I Actually Eat a Burger!

Much like a child, Mmmm, burgers has grown up and no longer needs me. Or I just don't eat as many burgers. Part of that is because I am cheap and like to eat sandwiches at home, and part of it is because I have branched out and tried new and exciting foods. Mostly it's the cheap thing though. The good news is that I continue to enjoy new beers and occasionally bitch about things, so you can still get your fill of my nonsense. Seriously, you can click those links right now and they'll open up in new windows so you won't miss out on this epic burger.

I was back home for some reason, so Dad and I (and Evan and Alec) went out to lunch at the 99 in order to satiate my craving for a cheeseburger. It was like infinity degrees out, so grilling was not an option. There is no temperature at which it's too cold to grill, but at some point when it's hot, standing in front of an open flame just isn't worth it. Plus the 99 is air conditioned.

After a brief decision making process, I ended up with the All Star Steakburger. FYI - the 99 has really cut back on their burger options. Western Massachusetts really needs a dedicated burger joint with dozens of burger choices. Sort of like what I envisioned Burger Bros (trademark pending) to be before I realized just how much absurd bullshit goes into owning and operating a business, particularly a food-based one. I think it would probably take about 30 years off my life, which has already been cut short from 5 years of teaching middle school. I've really gotten sidetracked here.

Anyways, the All Star Steakburger is just ridiculous. This thing has got cheese, bacon (why do restaurants place the bacon crisscrossed on top of the burger?!?), caramelized onions, lettuce, tomato, pickles and some kind of "special sauce" that I skipped. I would say that 99.9% of the time, special sauce is ketchup, mayo and maybe something random like A1. Get that garbage off my burger. Oh, and did I mention the burger itself is like 3/4" thick?

It comes in a little Boston Red Sox wrapper in order to try to contain this behemoth. Also, notice that stupid little strip of bacon poking out on the right? If you have a 4" diameter sandwich and a 6" piece of bacon, it's just not going to work. Time to come up with a new bacon plan, restaurants! Like maybe cutting the bacon strips and melting the cheese over them to keep them from escaping! I know, I'm a visionary. At least when it comes to burgers.

This burger was quite delicious, even accounting for the fact that all 4 of our burgers were cooked one stage past what we ordered. Dad's rare burger was medium rare at best, my medium rare was medium, bordering on medium well, etc. At least it was juicy, which can save even an overcooked burger.

I would absolutely eat this burger again. Although, at the rate I've been eating burgers lately, that probably won't be until late 2012. And by that time, it's almost a guarantee that they'll have changed their menus again.

-Jon

So, Moving Kind of Sucks

I don't dislike the idea of moving. I hate the actual process of having to pack things, transport them, and then unpack them. At this point I am mostly moved. Although I suppose if you look at both my old residence and new residence you might decide that I am not actually moved, but rather am living in 2 places at once. And that's valid. It turns out that I have an awful lot of stuff.

At any rate, I was back in Ludlow on Tuesday in an attempt to transport more of my things, specifically the kitchen related ones. And a load of laundry. It's always good to have clean clothes. I also got a chance to stop by Dad and Kelly's for dinner, which just happened to be cheeseburgers!

I don't know if there was a sale on grinder rolls or if there was a shortage of hamburger rolls, but either way, we had the burgers cut in half on grinder rolls. It was kind of cool, and it was actually easier to eat them without the burger trying to slide out the back of the bun. Kelly might be on to something there.

I am supposed to be going to Boston this weekend, so perhaps more burger-related shenanigans will soon follow.

-Jon

Happy Father's Day. . . One More Time

I apparently already have 2 posts with Happy Father's Day in the title. It would seem that burgers are now the official sponsor of this holiday.

As a special treat for Dad, Matt volunteered me to cook the burgers for Father's Day. Now, you may know that I have a special hatred for grilling because every time I try to grill something on my grill, it gets cooked unevenly, or overcooked, or undercooked (as in still raw in places). I was under the impression that this was because I was not really a man since men can grill. Turns out it was just that my grill hates performing its job.

Using Dad and Kelly's grill, I was able to pull off an amazing feat of deliciousness. My trick? Preseasoning the meat with a little garlic salt and Montreal steak seasoning, and then to stuff cheese inside the burgers. I ended up with 4 cheese combo choices: American inside and on top, American inside with provolone on top, provolone inside and on top and obviously provolone inside with American on top. Is this my best idea ever? Probably.

And with a working grill, everyone's burgers came out cooked correctly. Even Kelly's, which is impressive since she eats hers well done to the point where I figured that leaving it on the grill any longer would be a fire hazard. It was not, and she enjoyed it, somehow...

Alright grilling, it's on now! You're attempts to undermine me with a shoddy performing piece of equipment have failed! Much meat shall be eaten to atone for your crimes!

-Jon

Happy Father's Day. . . Again

It turns out that I named last year's post the same thing, so I had to fake a little creativity. Plan on this being a recurring trend if I happen to eat burgers on holidays every year. Maybe I could get a Thanksgiving burger. . .

I could pretty much just repeat the exact same post and have most of it be true. But I wouldn't do that because that is just some lazy writing. I have a reputation to uphold. Instead, I'll add some extra stories in which I embarrass myself!

Ok, the burgers were the same ones as last year. Well, not literally because the meat would have gone bad long before today, but they were the same Big Y patties. This year I believe Dad did the grilling, but they were still nicely cooked and there was still tomato (exciting) and lettuce (not so exciting). This year also featured cantaloupe and a wide variety of mayonnaise-based salads such as macaroni salad, potato salad, and a salad I couldn't be bothered to identify since there was no chance I was eating any of them as mayonnaise is gross. They were good burgers and I was actually successful in eating both of the ones I attempted. This sort of makes up for yesterday's embarrassment. There was also Summer Ale, so I knocked a few of those back as a matter of course. Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately for my liver), I am 89 behind last year's pace. Still easily going to reach a ridiculously high total though, so don't worry yourself about that.

On to the funny stories!!

So yesterday I lost my cheese privileges after slicing my finger open cutting some cheddar for a pre-burger snack. It was still oozing a little this morning, which can't be good. And yes, I realize the irony of writing about food and then immediately following it up with blood. The good news is that Kathryn finished up the cutting and the cheese was delicious, so the only downside was the amount of Band-Aids I'm currently going through.

You ever play FIFA video games? I haven't since 2002, and I now suck at them. Terribly. It's just sad. I can tell you, however, the number of red cards you can get before you forfeit the game. Four is ok, but the fifth one crosses the line. Also, apparently you are not allowed to slide tackle people from behind when they don't have the ball. Sissies.

We also played some basketball in the driveway. Well, my brothers played and I wandered around the court occasionally grabbing a rebound or poking the ball away for a steal. And any time I was on offense, you better believe I was shooting the ball every time I got it. I was like George "Chucker" Costanza. And every single shot, I yelled out "Hand down, man down" like Mark Jackson when he announces the NBA games. It turns out that yelling things is not an effective way to get the ball into the hoop. I learned a lot today.

-Jon

Back to Business

Wow, what a great week in the world of cheeseburger consumption. Three burgers in a single week? That sort of thing hasn't happened since. . . well, since whenever it happened last. It's got to have been at some point, considering I've eaten 4 in a single day before.

Another positive note is that I got a burger cooked correctly. Possibly because Dad was the one in charge of cooking them. We don't take kindly to overcooked burgers. It is slightly ironic because I got the one that was cooked the best. Well, best by my standards. Kelly would probably not have appreciated the rare-ness of it because she's more of a fan of charcoal burgers, which I believe has been discussed previously.

There isn't really much of a story for this one. It's Thursday, I had dinner with Dad and Kelly, it was cheeseburgers, and there were chips and the jalapeño cheese dip. I feel like I've heard this one before. Maybe next time I will just copy-paste a previous post and see if anyone notices.

On the plus side, Evan and I got all the Star Coins in World 2, so the second level of World 9 is unlocked. That's kind of neat.

-Jon

That's Better

Today I went bowling, got my tires rotated and watched curling! For me, that feels like a productive day, but I like to set my standards pretty low. Then after all that, dinner was a cheeseburger with the secret Dias Baked Beans. What a day!

After yesterday's lockout fiasco, there is not really anything that I could say about today that would be more hilarious. I would like to make the following points though:

-USA Curling is just awful. I wish I could like, trade everyone for players from other countries.

-CNBC's coverage of curling is also awful. This will be discussed on the other blog.

-How come my Dad, who is not a professional burger cooker, can cook me a medium rare burger without any problems but a restaurant can not?

I am now going to write a post about how much CNBC sucks and watch these American snowboarders fall down a lot.

-Jon

Not a Normal Thursday

Another Thursday, another dinner with Dad, Kelly and Evan. With a twist. Although we did have burgers (a Dias staple), we had them at Red Robin. That makes 2 weeks in a row that Thursday night dinner was out at a restaurant.

After a bunch of trips to Red Robin, I have eaten almost all the "real" burgers on the menu. Obviously that does not include the ones that are turkey or chicken or not real burgers. I still am afraid to give the Banzai Burger a try, because I am not sure that fruit belongs on my burger. I am also not sure if I have previously tried the Santa Fe Burger, but as of now that is moot.

Also, if someone can go back and find out if I have eaten that burger, I'll give you one of the the Raison d'Etre beers that are still crowding my fridge.

What a delightful burger! It had some kind of peppers, and some pepperjack cheese, and onions and some kind of sort of spicy sauce! Oh, and guacamole. I don't understand why I didn't eat guacamole before. I think maybe because it was green and has a funny name. Or because I wasn't really sure what an avocado was. Actually, I am still not sure what they are. Why do they have fake wooden testicles inside them?

The strange thing was, we ordered onion rings as an appetizer, but definitely did not receive any onion rings. Although in the end, that is probably a good thing, because I may have exploded afterwards. That would have been messy, and you would have missed out on a new post. That would have been very disappointing for you.

-Jon