InBerkeley

With the Fourth of July just around the corner, and barbecues getting dusted off for the occasion, it’s time to take a look at what makes the ideal burger.  Growing up in New York City, I am appalled by what many around here think is a good burger.  I think many here are more interested in the fancy toppings than the burger itself.  There appears to be no other explanation for why so many continue to vote Barney’s Burgers as the best in the Bay Area.

Today’s New York Times take a look at the elements of the ideal burger, recipes included, and for the most part, I have to agree with them.  It’s all about the meat — where it comes from, how you handle it and how you cook it.  Add a decent bun — not too hard, not too much — and some condiments, and there you go.  Simple, but great eating. None of these fancy toppings most places use to hide the meat.

Jane Sigel writes more extensively about the perfect burger in this article, also in today’s Times:

At Comme Ça, Mr. David finally nailed the consummate burger on the 11th try.

The genius of his Comme Ça burger is that it is consistently juicy, perfectly seasoned and precisely medium-rare. The patty is charred on the outside and rosy pink from edge to edge.

It is a radical improvement on what most people already do, but it’s not much more complicated. His trick is to treat the burger the way many chefs do a steak.

He puts a good hard sear on both sides using his plancha, the freight train of flat tops, then transfers it to a 375-degree oven to finish cooking. After it comes out, there’s a built-in resting period while he toasts the buns and makes a last-minute lettuce salad.

General

The Adams Point Winery, maker of delicious tropical fruit and dessert wines, has lost its lease and is looking for a new home.  A few years ago, Bill took over the space at 2413 Fourth St. formerly occupied by George Rubissow and Tony Sargent for their Rubissow-Sargent winery.   I just spoke with Adams Point owner/winemaker Bill Galarneau, who tells me he hopes to find new suitable space soon somewhere in either Berkeley or Emeryville.

Like most home winemakers, Bill started making wine in the garage of his Adams Point home in Oakland, CA.  When a neighbor offered him some persimmons from a backyard tree, Bill jumped at the chance to try something new, and was awarded a Best of Class gold medal for his persimmon wine. Later, a chance purchase of mangoes and papaya at an outdoor market became the Mango/Papaya blend, which garnered another Best of Class gold medal, and a judge at the California State Fair described it as “a party in every glass.”

Bill said he will update his web site with the new location and other information as soon as he has secured and moved all his equipment and inventory.

General

The Bancroft Library has just received a spiffy $64 million makeover, creating a gorgeous two-story light filled atrium with marble floors and a winding staircase. Its new reading room, perched on the fourth floor, offers views of the campanile and grass-covered esplanade.

But the heart of the Bancroft is not visible, and is usually off-limits to visitors. I am referring to the climate-controlled archives on the bottom floor, where the library stores a portion of its massive manuscript collection. The room is lined with 30-foot long bookcases of compact storage, essentially shelves on wheels.

I got a glimpse of this inner sanctum this week from Charles Faulhaber, the director of the Bancroft.  Getting to the ground floor storage area requires many magnetic badges and security clearances, all part of the library’s new state of the art anti-theft system. This is where the library stores many of its treasures, including artifacts and documents from the Donner Party, the original gold nugget discovered by James Marshall in 1848, and other rare manuscripts.

Charles Faulhaber stands near one of Bancroft's moveable shelves

The Bancroft will celebrate its 150th birthday in 2010. The date commemorates the time when Hubert Howe Bancroft began to assemble his collection of Californiana and western Americana. After accumulating more than 50,000 volumes, Bancroft sold his collection to the University of California in 1905 for $200,000. The library was still in San Francisco at the time of the 1906 earthquake and fire, but survived the calamity, the only major library to do so.

If you can’t visit the Bancroft, you can see some of its collections on line. Here are some images of the 1906 earthquake, 100 years of physics at Berkeley, and Italian- Americans.

General

If you love it, you love it.

Devotees of In-N-Out, the quirky Californian burger chain with the not so secret secret menu, have launched a campaign on Facebook to try to persuade the company to set up shop on Shattuck Avenue.

Put an In-N-Out on Shattuck has attracted 977 members so far.

On the group’s wall, David Colin Joseph from Lick Wilmerding High School shares his view that “In-N-Out would be the talk of the town” and  “Shattuck would be the epicenter of Berkeley”.

But several fans, many of them students at Berkeley High, are skeptical it will happen. Max Berstein, for instance, writes: “It would be raw…they tried to get one a while back when the Burger King that was near McDonald’s was closing, but you know Berkeley people, they weren’t having it no matter how much ‘better’ a fast food place it is!”

[Hat-tip: Ben Knobel.]

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