Archive for September 20, 2010

Creeping Socialist Casserole

by John Weckerle

Okay, we admit it, this is not about creeping socialists; it’s a recipe.  Ever since your editor read that phrase on the East Mountain Tea Party web site, though, it keeps popping into his head and cracking him up.  We want to be clear: this is is one of the most ridiculously paranoid combinations of words we’ve run across in a while, but it’s so ridiculous that it’s kind of funny, and we can imagine that the ghost of Vladimir Lenin is slapping George Soros’s knee over it, too.  I guess you could say that the zucchini and yellow squash represent the ultra-left-wing vegetarian peril lurking beneath the veneer of American “sausage,” pepper and onion patriotism – and then take it a step further and take the that the “sausage” is also some cynical, unauthentic, Socialist-Marxist exploitation of our meat heritage.  And don’t get me started on the liberal cheddar cheese conspiracy.

At any rate, Sunday found us not wanting any of the food we had ready to eat, and a bunch of summer squash with which to deal, so your editor decided to go off the map and do something unusual.  Here’s how it went:

»» Creeping Socialist Casserole

Setting The Standard

by John Weckerle

Once in a while, now matter how much we like our own local scenery, we need a change of it.  With that in mind, last Friday we set out for a spot of dinner in Albuquerque, and decided on the Standard Diner as our destination.

The Standard Diner was featured on the Food Network’s Diners, Drives, and Drive-Ins last year, and the video is available on the restaurant’s web site.  Located at 320 Central Ave SE, the Standard Diner is located “just east of Downtown Albuquerque” and just a bit west of I-40.  The building was originally a Texaco station built in 1938, and was converted to the current restaurant in 2006.  Little, if anything, remains to suggest that the structure was originally a service station.  The decor manages to convey a certain elegance while retaining some reminders of the “old diner experience,” and the combination of booths and appropriately-spaced tables allows diners to enjoy their meals without living in each others laps.  From the acoustic standpoint, another common issue, the Standard does not disappoint; it is possible to have a quiet conversation in which all participants can hear the others speak. The establishment sports plenty of windows, providing natural light and, in some cases, a look out at a relatively attractive street scene.  The menu provides plenty of vegetarian and seafood selections – enough to make it difficult for non-meat eaters to make a decision.  Meat eaters have nothing to worry about, either; there’s plenty on the menu, and of course the Standard’s Bourbon Butter Burger was specifically featured on the food network.

»» Setting The Standard