News You Can Bruise for 2006 January 15

(1) Sun Jan 15 2006 10:02: Okay, I live in New York now. But first, sleep.

(5) Sun Jan 15 2006 18:42 California Burger: We spent most of the day in Astoria looking at apartments. We ate dinner at a diner which had on its menu a "California Burger". Now, in California a "California X" has avocado on it. But there was to be no avocado on this California Burger. So what made it Californian? Two things I could see:

• It came with lettuce and tomato, instead of that costing extra.
• It came with "raw onions" (ie. onions) instead of onion rings. Onion rings! Onion rings are a side dish, not a topping!

So clearly we have a thing like the British use of "salad" going on here. This diner's version of "California Burger" is more accurate, but less delicious than California's. Hamburgers in California don't have avocado on them by default, but they do have lettuce and tomato and onions by default. Not at this diner. This only confirms my suspicions that fresh vegetables are as rare spices here in the Northeast.