Monday, March 7, 2011

The Food Emporium/My Apartment @8:23 pm
Union Square
Live from New York, it’s Cheeseburger Sunday Night! Starring the Food Emporium and featuring the ready for prime beef player, Marty Wombacher. Ladies and gentlemen...please welcome the introduction to this post!

Okay, we couldn’t do Cheeseburger Saturday Night last night, because I wanted to go to the CineKink film festival and check out Leslie Hope’s film, GAYKEITH. So I thought I’d do the Cheeseburger thing tonight. The only problem is, it’s been raining all day and it appears to continue all through the night. I had a late lunch and don’t really feel like going anywhere and then it hit me: I could do the Cheeseburger Sunday Night at home. I’ve always liked to cook, but doing the 365 bars thing required me to be out every night and so I had a year of not cooking one single night. Well all that is about to change. Let’s go to the store and get the ingredients and start Cheeseburger Sunday Night!

Okay, it was just sprinkling when I left my apartment and now it's like a full blown monsoon out. Most of the pictures will be in color tonight, the city always looks like it's melting when it rains at night, and I want to capture that.

Union Square Park is about empty, it's really coming down now.

Ah, shelter from the storm, The Food Emporium.

Wow, it's empty in here, I guess people are staying in because of the rain.

I'm over in the meat section and listening to these two debate on what kind of frozen chicken they should buy. It's been over five minutes and I don't know what's more pathetic, the fact that they're debating about frozen chicken or the fact that I can't walk away from this.

Okay, they decided and now I'm all alone in the meat section and it's a little lonely here. I'm going to get the meat and get out of here.

I've never seen it this empty in here and it's kind of freaking me out.

Now I'm really freaked out! Who would put such a thing up! Let's get our stuff and get out of this place!

Sonyha was at the register and flashed a great smile for the MAD camera.

Okay, back outside, hopefully the rain has let up.

Goddamn, it's worse than ever out here.

A black and white shot of the trip home.

Okay, here's all the stuff I got: Sandwich Pal mustard, seasoned ground beef meatballs, Velveeta cheese slices, Coleman's mustard powder, a spatula and little onion buns. I decided at the store I'd make a couple mini slider cheeseburgers. I had a late lunch and I'm not that hungry, so it sounds perfect. Now time to start cooking, but first...

We must choose the proper music for the evening. I decided on the Hollies Anthology. They're one of my favorite bands.

And onto the boombox it goes.

And the first ingredient before we start cooking is beer! I think I'll have a large one, Veronica.

Here's the kitchen area of my apartment. It's small, but has everything I need for a cheeseburger meal.

I don't have an actual stove in here, but there's a microwave, an electric skillet, a crock pot and a toaster oven. All I need to put tonight's dinner together.

The burgers go into the skillet. They were already seasoned for Italian meatballs, so I just added some mustard powder and pepper to them and they're good to go.

I cut two of the onion buns in half and toasted cheese on them in the toaster oven. They look pretty good, right?

And the mini burgers are swimming in a sea of melted cheese, time to put this all together and plate it.

Burgers on one bun and some of the spicy mustard on the other.

Here's a slightly out of focus shot of them put together.

Very delicious, if I do say so myself and I just did.

And a closing obligatory bathroom mirror shot which also showcases my groovy polka dot shower curtain. Goodnight everybody and see you tomorrow after dark.

I’ve never felt like the Hollies got their fair shake in the world of rock and roll. They were a great band and used some real different instrumentation in their songs: Steel drums, banjos, harmonicas and they had the best harmonies going at the time. And their drummer, Bobby Elliott was a first-rate drummer. Carrie Anne is one of my all time favorite songs by The Hollies and I think I’ve listened to it at least once a month since I bought the 45 in 1967 when I was all of nine-years-old. Graham Nash has said that Carrie Anne was a song about Marianne Faithfull, whom I have a sixth degree of separation story.

A few years ago my friend David Dalton who’s a writer and knows everyone, he knows your uncle, you just don’t realize it yet, sent me an email and asked me for a favor. He said it was Marianne Faithfull’s birthday coming up and he wanted a poster of a photo of when she met Bob Dylan in the film, “Don’t Look Back,” to give to her as a present. He knew I worked at a printing place and wondered if I could output it for him. That’s one of the perks of working at a print shop, when someone needs a print for Marianne Faithfull, you’re at the ready to do it. I cleared it with my boss, printed it and sent it to David in Woodstock where he lives. I found it funny that Marianne Faithfull, a woman I had one of my first boyhood crushes on would be receiving a print from me for her birthday via David Dalton. I had a grilled cheese sandwich and then a beer or seven and promptly forgot all about it.

Then about a month later I got a notice from some international mailing service saying they were trying to deliver a package from London, England, but I wasn’t at home. Of course I wasn’t at home international mailing service, you stupid twits, I was at work, maybe you should start a night route, we don’t all work 9 to 5 you know! Anyway, for weeks this went on. I would sign a waiver for them to leave a package, they wouldn’t leave the package, my bell would ring while I was sleeping, a waiver would be left and it never got resolved. Finally the package was left and when I eagerly opened it, inside was a Marianne Faithfull CD. It was her doing duets with other people. I wasn’t sure why this came my way until a couple months later I was talking to David Dalton on the phone about something totally different. All of a sudden in the middle of the conversation he said: “Hey, did Marianne ever send you that CD?”

“I got a Marianne Faithfull CD in the mail, but I just figured it was some promotional thing,” I told him, having forgotten about the poster for her birthday.

“Goddamn her,” he spat into the phone, “She really liked the Dylan poster, so I told her you went out of her way to do it and asked her to send you the CD with a thank you note, because I knew you’d get a kick out of it. She didn’t include a note?” He asked.

“No,” I replied, “that would’ve really been cool.”

“Fucking rock stars,” he moaned.

Fucking rock stars.

Further reading: New York Magazine, Wikipedia, Wikipedia and Songfacts.

Nightcap

Hey Carrie Anne, what’s your game?

ARCHIVES