Nestled at the long-neglected corner of Manhattan Avenue and Bedford Avenue, the Brooklyn meeting point of the two formerly distinct but now inseperable worlds of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, lies Five Leaves, a diner with the carefully and successfully constructed ambiance of an imaginary simpler American rustic past.

On to the hamburger:

Five Leaves Burger

The beef is grass-fed, which calmed my own stomach considering my very recent screening of Food, Inc., in which an industrial cow researcher sticks his hand elbow-deep through a port drilled into the side of a fully-conscious cow, giving him access to the contents of one of its stomachs, where he mashes around and shows off the rotting corn (i.e. not grass) inside.

But for full disclosure, I am working on the assumption that, as I believe is necessary for gastronomical honesty and integrity, judgment lies mostly in the hamburger, not in the contents of the cow’s stomach (which is nowhere to be found at Five Leaves) at the moment of its murder.  And in this department, the Five Leaves Burger is a great mashup, regardless of whether the long dead, extruded and now medium-rare cooked cow of questionable upbringing had arugula or rubber tire as its last supper.

The bun at Five Leaves was very well educated, and had a crispiness to the outermost layer of refined white flour that did not seem to be the result of any significant toasting.  The innards of the top bun were doused in mayo mixed with red pepper powder.  Then came the perfectly cooked sunny-side up egg with no evidence of any frying visible on either top or bottom.  Beneath the egg was a solitary slice of beet, lying astride the meat patty itself.

The first bite released the unfertilized juices pregnant within the egg, which flowed through the home-made prophylactic of mixed salad I surreptitiously inserted directly beneath, and were eventually lapped up greedily by the soft absorptive inner lining nascent in the bottom bun, spilling out the overflow mixture of blood and amniotic fluid onto the fresh green side of salad.  The meat patty was crispily overcooked on a few rough outer edges, but soft and tender medium rare on the inside, exactly as requested.

Conclusion:  delicious burger, but the meat was oversalted such that I would be remiss in not mentioning it in this otherwise perfectly good review.

Everyone says you have to see the Kandinsky retrospective at the Guggenheim, so I took a peek yesterday, not realizing it was the final day.  I agree with everyone not because his art is so interesting, but because by following the reverse chronology of Kandinsky’s work while spiraling down the Guggenheim turret’s ramp, you see firsthand the deconstruction of his late complex abstractions as you descend towards his earlier, easier digested works.

One thing which seems clear is that Kandinsky, like many people in postmodern culture, was focused on symbols and their meaning in shifting contexts.  Certain motifs consistently repeat themselves from his earliest works up until his final paintings, despite the drastic changes in style.  Certain hatch marks, marine forms, and what appear to be feet and toes appear again and again in the most unexpected places.  And it is this which gives the retrospective meaning.  Repetition turns “Kandinsky” into an emergent body of work amenable to discussion and analysis.  If every work was unique, how would you address it as a whole?

A late work

On of his works, unusual in its style even for such a varied artist, seems to serve as a legend to the symbols prevalent in all others:

Thirty (Trente), 1937. Oil on canvas

A "typical" Kandinsky composition

An early work

Last nights’ Gastronauts expedition was the largest ever – 80 or so people descended upon  Engeline’s in Woodside, Queens for a night of Filipino fare.  Ben and Curtiss had pre-ordered a series of delicacies off the menu, and we took over the restaurant.

Bitter melon is indeed very bitter and swims in a sort of egg-drop soup goo – will take some more acclimatization.  The “ruffle fat” pig skin was a bit cardboard in texture, slightly bitter, and not as tasty as memories of my momma’s fried chicken skin – I think they need to be eaten straight out of the frier in order to truly appreciate their natural texture.  String beans are always delicious, and the Adobong Sitaw were a fine variety in a pleasant sauce.  The pig heart and intestines were very good, almost a staple, and I found myself returning to them between other dishes.  But it was the the Dinuguan, stewed pork in a pork blood gravy, that made the night.  This was nothing like Chinese pork blood jello, which I’m not crazy about, although it did share that metallic iron flavor which is inevitable when manging healthy animal blood.  In this case the sauce was thick and viscous, but perfectly complemented the tenderness of the cubes of pork.  The two whole suckling pig lechóns were impressive in presentation, and perfectly crispy skinned, buttery meated, and tasty, yet somehow unspectacular.   Engeline’s chefs have managed to cook them in an oven mimicking the result of an open fire spit, but the unevenness of a fire-roasted animal was missing.

A true spit-fired suckling pig at a Marlyand wedding

It was a little disappointing not to have a chance to retry balut, which was the first thing I ate with the Gastronauts group upon joining at Krystal’s Cafe on 2nd Ave.  At that time, years ago now, I had shown my mettle to the small group by being the first to crack open the egg and drink its amniotic fluid before crunching the bones of the innocent fetus inside with relish, picking soft feathers from between my teeth.  Courtney, one of the co-founders, ran out of the restaurant and threw up on the sidewalk.  Then we sang karaoke in Tagalog.

Gastronauts has changed a bit.

Celebrated the arrival of 2010 with two flutes of champagne with Mom, Dad, and Daniel.  And spent the first few hours of the year revisiting a 5 year old application I wrote in Max/MSP that takes time-lapse video.

Screenshot of Time Lapse Max Patch

Here is documentation of our crazy New Years:

Breakfast & Coffee

Daniel & Toast

Want to try it out?

1. Download the Max 5.1 Runtime
2. Download and open this file
3. Once opened, click the “open” button under where it says “use live camera for input”
4. In the pink box where it says “set smallest lapse in msec”, set it to 1 to start with.
5. Click the checkbox that says “Click to start/stop time-lapse”
6. Indicate a filename where you want to save the video
7. When you are finished, unclick that same checkbox.
8. Find the video file and watch it

Mention your love of hamburgers, and some people will proselytize about Shake Shack the same way America’s Generation X enthralls itself with the seamless digital/analog convergence found in Avatar, the 3D feature film.

Shake Shack is a half block from my current workplace, but the lines are far too intimidating for me to ever venture near in temperate climes.  Given my inexplicable love of cold weather and far more easily understandable Christmastime goy aversion, today, the freezing day before the day before the two thousand and tenth year anniversary of the birth of our savior (when will he finish battling the aliens and come back?), seemed like the perfect opportunity to skip the fuss and buy a slab of ground meat.  Even my office, teeming as it is with dollar bill-eyed Jews from New Jersey, was relatively empty.  And so, there was no line at Shake Shack.

Shake Shack in Madison Square Park

A brief survey of the menu made my order clear: one Shackburger, and a Shackmeister Ale.  In exchange for $10, I received a vibrator and a receipt.

Unsanitized Shake Shack Vibrator

I gripped the vibrator tightly, and waited.  About five minutes later, I felt a single prolonged buzz, then nothing.  My food was ready.

Shackburger and Shackmeister Ale

Quite the presentation.  The bun was extremely soft and pliant, so much so that the bread was depressed and obliging before I had even had a chance to put it in my hot and steamy mouth, anticipating, as it was, its own unavoidable absorption into my greedy Semitic stomach.

First impression: the taste of American cheese.  Second bite: lots of mayonnaise….  and so it went.  The meat replicated perfectly the texture and flavor of the textureless and flavorless bun.  A swig of beer:  market research indicates that Generation X likes hops.  No discernible flavor, good or bad, beyond the uber-infused hop essence.  Further reflection on hamburger: lettuce was latticed on top of the burger in clear full-leaf form, and a real slice of a real tomato was purposefully placed between.  The meat looked very fatty and pale, well done.

The aesthetic and genius of Shake Shack couldn’t be clearer.  Shackburger is a McDonalds burger made with upscale ingredients.  That is its ironic design, get it?  Shackmeister Ale is Budweiser pumped full of hops, i.e. microbrew.  Compared to the eating habits of the typical office worker, this is gourmet food at its finest.

Within minutes, I had retreated back to the comfort of the office.  I emailed the client and my entire team a new user flow diagram with the image of a cute girl representing their company’s typical “content editor”.  This based on a conversation I had had before lunch with the client’s chief technologist about the flow, not about the girl.

User Flow

The client immediately sent a response, insisting that their content editors were not nearly as happy nor as enthusiastic as this girl, and demanded that this fact be properly accounted for in future revisions.  I quipped in response that this was because they had yet to use the system I was designing, and asked him to be patient.

At Benny’s troubled request, I removed the inappropriate girl from the next revision.

Neuter Actor

Then Benny invited me to join him and Brian, the front-end developer who loved Avatar, in a three-way of Super Mario Brothers on the Wii by the jelly bean machines.

At 6, I left, encountering our Director of Emerging Technology twiddling his phone by the elevator.  I asked him politely what his plans were for the holiday.  He’s clearly Jewish, but kept reticent about that fact.  We entered the elevator with a black man and two goyim.  I explained my own modest plans: “I’m heading up to Westchester, where it’s safe for Jews on Christmas”.

No response.  The doors opened.  I wished him well, and exited.

Thank Otso and family for these photos from the early 80’s.  I have just remembered that I slept on a blanket in our dining room while our families lived together.

Brothers

Parents

Fathers