I'll Pick My Own Toppings, Thanks

I don't mind when restaurants come up with their own ideas for toppings on their burgers, as long as they have a good variety (R.F. O'Sullivan has like 30+ burgers, which is a good amount). However, I am a big fan of restaurants that just have a buttload of toppings that I can mix and match to make my own diabolical creations. Sometimes you just want a bunch of random crap that most other people probably don't combine.

Amherst Brewing Company falls into the second category, and they have a whole lot of toppings to choose from. I was just in the mood for something spicy today, but next time I'm going to make some kind of elaborate monster burger. It shall be the stuff of legends, and many an epic ballad shall be composed in its memory, to be studied by generations to come in place of former material like Shakespeare and that junk. Or probably I'll just eat it, enjoy it thoroughly, write about it here, and that will be that.

For today, I went with tomato, onion, jalapeños and blue cheese. I figured that the spiciness of the jalapeños would work nicely with the... cheesiness of the blue cheese, sort of like hot wings. And tomato and onion are just classic burger staples. The whole thing looked sort of like an Italian flag, in a very abstract way.

Ok, so it really didn't look like a flag, but it did have red, white and green. That's Italy, right? Or Mexico maybe would be more appropriate, since it had jalapeños. I don't know, I'm not a geographer.

This was a delicious burger! Kate says that all I write is that all the burgers are delicious, but that's not true. I only write that about the delicious ones. What should I do, write that they aren't that good even though they are? She is a negative-nelly!

I also got to drink a delicious beer that I've been looking for the last few weeks, which is always a good thing.

-Jon

The Tom Petty Concert

After months of anticipation, it was finally time for the Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers concert (featuring Crosby, Stills and Nash as the opening act)!! It was down at whatever they are calling the Meadows these days, which may be something along the lines of Comcast Theater. The concert itself was great, but it definitely reminded me why I stopped going to concerts at this particular venue. This may be true of all outdoor music theaters, but I find the douchebag percentages to be especially high here. Also, I plan on taking my shirt off next time I am at a concert, since apparently that is an appropriate thing to do.

Before the concert, we stopped to pick up Diana and other Jon since it would have been kind of silly to take two cars. Then we decided to get dinner at Chicago Sam's because food is an important part of my daily diet. And also because the concert wasn't for another 3 hours, and we would have been really early otherwise.

There wasn't much of a decision to be made here. The Black & Bleu burger seemed far more awesome than anything else on the menu. I have also determined the secret to the Blackjack Burger's deliciousness. The Blackjack sauce is good stuff, but it's the cajun blackened spices that they put on the burger that really makes it awesome. This burger was also blackened, and was also awesome. It was also cooked perfectly, which I appreciated. Finally, they have some kind of special fries here, so that's also cool. Well done in the burger department!

Not so well done in the wing department. We got some wings for an appetizer, and got half medium and half hot. Alright, I know this isn't Mmmm, Wings, but if you are calling your wings hot, then they had better make my tongue feel a little scorched afterwards. I could have eaten approximately infinity of these without a problem. Don't tell me you have hot wings and then bring me these disasters. And they were dry. Who likes dry wings? Come on Sam, step it up.

Then it was off to the concert. CSN went on right on time, and they played a bunch of stuff (including 3 of Kathryn's favorite songs, played in a row!) for about an hour. Also, David Crosby looks like a cartoon character, but I can't remember which one. Let's just go with Mr Magoo, except that Crosby's not bald.

After they finished, about 47 roadies came out to reset the stage for Tom & Co. This took forever. Like 45 minutes at least. You would have thought they might have practiced this sort of thing. Oh well, eventually it was time to rock. The band was awesome! But wow, white people should probably not dance anymore. I have permanent emotional scars now.

Also, buying a concert ticket does not actually make you part of the band, so maybe you shouldn't stand in front of Kathryn while playing air guitar for the first several songs. She's a nurse, so she could probably figure out a sneaky way to poison you or something. Just saying.

-Jon

Puppy Pool Acquired!

Wait. You don't know about the extensive search for a puppy pool? You are slacking. These blogs are required reading for anyone who has any sort of interaction with me. Well, the story has a happy ending in that I got one at Christmas Tree Shops (which was suspiciously lacking in actual trees). Odin will be rocking out in style next time he comes to pug camp.

The trip to Christmas Tree Shops was preceded by a trip to Northampton for lunch with Kathryn at the Northampton Brewery. I was seriously considering ordering a non-burger meal, but then I thought that would be irresponsible, so I ended up going with the Blackened Blue Burger, mostly because its name was alliterative. If something has a funny name or an alliterative name, I am almost helpless to resist it. This is why I was so upset when Whistling Pig was actually not available, contrary to previously posted information. You can't tell me about something with such an awesome name and then make it unavailable. Man, that's just mean.

The Blackened Blue Burger was a giant monster with cajun spices, blue cheese and caramelized onions along with the standard lettuce, tomato and onion. It also came with a delightful pickle and some good French fries, made even better by the Tabasco ketchup I used. Actually, I used way too much Tabasco, so the fries were incredibly hot. The burger itself was really good, and actually cooked medium rare. I know, I was shocked too. The blue cheese was great, but I wish there had been a little more. Some of mine escaped due to faulty burger holding, but there still wasn't enough. More cheese is always a good thing.

Kathryn had ordered a couple of pretzels with some kind of beer cheese sauce for dipping. The pretzels were the saltiest things I ever ate, but if you scraped off some of the extra salt and dipped them in the sauce, they were fantastic. I don't know which kind of cheese it was, but it tasted kind of like a cheddar. You should go there and get the recipe so that I can make it at home. It will be delicious! I'll even invite you over when I'm making it.

I also tried 2 of their beers. You can't go to a brewery/restaurant and not try what they've got going on tap. Unless you're Dave, in which case you'd probably still order a Bud Light. I had a Weizenheimer, which was a wheat beer that tasted a little summery, and a Northampton Pale Ale, which tasted like a pale ale. The Weizenheimer was great, and the NPA was ok. Pale ales are always a mystery going in, and this one was right in the middle for deliciousness.

Now I've got a big afternoon ahead of me of making ribs. This could end up messy.

-Jon

Let's Try Something New

It's actually not really that new, but it's the first time that I've tried it here. Frank's Red Hot Burgers!! It's time to kick things up a little.

We decided to have a little cookout here, so the menu was going to be burgers, hot dogs, baked beans and fries. But not just boring, pre-formed burgers. That would be disgraceful to all the people eating AND the people reading. We got some quality 80/20 meat and made burgers out of that. I also seasoned them with a little salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. Hey, if you're going to do burgers, you might as well do them right. Then I formed some lovely burgers and put the little divots in the top to make sure they cook right.

Now for the spice. Kathryn and Matt didn't want any, but Bill and I went with a little Frank's & bleu cheese combination to top the burgers. Then we all used some pepperjack cheese for a little extra zip. Plus we had lettuce and tomato to make everything all fancy. I probably could have taken the burgers off the grill a couple minutes earlier, but all it did was make the cheese melt too much instead of overdoing the meat. I can live with that.

The burgers came out pretty well. And the beans were good as always. The fries were ok, but I guess our oven takes a lot longer to cook them than the package would suggest. It's probably because the oven is lazy. There was actually too much food, so I ended up not finishing the second burger. That makes me a little sad.

I also managed to drop a hot dog on my foot. It turns out that they come off the grill a little hot, which was unpleasant. Apparently I have the only grill that slopes forward. Probably not the greatest design. I need one of those super grills they have on the cooking shows.

-Jon

This Is Not About Shot-a-palooza

I know that this burger was eaten on the same day as Shot-a-palooza, and I know that you probably would rather hear all the funny stories that happened, but it's just not going to happen. I don't think that these stories need to be immortalized on the web forever on a low-quality cheeseburger blog. Some of the people involved may need to get jobs someday, and these stories could compromise their hire-ability. You can thank me later.

Instead you get to hear some less funny stories about our trip to Ruby Tuesday. Still funny though.

My original plan was to have some pasta for dinner, but when I was offered the chance at a burger, I decided to take it. First off, our waiter talked way too quietly pretty much every time he was at the table. I had to base everything I said to him off of what other people said. Oh, Mom's ordering a water, so he must be asking if we want drinks. Why can't that guy just talk like a normal person?

I am not exactly sure what Mom got, but it included the salad bar. The only problem was that the guy either didn't tell her to head over to it, or he told her but said it super-quietly and she didn't hear it. Either way, she did not think that she should go up there, even though she was obviously allowed to as it was part of the order. Salad bar: 1, Mom: 0.

I went with the Boston Blue Burger because I wanted to make sure I didn't eat the exact same burger as last time and also because Matt ordered the Smokehouse Burger and I didn't want to be a copycat. It has onion rings, blue cheese, Boston barbecue sauce, lettuce, tomato, red onion and, unnecessarily, pickles. I forgot to check for those little dill bastards, so I ended up being slightly upset later. I really have to start reading the menu more carefully when I go places. On a positive note, I actually remembered to take a picture this time. Well, not so much remembered as was reminded, but either way, the picture happened. See?

And you guessed it; that's some Tabasco ketchup there in the middle. It also turns out that Ruby Tuesday has unlimited fries, but I didn't try to take advantage of that because I didn't want to have a full stomach for the evening's festivities.

That burger was pretty good! And it was actually cooked correctly again!! Maybe all these restaurants are reading these stories and realizing that medium-rare does not mean well done. Or maybe I've just been getting lucky lately.

After we ate, we ran over to Ocean State (which is apparently the unofficial thing to do after eating a Ruby Tuesday). As I was wearing a Lacoste shirt I got from Dad, I am almost positive that the most expensive thing in the store became my shirt as soon as I walked in the door. Take that, Ocean State!

You should ask some people about stories from Shot-a-palooza II. It was legen. . . wait for it. . . dary.

-Jon

In Which I Get Unnecessarily Aggravated

I like burgers, as you may have guessed. I like people cooking burgers for me. I enjoy trying to come up with delicious ideas for burgers. I even enjoy cooking them myself on occasion.

I do not enjoy grills with uneven heat. Especially when I am not aware of this fact ahead of time.

Dinner went from being 3 other people to being just Mom, and since I was put in charge of picking the meal, I chose burgers. Yeah, I'm a real mystery. I decided to try and be crazy and also to put some new knowledge to use, so I went for the blue cheese stuffed burger with bacon. And also with blue cheese on top, because there really isn't any such thing as too much cheese.

So I take the block of raw hamburger, which is already gross (ironically I hate having to touch raw meat, but still have aspirations of owning a restaurant; it's quite the catch-22), and separate it into 3 parts to make 3 burgers. Then I took each sub-block and made 2 mini-burgers out of it so that I could put the cheese in the middle and seal that good stuff in. And that part of the plan worked out wonderfully, minus the dry skin resulting from washing my hands 6 times. Then things took a turn for the worse.

So there was plenty of propane (which I should have checked ahead of time but didn't because I am a daredevil like that), but apparently the grill there only heats certain parts of the grill top at certain times. That is annoying. And even though both of my burgers came out perfect (give me a call, Fitzwilly's, if you need a refresher course on what "rare" means), Mom's was a little bit rare. Or you might call it raw. Let's not split hairs here. How many factors do you really need to consider when constructing a grill? 1) How many dead animals can I have cooking here at once? 2) Does this grill correctly cook all the dead animals? 3) See #1 and #2. Really, that's it. If you miss any of these things, your grill blows, and eventually you may annoy an anonymous internet loudmouth to the point where he will write a long-winded post about it. Thanks a lot, jerks.

There were also some sweet side dishes. Some kind of canned baked beans, which were not really even close to as good as the secret family baked beans, and tater tots, which made me feel like I was back in 5th grade. Also, they weren't officially tater tots, because they were Big Y brand and had some weird name like "Tot-Shaped Potato Snacks" or something equally ridiculous. And yes, I realize that "sentence" up there was a sentence fragment, and I don't care because I love sentence fragments. It would be much easier to go up there and throw a colon in place of that first period, but I would rather just make this post really long and maybe teach all (both?) the readers of this site about grammar. I am a teacher after all.

Oh. My burgers were delicious. Even though the bacon was a little crisper than it should have been, a mistake that will not be committed again. It's all about learning in the burger world.

-Jon

Second Verse, Same As the First

It would appear that even though I write down a detailed description and story about all of my cheeseburgers, it is still not enough to remember which ones I have tried when I revisit restaurants. Maybe I should start reading my own posts.

Nah.

Kathryn and I went to Fitz Willy's for a late lunch after her day of clinical instruction and my day of pug-filled shenanigans. More on that later. It pretty much doesn't matter what they do to my meal, as they have gorgonzola & garlic bread, which is probably the world's greatest appetizer. Also, I would have to guess that it has somewhere around 15,000 calories, so it is definitely a meal for bulimics. Additionally, I got a parking space at a meter with an hour and 10 minutes already on it! Score!!

I went for the Jack & Meunster Burger, and then sadly realized that I have already eaten it. So pretty much everything I said last time still applies, except that this time they overcooked it. Why is it so hard to get a medium-rare burger these days?

Now, I told you that story so I could tell you this one; it has less burgers, but more of me getting locked out of a house.

While Kathryn went to clinical, I went to Dunkin' Donuts, lay on the couch with pugs, read, and basically was a bum. The thing about pugs is that they tend to, like other dogs, need to be let out from time to time to do various digestive system related things. The thing about Kathryn's house is that I don't have a key to it, so when I go out to get a Vanilla Chai, bagel and coffee roll, I may forget to put the spare key back.

I suspect you can tell where this is going.

Sometime around noon, Chloe started whining, so she, Odin, Angelo and I went outside to take care of our respective businesses. No, I did not break any public urination laws. My business was making sure that pugs did not get hit by cars. Unfortunately, it would seem that I did not unlock the door, so when Giles jumped up at it all angrily since I didn't let him out, he actually pushed it shut and locked us out. For like 45 minutes. Now, pugs do not deal well with cold as it is, so the fact that Chloe romped through the yards of pretty much every house within 100 feet of Kathryn's meant that she was freezing. At the same time, Odin was jumping around like a mad-man, which meant that I couldn't even think. Also, Angelo just kept meowing at me. How is that helpful, Angelo!?

Finally I scooped up the pups and put them in a recycling bin, found a window whose latch looked different from the rest of the windows, and basically made a mess while breaking into the house. Go me! And yes, I let the pugs out of the recycling bin. I should have taken a picture though, because they looked so ridiculous.

I now owe Kathryn a new screen.

-Jon

I Think That's All of Them

Unless there is a secret menu page with more choices, I have now eaten all of the non-standard burgers at Paradise City. This is not that impressive when you look at the menu and see that there are only 3 other burgers. But it is still a minor accomplishment since there are many places where trying all the burgers is impossible. For example, Ruby Tuesday changes their menu every week. And R.F. O'Sullivan has a bunch of weird burgers for weirdos, so clearly I won't be eating them.

The last burger on the list was the Wild Blu Burger, which comes with blue cheese and mushrooms and a lack of spelling fundamentals. It also had some tomato, lettuce and red onion for added deliciousness (onion and tomato) and green coloring (lettuce). The burger was huge, and also delicious. However, it was not nearly as big as their giant burger with pulled pork on it.

It's very strange. I think that I avoided mushrooms for the majority of my young life at my own loss. It is also very sad. At least now I am making up for it.

Kathryn also got a burger, so it seems I am having a positive influence on her. Now if I can just get her to finish her fries and stop using mayonnaise. . .

-Jon

The Ultimate Burger

Nope, I am not saying it is the winner of the Best Burger Ever. That was actually what it was called. Sorry for the deception.

Dinner was at a place in Turners Falls called Cafe Martin (I think I am missing some accent marks there, because there was a lot of French stuff on the walls). It it one of Kathryn's favorite places, and since I have no idea about anything that far north, she was obviously going to be the one making the decision. I felt slightly bad ordering a burger when there were so many fancy things on the menu, but I have a reputation to uphold.

We also started off with bruschetta, which was so ridiculously huge that I almost regretted the decision. At least until I ate it, because it was great. It also prevented Kathryn from having any chance of finishing her dinner. I, however, dominated the Ultimate Burger with surprising authority. I didn't finish my potatoes though. . .

The burger itself was another take on what apparently is my favorite. Sauteed onions, sauteed mushrooms, bacon and gorgonzola. I also put a couple tomatoes on there, even though they had no business with those other ingredients. But hey, tomatoes are delicious. And the whole thing was 8 oz (probably pre-cooked weight; why don't they just put the post-cooked weight? It's a mystery). And they cooked it right, which is highly pleasing. If I ever find myself almost in Vermont again, I will be stopping there for another one. Or maybe a filet mignon. Ooh! A burger made of filet mignon. Wait, that's probably going too far.

-Jon

That's a Lot of Possibilities

This post is long overdue, but since I am lazy all I have to say is "tough luck."

Also, it contains math.

At some point in the last 2 weeks (I believe it was a Sunday), we had burger night at Mom & Chuck's before the bros headed back to Boston. I am not sure what the original plan was, but somehow it exploded into so many burger options that it would take months to try them all. The various options included: onions in the burger, blue cheese in the burger, blue cheese on the burger, American cheese on the burger, pepper jack cheese on the burger, sauteed onions and sauteed mushrooms. I also prepped some red onions with olive oil and grilled those up. Admittedly, we may have gone a bit overboard on the onions, but to be fair, onions are delicious. And there was the option of a toasted bun, which is just a classy choice. Offhand, I think this ends up with 256 burger options based on the way I am doing the calculations. That's a lot of burgers.

After loading up with both sauteed. . . vegetables (not sure if onions or mushrooms count in that department), I decided on the grilled onion and American cheese option with onions and blue cheese inside the burger. This resulted in a burger that was about 2.5 inches tall. Also, there were two of them. I am fairly certain that was enough food to last me through the next day. But it was delicious, and I would eat another one right now if I wasn't full of pizza.

Oh yeah, the French fries were also fantastic. No such luck with the ketchup though. Really, why does any company besides Heinz even bother making ketchup?

-Jon

PS - If Kathryn says anything, this has been up for days.

A Marathon Burger Day, or Burgers for Breakfast

After a depressingly long hiatus from rounded meat patties, today I ended up eating nothing but cheeseburgers. And side dishes that go along with cheeseburgers. And maybe a cookie too. It was a good day.

I picked up Bill at Logan after his trip to California since apparently no one else was able to do it. This was slightly after 10:00am. As we were navigating Logan's treacherous road system (which I believe was designed by a guy who was inspired by the web of a drunk spider), he suggested that we could get burgers at RF O'Sullivan since we were sort of close to it. I gave them a call and found out they opened at 11, so that was good news. I was also shocked to find that I was able to get there from the eastern side of Cambridge, since that meant I needed exit 20 instead of exit 18, even though I was going to the same place. I put that little tale in there because someone else has got to find that strange.

It turns out that 11am is a good time to beat the rush, since we were the first people there. Surprisingly, another group of people came in as well. That's how good the burgers are. I had the Black & Blue burger again, and it was super again. My only issue with it is that they use bleu cheese dressing and put it on last, which meant that by the end of the meal I had bleu cheese hands.

Also, their pickles aren't great.

Fast forward to dinner, and it was burgers again! Mostly because Chuck was bribing me, Bill, Kathryn, Mia, Nate and Mia's roommate Sarah Beth with burgers in exchange with assistance in addressing wedding invitations. The burgers of the night, at least for me, were made with both bleu cheese and American (melted over the crumbled bleu cheese to keep it from escaping), mushrooms and sauteed onions. Then we got wild for the 2nd burger and actually put the bleu cheese inside. That was an even better method to prevent premature bleu cheese jail breaks.

I have a strong suspicion that today will be far less burger-filled.

-Jon

The Unexpected Lunch Burger

After a long break, it was yet again burger time. This one was unexpected because the original plan was to go to Joy's for lunch, which in itself was unexpected as Joy's is a breakfast tradition. Regardless, somehow we ended up at Ruby Tuesday's instead since Joy's entire staff is currently on vacation. Or maybe just Joy is on vacation and refuses to open the place. This is not really on topic.

I don't know when the last time I was at Ruby Tuesday's was, but they have changed their menus again (for what I can only imagine is the 19th time in the past 6 years) and potentially had new burgers. It was a toss-up between the Boston Blue Burger (hooray alliteration!) and the Blackened Fish "Burger," but after an extremely short internal debate I went with the 3 B's. Hey, the sauce had Boston Lager in it and I'm a sucker for Sam Adams.

Surprisingly, everything about the burger was good except the blue cheese. I know, I'm as shocked as you are. It was some crumbled bleu cheese thing, but it just wasn't that great. I knocked a bunch of it off, which made everything better. Also, I guess they redid their fries since they weren't covered with 14 tablespoons of salt. That is good news! Plus, my burger was made with real cow, unlike Kathryn and James' burgers. This helped me avoid the wrath of Matt, who apparently only allows meat burgers (good choice there, as evidenced by my first posting ever).

In other news, I may be in Boston this weekend depending on if Alex's possible concussion lets him remember he's supposed to let me know tomorrow. That may result in another Blackjack Burger (the current champion) and other beer-related shenanigans. How exciting! Although in all honesty, I am hoping I eat at least one more burger before then.

-Jon

Local Burger (and Fries!)

After having a burger on Sunday, you'd think that I would be unlikely to eat another on Monday. You would be wrong. Today was a day to try a new burger place. Upon Mia's recommendation, Kathryn and I went to Local Burger in Northampton for some grass-fed local beef. Mmmm, local cows.

They had a bunch of burgers that you could get, and then they just had a list of things you could throw on a burger. I went with some cow from Easthampton with Applewood smoked bacon (I am beginning to think that these Applewood folks have a monopoly on the bacon-for-burgers industry), crumbled blue cheese, tomato and onion. I am unconvinced that there was actually onion on there however, because I couldn't see any and I couldn't taste any. But there was no charge for it, so I don't feel too upset about it. We also got a large order of fries, which I do not recommend since they were by far the saltiest fries I have eaten this year. I think they may even be saltier than the fries at Ruby Tuesday's, which have been known to cause immediate hypertension.

We also got some ice cream at Herrel's, which is probably spelled wrong. But it was pretty good ice cream. And they sell it by weight, which is like the strangest thing I have ever seen. I think I got a 4 oz. ice cream, which was a small? Coffee and brownie!! It was also good, except that the brownies had nuts in them. Unacceptable! Also, this is not an ice cream blog, so time to get on topic.

In the end, it was a pretty good burger. I think next time I will ask for onion a little bit louder. Or just go to Paradise City, which was like 50 yards away. They have more beers there anyways. Although Local Burger has a BYOB policy, which 2 of the other patrons took full advantage of (?) by bringing in 40s of High Life. I am not quite sure if I would rather have that or the root beer I ended up choosing. Life's tough decisions. . . .

-Jon

Call Me Lance

Ok, that is a little bit on the fruity side, what with the ball thing.  And that guy from N*Sync.  Or the Backstreet Boys, whichever one had the Lance guy.  But I did ride a bicycle today for about 6 miles, so it's sort of appropriate, and definitely referring to Lance Armstrong.  Not that I am on any sort of health kick; it was strictly to get a burger.  And it was a fantastic decision.

We had burgers that were very similar to the stuffed bleu cheese burgers from last time.  Possibly the same burgers, although these ones were spicier.  Also, I am not sure if we had tomatoes with them last time.  But the bleu cheese inside was great again, and the bleu cheese on top (along with grilled onions, which may or may not have fallen on the ground).  Plus, spicy burgers are making a strong case for being superior than the non-spicy kind (for instance, the Blackjack Burger).  And you really can't go wrong with a couple Summer Ales.  But not too many, because it might be a crime to drink and ride a bicycle.  And I don't want any firsthand knowledge if it is.

-Jon

I Actually Grill Something. . .

. . . although it was with mixed results.  On the plus side, no one got food poisoning (yet).  And it's been over 24 hours, so I think the window on that one is closed.  On the minus side (is that word even used like that?), I rushed my burger patty construction, so mine maybe fell apart a little.  By which I mean completely fell apart, but I was able to salvage it using some quick reflexes and duct tape.*

Basically the burgers came about because I really wanted to have another burger with blue cheese inside it, so I bought some cheese last week but somehow forgot the important part of a burger: the actual meat.  Fortunately, some meat magically appeared in the freezer this past weekend, so I used the promise of meat to lure Kathryn over (I hate cooking for just myself) and threw some meat together in burger form.  Also, it turns out that we have a patty making device, so I felt pretty foolish after my burger fell apart.  Luckily I don't suffer from any burger regret, because the actual burger was pretty good.  Next time I will be more adequately prepared to form raw meat.

Also, I'll probably come up with a better side dish than Smartfood popcorn.  Maybe.

-Jon

*That may be an exaggeration.  I actually have slow reflexes.

Red Robin (Yummmm)

Well, it seems pretty clear that the Red Robin in Wilbraham is vastly superior to the Red Robin in Holyoke.  Also, Holyoke is a word and Wilbraham is not, according to spellcheck.  Also, I am apparently ridiculously allergic to cats now, since I can barely open my eyes to type.  But none of this is really on topic.

Mom, Chuck, Bill and I went to Red Robin for dinner because Mom and Chuck were at Home Depot, and Red Robin is one plaza over.  I, of course, was fully in support of this idea for 2 reasons:  burgers are a great choice for dinner, and there was pretty much a 0% that I would have to pay for this burger.

I decided to try a burger that I was 80% sure I had never had before, so I went with the Bleu Ribbon Burger.  Get it, Bleu Ribbon instead of Blue Ribbon?  It's because there was crumbled Bleu cheese on the burger.  They are so clever.  There was also some kind of chipotle sauce, which was pretty good.  There was also definitely some kind of sauce, like maybe Heinz 57 or A1 or something with a number in it.  And there were some onion straws, which just seemed excessive.  Maybe they were there for health reasons?  Are onions even healthy?  I'll have to look this up, by which I mean completely forget about it.

I would eat that burger again.  And I would eat it with its wrapper thing still on it, because that was a really messy burger.  That chipotle sauce gets everywhere.

-Jon

Back-to-back Burgers

Side note: I ate a salmon burger at some point in the past week, but that is definitely not going to count as a burger.  Salmon isn't even meat.  The burger was pretty good though, and, unlike its shellfish friends, didn't result in a night of vomit.

Apparently today was burger day, because I got different invitations to eat burgers.  And of course I accepted both.  The first one was at Melissa's, and the second was at Mom's.

While watching what ended up being a Celtics loss, Melissa, Nicky and I made up some enormous burgers with gorgonzola cheese inside the meat along with some minced red onion.  There was also some chipotle peppers and smoked paprika in there somewhere, and we had grilled onions on top.  That burger was fantastic.  I am starting to think that the Black & Blue Burger is highly underrated.  In addition, I was also able to continue the Sam Adams Summer Ale Challenge II, and that is always a good thing.

About 10 minutes after finishing the monstrous chipotle Black & Blue burger, I was on my way to eat yet another burger.  This one was a little less elaborate, and pretty much just consisted of a regular burger with American cheese and sauteed onions.  I would have to guess that at this point, my body contains about 5/8 of a pound of grilled ground beef.  And that is the sign of a successful day.

-Jon