I've been looking around at the restaurant chains that have opened up branches in our area over the past few years, and I've noticed something.

Despite the health claims for lighter diets and diets without red meat, and despite what appears to be an increasing number of vegetarians and vegans, the humble hamburger remains much in demand. Today, however, it's a bigger, tastier burger than was (and is!) served by the longest-lived burger chains, White Castle and McDonalds. No, I mean the latest crop of chains, targeted at the middle and upper middle class, who nonetheless sell mostly burgers and fries: Five Guys (which sells only burgers, fries, and hot dogs, but provides boxes of raw, shelled peanuts, free of charge), and Goodburger, (which sells things like BLTs and turkey sandwiches in addition to fries and every kind of burger imaginable). Don't forget the older (1980s) crop of burger places like Johnny Rockets and Ruby's that build their locations to have a shiny, 50's diner-style look, but actually serve little more than burgers and fries. And also don't forget the burger places that masquerade as T.G.I. Friday's clones, namely, Fuddruckers and Red Robin (which started out as a tavern and ended up stripping down its emphasis to burgers later on).

In addition to all of that, every diner and many pizzerias can serve you a hamburger as well. They're *everywhere*, even more so than they were back in the day (way before *my* time, certainly) when McDonalds was new, nifty, and cool.

A good friend of mine just e-mailed me the following, which purports to be the recipe for Remy's version of ratatouille from the movie! Since I'm not a big squash/zucchini fan, I probably won't attempt to make the recipe, but except for the presence of those vegetables, it really does sound delicious! I am providing it below, with all of the attributions and the copyright notice. (No, I have no idea who Thomas Keller is, but my guess is that he's a chef at one of the three restaurants that Pixar consulted in making the movie.)

"Here is Remy's ratatouille recipe, from the movie with the same
name as the dish, courtesy of Thomas Keller.

Unlike traditional ratatouilles, this recipe calls for layering
vegetables in a spiral on top of a piperade. You could also layer
the vegetables in stripes, if you find that easier.


CONFIT BYALDI (or, Remy's Ratatouille)

Start to finish: 3 1/2 hours, 1 hour active

Servings: 4

For the piperade (bottom layer):

1/2 red bell pepper, seeds and ribs removed
1/2 yellow bell pepper, seeds and ribs removed
1/2 orange bell pepper, seeds and ribs removed
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup finely diced yellow onion
3 tomatoes (about 12 ounces total weight),
peeled, seeded and finely diced, juices reserved
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 sprig flat-leaf parsley
1/2 a bay leaf
Kosher salt

For the vegetables:

1 medium zucchini (4 to 5 ounces)
sliced in 1/16-inch-thick rounds
1 Japanese eggplant (4 to 5 ounces)
sliced into 1/16-inch-thick rounds
1 yellow (summer) squash (4 to 5 ounces)
sliced into 1/16-inch-thick rounds
4 Roma tomatoes, sliced into 1/16-inch-thick rounds
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/8 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the vinaigrette:

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
Assorted fresh herbs (such as thyme flowers, chervil, thyme)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Special equipment: Oven-proof skillet

To make the piperade, preheat oven to 450 F.
Line a baking sheet with foil.

Place pepper halves on the baking sheet, cut side down.
Roast until the skins loosen, about 15 minutes.
Remove the peppers from the oven and let rest
until cool enough to handle.
Reduce the oven temperature to 275 F.

Peel the peppers and discard the skins.
Finely chop the peppers, then set aside.

In medium skillet over low heat, combine oil, garlic and onion
and saute until very soft but not browned, about 8 minutes.

Add the tomatoes, their juices, thyme, parsley and bay leaf.
Bring to a simmer over low heat and cook until very soft
and little liquid remains, about 10 minutes. Do not brown.

Add the peppers and simmer to soften them. Discard the herbs,
then season to taste with salt.
Reserve a tablespoon of the mixture, then spread the remainder
over the bottom of an 8-inch oven-proof skillet.

To prepare the vegetables, you will arrange the sliced zucchini,
eggplant, squash and tomatoes over the piperade in the skillet.

Begin by arranging 8 alternating slices of vegetables
down the center, overlapping them so that 1/4 inch of each slice
is exposed.
This will be the center of the spiral.
Around the center strip, overlap the vegetables in a close spiral
that lets slices mound slightly toward center.
All vegetables may not be needed. Set aside.

In a small bowl, mix the garlic, oil and thyme,
then season with salt and pepper to taste.
Sprinkle this over vegetables.

Cover the skillet with foil and crimp edges to seal well.
Bake until the vegetables are tender
when tested with a paring knife, about 2 hours.
Uncover and bake for another 30 minutes.
(Lightly cover with foil if it starts to brown.)

If there is excess liquid in pan,
place it over medium heat on stove until reduced.
(At this point it may be cooled, covered and refrigerated
for up to 2 days. Serve cold or reheat in 350 F oven until warm.)

To make the vinaigrette, in a small bowl whisk together
the reserved piperade, oil, vinegar, herbs,
and salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, heat the broiler and place skillet under it
until lightly browned.
Slice in quarters and lift very carefully onto plate
with an offset spatula.
Turn spatula 90 degrees as you set the food down,
gently fanning the food into fan shape.
Drizzle the vinaigrette around plate."

(Recipe adapted from Thomas Keller)

07/06/07 12:29 © Copyright The Associated Press.
All rights reserved.

The above is a Japanese phrase that means something like "it was a great feast!" The greatest feast I had recently, though, was at a Chinese restaurant; Margaret Kuo's Mandarin, near my home in Malvern.

Eric and I were eating with an out-of-town friend, and I decided I wanted to try something I'd never eaten before. Since our friend was not a fancier of spicy food and I wanted a dish we could all share, that narrowed my choices somewhat. I finally settled on something called "Shanghai Traditional Pork", which supposedly was pork shoulder roasted in traditional herbs and spices.

When the dish came out, I was stunned. The menu didn't mention that they had been planning to give me the entire shoulder of the beast. An elliptical hunk of meat loomed before me, surrounded by a small ocean of brown sauce in which scallions floated like giant squid. Rising from the right hand side of the meat mound was a neatly sawed off piece of bone, looking oddly like a minature pulpit. And all I had to eat this huge portion of Roast Beast with was a pair of chopsticks, a spoon, and a fork....

Fortunately the chefs knew their craft. The meat was tender enough to fall readily from the bone, needing only to be coaxed with fork or chopsticks to fall into manageable shreds. Since the hunk was still far too much food for a normal human (especially since a bowl of rice came with it) about 2/3rd of it is resting in my refrigerator now, minus the bone pulpit and the half-inch layer of fat and gristle which covered the back of the piece. That's two more meals for me, or a meal for me and Eric, if not more.

On Thursday night, Eric and I decided to try out a new restaurant near us, a Indian Chinese (!) place called "Royal India."

The food turned out to be, at best, mediocre. Slightly scorched garlic naan, dry keema mutter. Their "Chinese" dishes are supposedly Hakka Chinese, which Eric says is a non-Han Chinese ethnic group. Unfortunately, Hakka style appears to mean "breaded, with lots of chili sauce." The "Drums of Heaven" (spicy faux chicken wings) were okay that way, but breading the pieces of lamb in the spicy lamb stew made for a fairly noxious concoction.

However, the restaurant had a large flat screen TV that was continually playing music videos. Hindi music videos. All of the songs had female lead singers (with very pleasant voices) and all of the music was quite forgettable, except for the Hindi attempt at Jamaican-style rap music, which was just weird. What kept me watching was the oddness of the images. Unlike a lot of Western music videos which merely show the singer in concert from umpteen different angles, these videos tried to tell a story.

And what strange stories they were! One was clearly about a young Hindu working girl. We see her getting dressed in salwar kameez (a kind of tunic top with loose pants combination that is often worn by young Indian women in place of a sari), and hopping a rickshaw bicycle cart to get to some kind of classical Indian dance class. Later on, we see her girlfriends trying to match her up with a young Hindu man who is acting as though he is very interested in her. They re-dress her in a tight sleeveless top and blue jeans for the Big Date.

Another number featured a European-looking young man, who keeps admiring and fondling (only the non-sexual body parts of) a young, sleeping Hindu girl. Repeated shots of Russian saint icons and snow-bound cemeteries are apparently meant to tell the viewer that the man is Russian. However, why the girl doesn't wake up and either cooperate with his caresses or slap him is beyond me, since I don't understand Hindi.

There was another video featuring a high-voiced woman in a red sari (a wedding sari?) and a man in a white shirt and black pants. This video gave me the impression of being a Hindu version of a Lucy and Ricky Ricardo sitcom. Judging by the gestures, she seemed to be trying to tell him that she was going to have a baby, and he was being extremely clueless and kept missing the point.

And there were many, many more--including a strange one with horror movie imagery and another with spy movie imagery.

It was also interesting how little skin was showing on the attractive women singers and extras. Many of the videos had large batteries of female dancers, and all were very good looking in the modern conventional sense--slender, long-legged, clear skinned. But the only skin showing, for the most part, was torsos, arms and faces. Some of the numbers put their dancers in long filmy skirts with bra tops, but most of the outfits didn't even show cleavage. It was as though the producers wanted to hint at the erotic without actually going so far as to *be* erotic. Pretty sorry stuff for the home of the "Kama Sutra" to have generated.