The View From Down Here

I appear to be having a problem with my names... different names are being given for posts and comments... Hmm...

For future reference R.T. Lemur = Steve and Steve = R.T. Lemur.

Don’t you think salsa goes well with everything?

I do. It’s yummy on just about anything: on top of eggs, as a condiment to burgers, nachos, used instead of dressing for salads, and, of course, in southwestern/tex-mex cuisine. Fruity salsas even go well with ham and fish dishes. Yes, there is no limitation to this culinary multitasker. Of course, the fact that there a nearly infinite variety of salsa recipes helps this somewhat.

Why so many salsas? Well, salsa is one of the quintessential children of the fusion movement, which has affected virtually every national cuisine served in North America. I know a sushi place where you can get fajita sushi rolls (cooked of course). I recently found jalapenos used to spice up my kung pao chicken. Old fashioned Midwestern steaks are being spiced up with South American chimichuri or ground cacao beans. Couscous and polenta are being served with nearly everything. Look at the vast array of fusion eggrolls that are popping on restaurant menus. There’s even an appetizer I’ve seen of avocado slices breaded in panko, lightly fried, and served with wasabi catsup. Oh, and let’s not mention the off-the-wall pizza (the original fusion food) toppings you can order now.

Japanese–American, Mexican-American, African-American, French-African, Chinese-American, French-American, Japanese-French, Italian-American, Italian-Japanese… The combinations read on and on like the types of Americans themselves – coming from everywhere and being combined with everything. There seems no end to multicultural daring-do of our fusion chefs, with the exception of one cuisine: the forgotten German food.

I’ve read that 60% of white Americans claim a German ancestor. That’s a staggering number. So, I ask myself… Germans are certainly mixed (and still mixing) in the American melting pot, but where has their cuisine gone? Please tell me that it’s not going to remain, forgotten, in poorly lit restaurants, amidst the oompa of a tuba player and people singing, “Oh, die schone…”? Let’s not let this noble fare stay locked away.

Why can’t I order Kartofelpfannkuchen with chimichuri? Where is the spicy sauerkraut? Or the sauer-eggrolls? I want a Rouladen made from beef marinated in adobo. Come on chefs, get busy! Give us schnitzel with corn salsa and pineapple-kiwi kuchens for desert! Rueben sandwiches with pastrami that’s been “kicked up a notch!” Ham steaks with chutney! And, dare I suggest to some brave sushi chef a sausage sushi roll? Yes, in fact, I double dare you! A new era of cross cultural combinations awaits a daring culinary mind. Who will it be?

I offer one caveat… please, nobody try to concoct a “sweet and sauerbraten”. That’s just a little too cheesy, OK?

Have you ever suffered from insomnia?

I have a cure (one that works for me, anyway): turn on the TV and watch the junk that comes on at 2:00 in the morning. That stuff will suck your brain dry and leave you in a calm, restful, vegetative state. Complete alpha wave suppression, which is almost as good as sleep. The problem is, sometimes you get sucked into bad TV. Oh yes, it has happened to me. It’s not that you’re watching a good show. No, nothing that comes on at 3:00 AM can be deemed quality programming. It’s not that the plots are engaging or the characters dynamic. No, again, that would be a hallmark of good TV. No, these programs are just plain bad, and what sucks you in is the atrocity of word, form, and plot that has been launched against your senses.

By way of example, I offer the following: while flipping the channels (why can’t they build a remote with a “scan” button?) I wandered past a “movie” called Shark Attack 2. I happened upon it during one of the shark attack scenes (which were numerous, as the movie title might imply). The sharks were feeding hungrily on some surfers. All that seems very ordinary, but what caught my attention was one of the shark’s eyes. The shark puppets they were using were similar in construction to the ones used on Jaws (in fact, one of them could have been used on Jaws for all I know), but, on one of them, the eyes had been replaced with these bulging, bloodshot orbs that looked like they came off a bad Halloween mask. Seeing that was all it took… the show sucked me in and I was now at the mercy of bad TV.

Our hero is watching the surfers and he knows the sharks are going to attack. Were I in his position, I might have said, “Hey guys, I think there are five or six mutant, man-eating sharks out there. They ate three of my friends yesterday. Why don’t y’all skip the surfing today and I’ll buy everyone a round at the bar, where it is safe.” But no, our hero chooses to wait for the carnage, which, of course, gives him the chance to play hero on a jet-ski by ramming the sharks and trying to save the surfer dudes.

Wait, there’s more. After the surfers got ate up, the three main characters meet on the blood bathed beach and vow to kill those bastard mutant sharks. The scene fades to… a beach bar. Now our three heroes are sitting at a table doing shots. What? I thought they vowed to give us some carnage and get those sharks that killed their friends? You can’t just stop the plot while the heroes get their drink on! Oh, wait I get it, before they kill the sharks, one of the heroes has to give a socially responsible speech, saying most sharks aren’t all that bad and are actually afraid of humans. Of course, given everything that has happened so far in the show, our hero has to be totally snockered to say this believably. The bar scene also serves a secondary purpose: to get the heroine plastered so the completely uninspiring hero can have his way with her in the gratuitous love scene.

Mercifully, the movie soon ended in the gory destruction of the mutant sharks. TV land had been saved and I was free from the controlling influence of bad TV. Free at last! Free, at least, until Shark Attack 3 came on after the commercials…

Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem.
Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Did you ever long to relive singular moments from your past? Yeah… it doesn’t work, does it?

Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and cream gravy – that’s typical Texas fare. Texans claim to have invented it, but, I must confess, we really ripped it off from someone else. Exactly who we “borrowed” it from, I’m not sure - either the Germans (schnitzel) or the Mexicans (milanesa). I’ll let those two groups duke it out as to who gets the props for the invention. Anyway, it’s darn good if done right. If done wrong, well… the gravy helps.

Once, I quested for the ultimate chicken fried steak. I looked everywhere. The restaurant in Johnson City proclaiming to have “the world’s best chicken fried steak” was actually pretty good, but not the best. Frank’s in Schulenburg serves a nice one. The dinning room in an old house turned eatin’ place in Wadsworth took top honors once. An Irish restaurant in Clute, Texas also topped the list for a while (of course, the fact that it was an all you can eat special may have skewed my feelings a bit). The search gained me a few unwelcome pounds, but, in the end, the Best Chicken Fried Steak In The World (BCFSITW) was found at Bullwinkle’s restaurant in College Station. The BCFSITW came as a plate special called the Sherman Plate, and it was served up with mashed potatoes, cream gravy, and green salad; just the way it should be. Sadly, neither the restaurant nor the dinner in question are still around (I ate one and the other went out of business).

I frequented Bullwinkle’s often, and I always had the Sherman Plate. It was always good, but never again “the best”. I have long pondered the sequence of events that led to the BCFSITW: quality of the meat, skill of the cook, amount of batter, temperature of the fryer, the people I was with… Yeah, I suppose that’s it… the people I was with. If I could reclaim the people, I could reclaim the past. The BCFSITW could exist once more, even if only for an instant. But, that’s not the way time works, is it? People are not quanta to be rearranged and life doesn’t run backwards.

I have accomplished what Pellinor never could: the quest has ended and the beast is slain. He’d be right proud of this Texan, I think.

(Warning: Elusive Cultural References; try to keep up, OK?)

Who remembers the PBS show “321 Contact”?

Hmmm, let’s count the hands... A few of us raised our hands. Quick, put your hands down before the cool kids find out that we watched that geek show. Phew, imagine explaining that at the reunion. The Bloodhound Detective Agency was a short, episodic series contained in “321 Contact” about three young detectives who worked and solved crimes for their boss, Mr. Bloodhound. It was one of the more interesting things about “321 Contact”, other than the catchy theme song. “Contact, is the reason, is the answer, why everything happens. Contact…”

I digress. The Blood Hound Detective Agency. Every episode began with the one of the kids answering the phone and saying, “Bloodhound Detective Agency. Mr. Bloodhound isn’t here.” In fact, Mr. Bloodhound was never there, but he still seemed to get a lot done. Under the auspices of his three young helpers, numerous crimes were solved using science and strong moral character - your typical PBS fare. And yet, I wonder. Where did Mr. Bloodhound disappear to? Did his three young helpers do him in and take over his business? Did he fall and break a hip? Obviously, he hasn’t been seen for years, and those good-for-nothings back at his office refuse to go look for him. Hmm… maybe he never existed at all and he was a figment of those deranged teenagers’ imaginations…

Thinking of these things, my mind wanders to other TV characters that did not exist – The Knight Rider for one. Oh, sure, David Hasselhoff’s character was “real” enough (even if the car was not), but we are clearly told in the opening credits that the show is, “A shadowy flight into the world of a man who does not exist.” So, he’s on TV, but he doesn’t exist? Try wrapping your TV-addled 21st century mind around that one. OK, here it is – The Knight Rider is the exact opposite of our good Mr. Bloodhound. Whereas you never saw Bloodhound, but were told he existed, Michael Knight appeared every week on TV, yet we were told that he, in fact, did not exist. It’s amazing our pre-pubescent minds could digest it.

There are more… The examination of the existence of non-existent persons seems to crop up in nearly every TV show. Perhaps these persons are mere plot devices used to give the show a sense of continuity. Perhaps they are comic relief. Still, I want to know: Who is Robin Masters? Magnum P.I. didn’t even know who he was, and he was the best detective on TV (or at least he had the coolest car; these things tend to blur in little boys’ minds). Was there ever a real Mr. Body? Why do we never see the Tholian Ambassador on Star Trek?

And so, then, I wonder. Do I exist? Or am I merely a plot device developed to ensure continuity in our world? Or, am I a comic reference, perhaps? There seem to be plenty of references to me, just ask the bill collectors, but bills do not strike me as very comical. Sadly, as we have seen from our exercise above, references to one’s person are no guarantee of existence. Just ask Robin Masters – if you can find him. My daily routine doesn’t prove much either. Just like Michael Knight, I still may not “exist”.

I find all this very troublesome, and I can’t seem to figure it out.
Its too bad Mr. Bloodhound isn’t here…