worker has had a huge workload dumped on her with a deadline of - tomorrow! Another co-worker is taking weekday time off because she worked over the weekend. Another co-worker is preparing for a prolonged leave, and needs to pass on important information about her duties - which means meetings and lots of note-taking.

It's me, and the phone ringing and the doorbell sounding. It's me trying to remember how to use our institution's financial software - which is usually co-worker A's job - and I've screwed it up and have to figure out how to fix it. It's me routing co-worker B's documents for signature while she's embargoed with her deadline. It's me sending off email inquiries with no response. It's me writing to-do lists. It's me opening mail, locking up at night, and eating lunch at my desk. And my sandwich was stale!

I'm probably exaggerating, but this is how I feel today, with a seagull pooping on my head.

UPDATE: I also just barely avoided flooding my kitchen when I left the tap on while soaking a pot. Thank you, Kohler, for a smart sink design that routes overflow into the other basin's drain. But what of our water bill? Sigh.

Takeaway from the halls of power

We were very grateful to be invited to a fundraising event celebrating a local institution and honoring an acclaimed author.

There was a reception that took place in the pleasant outdoor garden area surrounding the institution's building, and then the party moved next door for dinner and presentations in the dining room of a powerful and venerable Los Angeles private social club.

Up in the air

Photo courtesy L. Lind

This morning, with much fanfare, the Space Shuttle Endeavor flew over California, taking off from Edwards Air Force Base and making an extended loop over the state.


Coming in low over the Pier and the beach hotels

The route took it over California landmarks like the capitol in Sacramento, the Golden Gate Bridge, Santa Barbara and Point Mugu. Here in Los Angeles County, it flew along the coast of Malibu, past the Getty Villa, and at almost exactly 12:00 noon, it flew over the Santa Monica Pier, then banked east over Shutters on the Beach, Cha Cha Chicken, and the Bay Shore Lanes Bowling Alley, headed for a loop over downtown.

View of downtown Santa Monica

We hung out on a rooftop, watching all the people on all the other rooftops, high school kids at the outdoor amphitheatre at SAMOHI, and straining our eyes for a glimpse. The skies were hazy, though the sun was bright.


Yellow parasail right below it, people on the roof at Rand

 When it came, it came in low. we could see it through the angle of a construction crane on Ocean Avenue. Some lucky guy in a parasail over the beach got a close-up view of it.

It angled overhead, then passed and faded into the southward haze.

I got a few shots of it, but my friend Louis got the fantastic shot of it that's above. Click any photo to "embiggen."

Eat a peach

I don't know why, but I've never been attracted to white peaches, not even the odd-looking donut or Saturn peach.  White peaches are sweeter, less acid than yellow peaches, and I've always liked the assertive flavor of the yellow peaches.

But I may have changed my mind after visiting Venice.  Just steps from our door, the Rialto produce market, or Erbaria, burgeoned with ripe fruit. Each morning, I'd choose something for breakfast, and was rewarded by fruit that was perfectly ripe to eat. The white peaches here were luscious, sweet, oozing with juice that ran down my chin, the cherries deep crimson and juice, the nectarines golden and bright with flavor.

As a matter of fact, I had to unlearn my American habit of buying too much fruit, because each piece was at its peak. If I took enough for a few days - it would spoil. Left overnight, a cherry or a nectarine, or a sweet ripe peach would darken and soften until it was overipe and faintly smelled of fermentation - the sugars turning to alcohol and rot.

No - the proper way to shop in Venice is to buy what you want to eat right then.

What delicate delicious treats have you enjoyed this summer?