Back in the USA

I was hoping to blog a bit more in India, but I'm back.

So what to talk about?

Ah yes. This was one I wanted to write on Friday just before I left.

There's this TOS ("The Original Series") episode of Star Trek that's called The Menagerie. It was a pilot for the series before the one with Kirk. Two characters in that pilot were added to the one with Kirk. Number One, who came back as Nurse Chapel (apparently, making herself blond fooled Gene Roddenberry, though he eventually married Majel Barrett), and Spock, who was played by Nimoy.

In this episode, there's some oddity with Christopher Pike, who's now an invalid (this isn't explained too well, or else I simply don't recall) is going through some trial with Spock. The evidence is presented as some flashback from old "tapes" which was the original episode.

Somehow Pike and crew have landed on a planet that has primitive folks on it. Pike is kidnapped and brought underground and put in a kind of cage (thus, the original title, The Cage).

He's given some illusions about life elsewhere, and is expected to enjoy the fantasyland that aliens are providing him, which he rejects.

For some reason, there's the same woman in each of these fantasy sequences, who plays a wife or some such in each one.

Eventually, it is revealed that she's human and has been living on the planet because of the aliens. At the end, she says that there was an accident, and she was on the planet dying. The aliens did their best to put her back, but they had no reference model to fix her, so she looks, well, somewhat like them, but hideous (apparently, symmetry was not uppermost on their list of fixing her).

The point? That they were trying to rebuild a human, and had no idea what they were doing, so they cobbled something together.

That was my dinner.

The hotel I was at, a five (or seven--but whose counting?) star hotel, has a theme Monday through Friday. Friday was "Barnside Grill". Normally, the event is held just outside, but it was raining, so it was moved indoors.

I'm thinking I'm going to get ribs and baked beans and potato salad and all sorts of picnic food. They're going to play some bluegrass, and it'll all be great.

Or not.

Instead, I start off with soup, where I get to pick the ingredients. It's a little like Mongolian Grill where you pick various meats and veggies and a sauce, and the guys cook it for you.

The soup was decent--it looked Thai even, though it was merely chicken broth. Tasty, but hardly quintessential American barnside cookin'.

This was followed by some fancy-schmancy salad. I picked shrimp and various other items. They arranged it and sorta cooked it, and it was delicious, but again, not particularly barnside.

My main dish was some small pieces of tenderloin steak. There was a mini baked potato, and one other thing. OK, little better, though steak isn't what I think of when I think barnside.

Dessert was apple pie a la mode, but you know, they couldn't resist by adding some red syrup to make the presentation oh-so-five-star. It's as if one of the Iron Chefs was asked to make burger and fries, and felt the need to take the ketchup and make tiny lines on the plate of ketchup, to brighten the plate. Somehow, the chefs just can't slum it that much.

Then, the music. I was listening to some Bryan Adams song, you know, the one that they used in Robin Hood. You don't know? Well, it reminded me of a barnside. Not.

And then something that sounded a little like Santana.

Then, Elton John (and possibly the Beatles).

So I'm thinking maybe this is an English barnside. And here I am in India being American-centric and all. But then, why wasn't I given bangers and mash?

And, so this reminded me of The Menagerie. It was the best they could do!

I recall Thomas Friedman had begun his book, The World is Flat, by wanting to see how Americans were perceived across the world. What better way than to talk to folks working at call centers, pretending to be Americans.

I can see another analog to this. Go to restaurants around the world pretending to be American, and see what they come up with.