'cause just yesterday them fools tried to blast me, saw the police and they rolled right past me
6/21/24
Portobello Mushroom Smash Burgers
I don’t remember a world without portobello mushrooms per se, but I’m old enough to remember their moment of cultural saturation. They came into fashion around the same time as the original Super Mario Brothers video games. I guess we were a society obsessed with giant mushrooms, the wider the circumference the better. Portobellos are still around, of course, but now their presence on a restaurant menu denotes a conscious failure to engage with the 21st century. We are a generation enthralled with lion’s mane, king oysters, royal trumpet, enokis. If our fungi don’t contain psilocybin, they should at least be adaptogenic. Portobellos are not a superfood. They won’t get you high or make you live longer. They aren’t retro enough to be cool or new enough to be exciting. They don’t even have a lot of (I hate to even bring it up) umami. They’re solid but watery, both chewy and soft.
This strange texture actually makes them a great substitute for meat. But after three decades of sad vegetarians eating even sadder portobellos at backyard BBQs, unseasoned and blackened under the direct heat of charcoal or gas, we’ve sort of banished them from the veggie burger conversation. Now we so many choices, from first gen Morningstar Farms and Gardenburger to tech-era Impossible and Beyond. There are also hundreds of recipes out there for homemade veggie burgers: black bean and quinoa, lentil and walnut, etc etc etc.
I deeply apologize for linking to yet another New York Times recipe. The home cooking duopoly of the Times and Bon Appetit needs to be broken, but unfortunately we live in a two party system. If you subscribe to this newsletter, you probably already fork over some hard-earned cash to the Sulzbergers. This recipe is worth the $40 annual “Cooking” tithe. It’s Ali Slagle’s Mushroom Smash Burgers, published this past April. I’ve made them three or four times since then, and they’re so much simpler to throw together than any homemade veggie burger where you have to blend or mix anything, let alone bust out the food processor. The whole process takes less than 20 minutes.
The Times’s paywall is really annoying, so I’ll describe my process without copying and pasting the paper’s precious intellectual property.
First, heat a cast iron pan (or whatever big pan you have) over medium-high heat.
You’re going to probably want two portobello mushrooms per person. They’ll shrink, and stacking them is the point. Mix about a tablespoon of oil (I use olive, Ali suggests a neutral oil — whatever) per mushroom with a 1/2 teaspoon each of garlic powder and onion powder, and some salt. A pinch of smoked paprika wouldn’t hurt either.
Brush (yes, use a little pastry brush) the oil mixture on both sides of each mushroom and put them in the hot pan. Now, take another pan and smash the mushrooms lightly for two minutes. Flip them and smash again for two more minutes. Keep flipping them (you probably don’t need to keep smashing) every two minutes until the mushrooms are flat and a bit charred on both sides. For the last minute, slap a bit of cheese on each mushroom and let it melt. I recommend the plant based Violife Mature Cheddar slices for a truly unhinged experience, but the centrist neo-lib Slagle capitulates with a nod towards sharp cheddar. The whole process should take 10 minutes.
That’s it. Dress them up however you want. I like either a brioche bun (or if I’m feeling healthy, an Ezekiel English muffin.) Raw onion, pickles and mustard are a must. Ketchup and Veganaise optional but recommended. The Times pic shows two slices of ripe tomato, but we’re not getting those for another month or so. Serve with your favorite pre-bagged salad mix and some frozen tater-tots. I could (and will) eat these every week this summer.
Tuesday — dir. Daina Oniunas-Pusic
I don’t usually like to write about movies I hate, but Tuesday is such a crazy misfire, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus has historically had such great taste in choosing her projects, so this feels notable. Plus there was nothing else out this week.
Tuesday is about a mother who can’t accept that her teenage daughter, the titular Tuesday, is dying. Death, in this case, is personified by a CGI parrot with a British Yoda voice. Tuesday (a doing-her-best, also British, Lola Petticrew) is supposed to be so frail she can no longer walk. Except for the post-chemo pixie cut and a tube in her nose, she looks like a healthy thirty-year-old. Eventually they give her a gray pallor.
Louis-Dreyfus is the best actor alive at playing neurotic narcissists, people who think they’re just a bit smarter and more charming than they are. Director Oniunas-Pusic (so many hyphens) has her ramp up the physical signifiers of these neuroses to full blast. Our favorite Elaineisms — gritted teeth, extended chin, rolled eyes — reduced to tics. Zora (this is Louis-Dreyfus’s character’s name, apparently) leaves poor Tuesday at home with a nurse while she drives around, unemployed, selling off valuable pieces of art and antiques to keep the lights on rather than spending any quality time with her dying daughter.
Tuesday has graciously accepted her own death (she’s as mature emotionally as she is physically) and she and The Parrot have even struck up a friendship. She introduces Death to Ice Cube (they both rap along to It Was A Good Day in a scene I wish could be scrubbed from my cerebrum), and Death gives her the tea on former clients like Stalin (an asshole) and Jesus (very sarcastic?). Ok.
Mom comes home and sees that Death is about to take Tuesday, so she eats him. Literally cooks him and shoves him down her throat. Death is temporarily vanquished, which causes havoc around the world. No one is dying anymore, so burn victims and people with their legs chopped off are just writhing around in agony. Eventually, Mom and Tuesday have a heart-t-heart, Mom regurgitates Death, and poor Tuesday shuffles off to wherever.
Maybe it’s just a product of… get ready for it… systemic misogyny that Louis-Dreyfus took so long to make such a maudlin, treacly drama. All the male A-list comic actors of her generation (Robin Williams and Jim Carrey in particular) got to make several Tuesdays, and a lot of them made tons of money. Louis-Dreyfus is as talented and well-regarded as they were, but she didn’t become a movie star immediately following Seinfeld. Now she’s in her 60s, and she sort of is a movie star, at least what passes for one these days. And she finally made her Patch Adams.