Anger Burger

That my “Kuntry Krust” loaf still kicks yeasty ass.

And also when I said “I always braid this loaf,” I lied.

More food truckery, sorry, but rest easy knowing this will be the last for the next few weeks.

My friends Mary and Ben joined me for another trip to the finest shaved ice in town, though a combination of my own poor flavor choices (grape and POG) and the ice-wrangler being in a rush (not enough syrup) made for a slightly less-than-transcendent experience.

Afterward we perused the Miracle Mile strip to see what trucks were serving that day, and came across one we hadn’t seen before: The World Fare truck.  Of course, for cringe-filled guffaws, their website corrects that it is a “busTAURANT”.  I’m proud to tell you that we were actually too lazy to climb up and sit at their rooftop tables.

Now, I’d read about World Fare and was under the mistaken impression that it would have a rotating menu of street foods, but it would seem there is just one: the South African “bunny chow“, a very loose slang with questionable origins for a product neither containing bunnies nor intended for bunny consumption.  On the contrary, it’s traditionally curry served in a pretty large hollowed-out chunk of bread, which World Fare interprets loosely as tiny little rolls with a variety of fillings.

Ben’s hands making their Anger Burger debut!

The prices were a little disappointing too: a combination lunch with two chows, a side of fries and a cookie ran $10.  This is one of those instances where I feel like staying true to the history of the food (or larger portions at the very least) would go a long way toward keeping this out of the novelty meal spectrum.  Good once, but given the vast range of alternative options, I doubt I’ll be back.

Still, curiosity couldn’t keep us from the deep-fried truffled mac-n-cheese balls.  And then surprise!  At $3 seemed like a good deal until we realized they were charging like $60 a pound for it — they are tiny, about the size of gumballs.  They were hot from the fryer and had a nice crust, but the mac-n-cheese itself was surprisingly bland, being made from a mild white cheese and mysteriously short on salt.  It felt awfully patriotic sitting there eating deep-fried macaroni and cheese and thinking, damn, this is totally not salty enough, but it’s true.

But, wouldn’t you know it, it’s springtime in Los Angeles, the weather is fine and in a few days I’m flying back to my hometown for a short bit.  Things could be worse.  THIS IS NOT A CHALLENGE, UNIVERSE.  Back off.

Dear Trader Joe’s,

It’s true that we’ve had some beefs.  I’ll always wonder why your aisles are so narrow – I know, you claim it’s because you rent the smallest possible stores to keep costs down, but seriously, we know you do it to instill a sense of panic in us.  And I ignored for years that you sold trawl-caught fish.  And I think it’s vaguely infuriating that you eliminate popular products made by other companies just as soon as you find a supplier who can mimic it under the Trader Joe’s name.

But for the most part, you’re the reason I can afford to eat organic sugar in my tea, and for another weird reason your plain regular soy milk is seriously the best soy milk I’ve ever had.  How is it so creamy without the addition of oil?  And the Empire chicken?  Lord don’t get me started on the Empire “No Really, We Actually Are Number One” chicken.  I’m not Jewish, but I’m sure glad those chickens are.  Were.

No, what I want to discuss are the solicitors outside.

I know you put up a sign that says that you don’t endorse them, and yes, technically you have no power over what someone is doing on the sidewalk outside your store, but in particular the location on La Brea?  What the fuck, you guys?  You probably remember me because last year I complained about this creepy, aggressive 20-something man who was shilling products to help save children from cleft palates¹ who kept stepping in front of me and blocking my way into the store? Yeah hi, I’m that lady.  The lady who keeps complaining.

It’s getting pretty bad, ya’ll.  Yesterday a perky, hyperactive girl shouted at the man in front of me “HI! YOU LOOK FRIENDLY BUT ARE YOU ECO-FRIENDLY!?”  A quick glance confirmed my fear: Greenpeace.  Oh Greenpeace.  Why do you have to embarrass yourself like this?  There’s a stream of terrified people entering this store to buy organic products who now probably hate whales.  On my way out of the store she caught me: “YOU HAVE TIME TO SHOP, DO YOU HAVE TIME TO SAVE THE EARTH!?”  I kept walking without acknowledging her.  She shot after me a bitchy “Well, I really hope you have a good day!”

So here’s the thing, TJ’s — I’m a pretty liberal lady.  Maybe more mid-states militia Liberal in that I think everyone should do their own thing in the privacy of their own homes without interference from the law, but I still viscerally arch in cat-like rage at the mere sight of Karl Rove.  But this passive-aggressive faux-bleeding heart shit has got to stop.  You can tell these fuckers to fuck off.  I know you can.  Ultimately we can share a wink-wink, nudge-nudge over the fact that this is about commerce, not live-and-let-live.  Tell the psychos to jet.  Please.

Sincerely,

Sunday “Anger Burger” Williams

¹ Which, sad, yes. But on a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest, how inappropriate is it that I think cleft-palate kids are kind of cute, like little bunny children?

Mike: Can you pretty please make me a big, big cup of coffee?

Me: You mean a pot?

Mike: Whatever you want to call it.

I swear I’m craving bran muffins.  I don’t get it either.  I mean, I’m also craving a cream-filled donut, a Tommy’s burger, and a slice of Old School Pizza’s “The Nuge” but only one of these things can magically leap from my kitchen as though spontaneously generated, and that’s the stupid bran muffin.

I’m sorry, bran muffin, I didn’t mean that.  You’re not stupid.  You’re just totally mis-made about 90% of the time.  I can’t even remember the last time I purchased one that I could finish eating; bran muffins fall to either end of a spectrum wherein one end is candy-sweet, oily and probably 2,100 calories and the other end an inedible amalgamation of packing excelsior and diatomaceous earth.

And yet!  The other 10% not accounted for!

When I was a kid my mom made the best bran muffins, but she, like everyone, used Kellogg’s All-Bran, which is still made with high fructose corn syrup.  This is how I found myself going down the road that many a closet-hippie has found herself wandering down: surely there is a decent bran muffin recipe out there that is made from actual wheat bran.  And then: I wonder if I use enough profanity in this blog post people with still think I’m punk rock.

Spoiler alert!

This isn’t the holy grail recipe — I think they’re still a smidge too gummy (though were much worse when made with applesauce) and don’t get quite enough loft, but flavor-wise I think they’re brilliant.  But this is the best I can do right now for a moist, rich bran muffin that doesn’t taste like someone took Thanksgiving a little too seriously.  Just put the fucking pumpkin pie spice mix down.  Walk away.

False Holy Grail Bran Muffins
there are a lot of ingredients in this recipe, but there’s not much I can do about that.  loose wheat bran can be a little tricky to find outside health food stores, but it’s usually found near the wheat germ in the breakfast cereal aisle.  i also prefer something other than raisins in the muffins because raisins are too sweet to me, but any dried fruit cut fairly small would be great.  to be honest, most of the time I don’t put fruit in them; I just want the bran muffin.

also!  this recipe is made with butter, which I eventually want to experiment away from and over to an oil, but for now the butter stays.

dry ingredients
1 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 C. whole wheat flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon

other ingredients
4 oz (1 stick) butter, softened
1/2 packed C. brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
1/4 C. unsulphered molasses (I like Brer Rabbit “Full Flavor”)
1 C. plain yogurt
1/3 C. milk

other other ingredients
1 1/2 C. wheat bran
1 finely shredded carrot
1 C. finely chopped sour cherries or raisins (optional)

• Mix together your dry ingredients and set them aside.

• Wait, no.  Start heating your oven to 350° and then mix your dry ingredients and set them aside.

• In the bowl of a mixer, cream the butter until light and smooth.  Add the brown sugar, vanilla and molasses and mix until smooth again.  Add the eggs, one at a time, until they’re somewhat incorporated into the butter mix.  Scrape the bowl down.

• Add the yogurt.  Beat until smooth, just for a few seconds.

• Add half of the dry ingredients, and beat until just mixed in.

• Add the milk and beat until just mixed in.

• Add the last of the dry ingredients and beat until just mixed in.  Scrape down bowl.

• By hand, quickly mix in the wheat bran, then the carrots and fruit (if any).  Immediately portion out into muffin tins – this batch makes exactly a dozen standard muffins, but be advised that the batter will almost exactly fill the tins.  This is okay.  They barely rise at all when they are baking and will not (at least drastically) overflow the tin.  For prettiness’ sake, you can also top the uncooked muffins with large-crystal sugar at this point.

• Bake about 25 minutes or until the surface springs back from a quick poke with your finger, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

My dad eats his leftover cornbread (yes, cornbread, keep up) crumbled into a bowl with a little milk and then microwaves it until hot to eat as a kind of cornmeal cereal, and bran muffins work too: crumble stale muffins into a bowl, top with chopped nuts if so inclined, splash with a generous portion of milk and microwave until steaming.  Top with sliced banana or fresh berries.  Kind of like bran oatmeal, in a weird way.

Watch out, this is mostly about how I don’t like being a part of society.  So, wait, no.  Everything is normal.  Carry on

Click here to keep reading this tripe

Hot on the sanctimonious heels of Jamie Oliver’s new TV show that I yammered on about is a fine article about Alice Waters in the Los Angeles Times.  It’s an excellent summary of my reluctant dislike of her, which I’ll get into more in a moment.  First, an example:

Waters herself occasionally chows down on a grass-fed beef hot dog (organic mustard and bun) at Let’s Be Frank in Los Angeles, which is owned by a friend. But she takes a dim view of In-N-Out, though it touts fresh ingredients and hand-cut French fries. “It’s probably better than any other chain,” she said, “but it’s not real or authentic. I’d rather eat from a street vendor in Sicily.”

It’s her statement, if you’re wondering:  “It’s not real or authentic.”  It’s not real what?  Real food?  I assure you it’s food.  Real burgers?  They’re one of the originators.  Which brings me to authentic: just what the hell is going on here?  Authentic? You eat motherfucking grass-fed beef hotdogs with organic buns and organic mustard and you’re criticizing someone else for authenticity?

I’m not sure I even have to point out how hilarious the “I’d rather eat from a street vendor in Sicily” comment is, though it does nicely package my primary reason for disliking Waters: sure, I’d rather eat from a vendor in Sicily too.  But you know what?  It’s on the other side of the goddamn world.  What’s the carbon footprint for flying to Italy?  It takes some real entitled balls to throw out a “I’d rather be skipping without troubles through the Sicilian countryside than eating your wretched Dinty Moore slop.”

Listen, like someone else mentions in the article: it’s really a shame that Waters is like this, because the heart of her message is one that I agree with.  People should eat better and support the manufacturers of their food for their troubles.  But just in case you were willing to disregard her madness in favor of her method, she then upchucks something like “We have to get over the idea that food should be cheap.”

We do?  I was sort of of the school that we should all be rich, too, but somehow my idea hasn’t gained popularity.

Oh, I know, I know.  We need to eat with more conscience.  But Waters needs to live on minimum wage, too.