I Might Be Forgetting Something. . .

I think that there was something major that happened today. . . it seems to have slipped my mind though.

I did, however, eat a cheeseburger for dinner! Kathryn and I went out to a place called Jake's up in Turners Falls for a couple of beers and a little food. I got a Summer Ale because we were eating outside and I couldn't see the taps, so I had to order on instinct. Apparently at this place, a "Big Beer" is just a normal pint, which was only slightly disappointing. I ordered the "Cowboy-up Burger," potentially named after the Red Sox Cowboy Up slogan in days of yore. It was a burger with cheddar cheese, grilled onions, bacon and some BBQ sauce.

It was also clearly one of those pre-made frozen patties that you get by the 40-pack when you are going to have a cookout. No handformed burger has a perfectly cylindrical shape no matter how talented you are. That being said, there is also only one way to cook this type of burger, which is well done. Otherwise it's still pretty much frozen. This ended up meaning that when the waitress asked me how I wanted the burger cooked, she was just wasting my time and hers. Silly woman.

Also, if I order a second Summer Ale, I do not mean that I want a Steel Rail. That was Kathryn's beer. Get with the program!

The actual burger itself was terrible, but the overall burger was pretty good. You can chalk that up to the bacon and BBQ sauce. They were both well above average. I think it might have something to do with the fact that there were at least 3 slices of bacon, which is more than you usually get at a restaurant. Good work, Jake.

Now, what else happened yesterday of note? Huh, how strange that I don't recall.

-Jon

The Celtics Almost Kill Me

In case you didn't watch it, the Celtics beat the Cavaliers today in a game that had both a terrific performance by the C's as well as a completely horrendous performance by the C's. It also had a whole bunch of technical fouls, a guy dressed in a bunny suit dancing to "Livin' On a Prayer," and an insane 4th quarter performance by LeBron James, which I can only assume will greatly aggravate Bill and Dad.

The day also included 2 fun trips on the T (which are actually not fun), an annoying experience with some stupid bitch who (whom?) I wanted to punch in the teeth, Kathryn and I looking like lost tourists, and lunch/dinner at a place called The Four's.

We parked at Riverside and rode the Green Line in because: a) I suck at driving in cities and it terrifies me to have to do it, and b) we are stupid and wanted to participate in the massive social experiment that is public transportation. Since the Garden is at North Station and the train only went as far as Government Center, we had the choice of either waiting for the next train to ride 2 stops or walking it ourselves. Well, it was nice out, so, armed with 2 cell phones equipped with GPS, we headed out into the sunshine. I have got to assume that seeing us was hilarious to anyone else. Picture us both with our phones held out, slowly spinning in circles trying to figure out which direction is northeast. What am I, Magellan? Give me directions I can use!

Eventually we decided on the correct direction and arrived during the 1st quarter. The Celtics proceeded to build a 22 point lead, which had fallen slightly to 17 at the start of the 4th. Then, things went terribly wrong for an extended period of time. They missed pretty much every shot they took while LeBron must have turned on some cheat code and hit the turbo button to run by everyone on the court several times. Eventually, Ray Allen remembered that basketball games are 4 quarters and not 3, sunk a huge shot and the C's hung on for the win. I am pretty sure that I almost had a nervous breakdown during the game. Thanks guys.

Now, Kathryn and I didn't eat lunch before the game, so by the time it was over we definitely needed some food. According to her iPhone, The Four's was close to our location and only in the $$ range, so we walked over and hoped for a table. Hooray! We beat the rush. Seriously. By the time our burgers came, the place that was empty when we sat down was completely full.

I got something called The Frenchie, which had some crazy garlic sauce and brie cheese with onion straws. Important advice for the future: brie is not a good cheese for burgers. Most of mine had melted off and ended up in my pile of fries. Plus they overcooked it. It would appear that the good folks at The Four's attended the same culinary school as those at Fitzwilly's. Anyway, the whole thing looked like this. You can see the cheese in between the burger and the fries, where it does not belong.

On the plus side, that little pot there was filled with delicious baked beans that could give the Dias Baked Beans a run for their money if The Four's ever figures out to throw some bacon in there. Also, those fries were pretty good as well. Not pictured are the Buffalo Chicken Nachos, which may be one of the top 10 appetizers of all time.

I would give the meal overall a positive review, because the whole was more than the sum of its parts. Some day I'll find that perfect burger, but today was definitely not that day.

-Jon

A Poor Business Plan

After an extended burger break, I get 2 burgers in 2 days! When it rains, it pours, or whatever that silly expression is.

The original plan for today was to go out to lunch with Mom, Chuck and Chris somewhere in Northampton. Admittedly, that's not much of a plan, but that's how we roll here. Things got more detailed with the real plan becoming to go to lunch at Paradise City Tavern. And then I got super psyched because I was going to eat that giant burger with the pulled pork.

As we were on our way to meet them, I got a call that Paradise City was closed. I thought that 1:00pm was kind of a strange time to be closed if you want to sell food to people, but I guess not. The really strange part is that according to the website, the place should have been open. However, according to the fact that all the tables had the chairs on top of them, it seems like Paradise City is operating on a new business plan where you don't let customers eat.

I have a sinking feeling that maybe things are not going great for them.

We ended up going to Fitzwilly's instead, because it's pretty much across the street. I pretty much decided not to get the Jack and Meunster Burger, because that would have been super embarrassing to write a third post about it. I ended up choosing the Mushroom Cheddar Burger, because it sounded like a winning plan. And then I had it with the red onion, lettuce and tomato, because those seem like normal toppings for a burger. It was really big.

I still can't figure out why this place can't seem to cook a burger right. When it's not pink anymore, you have cooked it too long. So stop cooking it while it's still pink. Problem solved.

It's still pretty huge, right? I think I dislocated my jaw eating it.

-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

A Brilliant Switch

After finding out that pretty much everyone I know thinks that Chili's has excellent food, and that there is now a Chili's just up the road basically, I figured I would peer pressure people into going to Chili's next time an opportunity presented itself. And after a long afternoon of enjoying some Coffeehouse Porter and #9 and watching the Olympics while listening to Nicky talk about Apolo Ohno and laughing at Odin relentlessly harassing Remy, this opportunity arrived.

Now, I have been to Chili's once before and thoroughly enjoyed their fajitas. However, I have been craving burgers lately, even though I just had one on Thursday. Thus, after about 10 minutes of looking at the menu and not really reading any of the foods, I decided to go with the Jalapeño Smokehouse Bacon Burger. However, I was not especially excited about the jalapeño-ranch sauce that was scheduled to come on said burger. The more I am exposed to it, the less I like ranch flavoring. I don't even eat those Doritos any more, and they used to be my favorite! Thus, I came up with a brilliant plan!

I asked the waitress to bring me the ancho-chile BBQ sauce from the Southern Smokehouse Bacon Burger instead. And, as Melissa will attest, that sauce was fantastic. It was delicious on the burger AND on the french fries. I am pretty pleased with the decision.

As for the burger itself, I have mixed reviews. Everything on the burger was really good, but they just did not manage to cook the burger appropriately. I have a very general expectation for a medium rare burger: it should be a little bit pink. This burger was not pink at all! Luckily, the bacon was about a quarter inch thick, and there were just enough jalapeños to make it a little spicy. I will give them another chance at some point in the future. But they better not overcook my burger again! I have very little patience for that nonsense.

-Jon

One of Them Was Slightly Better

Days where 2 of the meals are cheeseburgers are generally good days. Today was no exception to this rule.

The first burger was Wendy's for lunch after a hard day of Christmas shopping. It actually was quite hard because of back pain from shoveling the day before. Kathryn and I utilized many a Holyoke Mall bench for frequent breaks, which I have to assume added about half an hour to our trip. Also, what is the deal with the Borders at that mall? It's nearly impossible to find what you are looking for if you are looking for a specific book.

I went with the. . . I don't know, whatever they replaced the Big Bacon Classic with. It's the exact same thing. And still delicious. And the Frosty (not Joe, the milkshake thing) is always a nice replacement for a soda. Too bad they went a little overboard with the salt on my French fries. I still ate them all though, because I am a champion.

Later, dinner ended up being cheeseburgers again! This time they were grilled in foolish sub-freezing temperatures over at Dad and Kelly's. Two of us had burgers, and two of us had charcoal briquets. Apparently these silly ladies think that well done is an appropriate way to cook a piece of meat. I shed a tear.

In an unrelated side (dish) note, we had tortellini salad along with the burgers. I would estimate that I ate about a pound. That is good stuff.

-Jon

I Need a Mint

Today's burger was surprising in that the original plan was actually to go get breakfast. Unfortunately, the brunch buffet at The Station is apparently only available on Sundays. Oops. Also, the line at Sylvester's was like 45 minutes long, and there was no way that we intended to wait that long. There were so many people that it took Kathryn 3 minutes to get our names OFF the list. That is just wacky.

Eventually we ended up at Fitz Willy's because Kathryn and I knew it was good and Melissa had never been. This resulted in my food plans going from brunch to a burger. Namely, the French Onion burger. Not sure what exactly made it French, since it had Swiss cheese, but I am not in the burger-naming business (although I may look into it). There were sauteed onions, onions straws and a slice of red onion on this thing. I can only imagine what that did to my breath.

Sadly, the burger did not live up to the high expectations I had for it. First, it was overdone slightly. Nothing is worse for a burger than overcooking it. Second, we had the most ridiculously fantastic appetizer of all time: gorgonzola garlic bread. There was pretty much nothing that was going to live up to that thing. Fries were good though.

Next time I am going to follow my instincts and get a different burger. Or, just make it clear that I don't mean medium well when I say medium rare.

-Jon

All Sorts of Stories

Well, it's really only a couple stories, but they are fairly entertaining to me. Of course, I have the attention span and sense of humor of a 13-year old so that may explain a lot of it.

The annual birthday party of Nick took place yesterday, and it contained, among other things, grilled cheeseburgers. Or possibly grilled charcoal. Nick was a little bit intoxicated, so he may have possibly forgotten about the burgers for a while, which meant any burgers that were in the center of the grill looked a lot like Brillo pads. And I still ate two of them. I think I have a problem. . .

After eating those burger-like substances, I ended up getting into a few games of beer pong with James since either Nicole didn't want to play anymore or she was banned from the team for ineptitude. After a tough first game, we called for a rematch and things got real. We won the first game in fairly standard fashion, but it was game 2 that was truly impressive. In that game, we were able to both sink twice in a row (balls back!), and won the game in under 4 minutes. It was probably the greatest game of beer pong ever played (that night). Then we won a couple more games until things kind of wound down. Which leads to story number 2.

Nick has a pretty extensive bar in his (parents') basement. It's like being in an actual bar, just with better lighting. And I'm pretty sure this bar is the reason for the downfall of last night's beer pong, because after our last victory we found out that everyone was downstairs doing various shots. That's acceptable though, because shots are fun. The last one we ended up doing was a shot of absinthe, which I am fairly certain used to be illegal in the US. My guess is that it was banned because it is terrible. It was like bad licorice jelly beans, except the taste stays in your mouth. Plus I didn't even see any weird stuff like in Eurotrip. How silly.

Also, I am going to tell one more story even though it didn't happen last night, just because the main protagonist was at the party and that's good enough for me. Last week, or maybe the week before, or possibly sometime before that (the date is unimportant), we were at the Lighthouse enjoying a beer or 5 and just generally being silly. After a while, I decided it would be fun for Dan to talk to anyone around us, which ended up being a girl named Samantha. Despite all of Dan's charm, it just wasn't meant to be because after a while she finally told him that she had a boyfriend. His response was classic: "That's debatable." Since then, anything that is a fact we don't like has become debatable. Thanks, Dan.

-Jon

In Lieu of Work

After something like 172 days of doing work, it was finally time for the 8th grade field trip to High Meadow. This marks the 5th time or so that I've been there, because that was definitely the exact same 8th grade trip that the school took when I was there. Hey, it's Ludlow: if something changes there is going to be a panic attack on an epidemic scale.

The thing about this field trip that is great is that there is pretty much no responsibility on my part other than eating and making sure everyone that is on the bus on the way is also on the bus for the trip home (success!). And obviously I decided to go with a cheeseburger for lunch. Considering that the people cooking were feeding something like 5 schools of kids, I can't be too upset with the burger being way more cooked than it needed to be. You gotta figure there were something like a thousand kids there at once. I think the most burgers I've ever been responsible for at one time is like 8. Besides, there was red onion. Can't really go wrong with red onion.

I bet next year I can just copy and paste this exact same thing and have it still be true. Stay tuned for about 12 months.

-Jon

More Spicy Burgers

Well, maybe it wasn't that spicy, but you would think a burger with the name Fire Pit Bacon Burger that had pepper-jack cheese and smoky chipotle spread (and yes I am currently looking at the menu online) would have at least a little zip to it.

I also learned another valuable lesson about women. Apparently if one tells you at 5:30 that you should show up any time after 6, she really means that you should show up immediately at 6 because if you aren't there by 6:13 you will get a unnecessarily angry text message about your current location. Also, as a side note, if you are already "late," (although I can't see how you could be late if the time frame is so vague) she may get upset if you open a beer upon arrival. Even if you drink the beer in 8 minutes. I know, I was shocked as well.

Anyway, I was sort of the odd man out (literally) at dinner, as I am the only one who got a burger, the only one who got a beer, the only one that is a male and the only one who eats burgers properly. Meaning rare. Technically the burger was not really rare, but I ordered it rare so I get points for trying. It seems that Melissa, Kathryn and Diana all are fans of charcoal burgers, by which I mean burgers that taste like charcoal, not charcoal grilled.

The burger was good in spite of its failure to be spicy, and it had red onion on it, which is fast becoming a required topping for me. Stay tuned for my next story in which I don't eat for 19 hours and then end the fasting with a ridiculous lunch.

-Jon

Burgers & Hockey

After going to the Worcester Sharks game tonight with Jen and Melissa, the number of hockey games I have attended in the past. . . 5 years has increased to 1.  Which is kind of strange, since hockey games are actually pretty fun to attend, even though we didn't get to throw those foam pucks on the ice.  I guess it was some sort of contest for tickets or real pucks or God only knows what.

Before the game, we stopped for dinner at some place called Junior's in Worcester.  It was a nice place, and we could eat outside, which unfortunately let us listen to 2 separate siren incidents, 137 motorcycles, and one guy who was driving down the street dragging some part of his car underneath for what had to be several miles.  Also, the Red Sox were getting absolutely hammered by the Rays, and that is always a bad thing.

I ended up getting the hamburger (which was the only burger on the menu) and threw a bunch of stuff on top of it, like bacon, onions, mushrooms and cheese, in addition to the tomato that it came with.  There was also lettuce, but it didn't make the cut.  And even though I ordered it rare, and this burger came anything but rare (more like medium well, but hey, cooking is hard even if it's your JOB!), it was still pretty good.

Also, the fries were fantastic.  You gotta have good fries to go with a good burger.

-Jon