Add-Ons

Margy and I like a simple hamburger, but sometimes we'll trick one out a bit. As the burgers cooked, I grilled onions and chilies in a knife-slashed foil packet, which is nothing new, but tonight I added some of our cherry tomatoes for a change of pace. They lent a bit of tang to the fiery condiment (I used a superhot red jalapeño from the farmers' market).

Homegrown Sides

Tonight was burger night, which is always exciting, but the real thrill was in the accompanying long beans and tomatoes, because we grew them ourselves. I know I've been going on and on about our tomatoes, but it's still a rarity for us to have a vegetable side dish that's entirely our own. Our garden is small and not exactly abundant, and this was only the second or third time since July that I was able to harvest enough long beans to feed us a proper portion.

Next year there will be lots more beans, because they're so vibrant and delicious (and stingy with their yield). Tonight I cut them up and boiled them for only about 90 seconds until crisp-tender, and then I tossed them with roasted tomatoes in olive oil while still warm. The tomato-flavored oil on its own tastes great on green beans, and having some little round tomatoes in there just takes the whole thing over the top. The veggies were fresh and tangy, and they'd only traveled about 30 feet to reach our table. Gets me every time.

Every Bite You Take

I was at a drum festival all day, but I planned to beat Margy home and cook some hamburgers just in time for her arrival. That didn't happen -- the schedule got delayed, and I wasn't about to miss the headliner, Stewart Copeland, so I called Margy and suggested she start dinner and I'd meet her back home. Despite her long Saturday at the office, she reluctantly agreed.

She didn't beat me by much, but she got tons of work done in that time. The grill was lit, the table was set, the salad was made. "Want me to do the dressing?" I asked. Nope, already done. The girl knows how to take care of business. All I had to do was grill the burgers.

Anyway, Margy's a huge Police fan, so she understood that I needed to be late. And it was worth it -- Stewart was in fine form, playing with the band Gismo, which he tours Italy with every summer (not a bad hobby). He wore a tight green soccer shirt and white drumming gloves, and he hammed it up at every opportunity, beginning his performance by bounding onstage and shouting, "Good evening, New Jersey!" He played great too -- he made a few deft ska-style moves, and even his softer strokes were brought down with serious force.

Summertime

I'll grill a burger on the deck in the dead of winter, but a decent ear of corn waits for no one.

Prime Meridien

Margy and a pal had an after-work dinner at the Burger Joint at the Parker Meridien Hotel. Mmm, mmm!

Bachelor Burger

This morning I went swimming in the ocean. Then Stevesie and I drove home and spent about half the trip talking about what each of us was going to eat for dinner. That got us pretty hungry. (He was thinking barbecue; I was thinking anything.)

So after I put Stevesie on a train for the last leg of his journey, I grilled myself the ultimate hamburger, with bacon, summer onions, and hot-as-hell peppers, plus an ear of corn, potato chips, and a little glass bottle of Coke.

Margy gets home tomorrow.

Heinz vs. Hunt's, with Hamburgers

Tonight we used hamburgers as an excuse to hold our Hunt's-versus-Heinz ketchup test.

To recap, I am growing increasingly disenchanted with that fussy, nonfun, faux-ignorant-but-really-with-an-unmistakable-air-of-superiority Cook's Illustrated, which recently crowned Hunt's the clear winner after holding a ketchup panel that included many other brands as well.

So on one hand, I wanted to prefer Heinz. I admit that. But on the other hand, I am always ready to discover a better food product, so I was prepared to accept the Cook's findings, if in fact Hunt's really was that much better.

It wasn't.

I mean, look -- no one is right here. That's why they call it a "taste" test. But Margy and I agreed with our friend Stevesie's assessment that Hunt's is just too sweet. It might have proceeded more slowly than Heinz down Cook's little "viscosity meter" (which I think is the same device that in the late '70s was called a Sea Monkeys Racetrack), but I'm not sure more viscous versus less viscous is really something I'm monitoring in a ketchup. As long as I can dip a french fry in it and it sticks, I'm cool. We simply preferred the flavor of Heinz. Margy did point out that this could be due to familiarity -- after all, it was the only ketchup we'd ever had in our house until I brought home a bottle of Hunt's for the test. But I think Heinz won because it strikes a more appropriate balance between sweet and tangy -- and it really is a lovely color. The Hunt's red isn't nearly as vibrant.

Hamburgers, with Ketchup

A burger at the gig is better than a steak at the Ritz.

We were playing at an Irish bar and recording the show, so we got there real early to set up. Showtime approached, and we were starving. As we ate our hamburgers, I was telling Stevesie about a ketchup taste test I'd read about in Cook's Illustrated, where Hunt's beat out Heinz rather soundly.

Stevesie, a true cheeseburger aficionado -- I've seen him eat one at every hour of the day, including 11am -- immediately said, "I don't like Hunt's. It's too sweet."

As we passed the fat little Heinz bottle, I was impressed, though not quite surprised, that Stevesie had a mental index of ketchup characteristics. I was also unsurprised to hear someone disagree with a Cook's taste test. I started out liking that magazine, but over time it seems to me that at least half its stories, and possibly all of its food test panels, have a screw loose. Margy and I will do a Hunt's-versus-Heinz test of our own and report back. I need to check this one out for myself.

Indian Sloppy Joes

Just as I was about to light the charcoal in the grill to cook hamburgers, the sky suddenly darkened. Lightning flashed, and thunder clapped right nearby. I went back inside, and I took the charcoal with me. Moments later the sky opened up, and I was off to pick up an umbrella-less Margy from the train station. Hamburgers would wait for another day.

But...

Inspiration struck in addition to the lightning.

I wanted a sandwich, I knew that. With my trusty grill ten feet away in the rain, I wasn't about to broil or fry the burgers. I reserve that kind of desperation only for a February snowstorm, and even then I would probably either light the grill or make something else. So... what could I do with this ground beef? Suddenly cumin and coriander and onion and garlic started floating around my head, and I had it: I would make beef keema, I'd throw it on a roll, and we'd have Indian sloppy joes!

With so many terrific cooks and so much great food everywhere, I really don't want to brag, but the sandwiches were even better than I imagined. The fat from the beef along with a shot of tomato paste helped to create a wonderful texture, and the spices and seasonings were bright and vivid. I put the rolls under the broiler so they got crisp/soft. But the perfect final stroke was topping each sandwich with sliced cucumber. Now this conjured some magic. The cukes offered a welcome bit of crunch, and they had a cooling effect that played off the keema's spice beautifully. It was like having a built-in raita, minus the yogurt of course.

The rain poured down, and Margy forgot about her burgers.

Burger Time

Now that the weather is getting nice, it'll be an endless parade of hamburgers until winter.

Name That Burger

Anyone who's been to the Corner Bistro will know right away. That is one FAT burger, fat like the fluffiest clouds in the sky. At first I have to bite at it rather than through it. Squint your eyes and the fries are in a clamshell. Crunch, crunch. The hot side hot, the cool side warm. A bottle of ketchup later, I can't believe I ate the whole thing. Yet I look over, and Margy has already been done for a while.

Another Burger

Two hamburgers for Margy this week. Tonight she had one at my gig in NYC -- lettuce, tomatoes, steak fries, and all. She needed a sturdy foundation, because I kept her out late.

Desmond's Tavern, NYC

The Spartan Hamburger

We were a little short on toppings, but Margy and I don't mind being burger purists. I did make some chipotle ketchup to liven things up a bit.

Burgular

Almost two weeks had gone by since we'd eaten hamburgers, and that was long enough.

When I grill burgers for Margy and me, I have a new trick: I mix sliced onion and chopped fresh chilies with a little olive oil and melted butter, plus a sprinkle of salt. I wrap it all in foil, cut slashes throughout the foil, and toss the package on the grill with the burgers, flipping them at the same time. The intense heat chars the onions a bit and mellows the peppers, and you get an irresistible texture and flavor boost for your burger. Everybody wins.

The Perfect Burger...

...is the one you're eating right now.

This, however, is the Perfect Wife burger, served at the Perfect Wife Restaurant and Tavern in Manchester, VT. Ah, sweet burger. Get this: We were a party of eight and we ordered seven hamburgers. I felt like a cruel person as I recited our surprisingly complicated order to the waitress: One like this, one like that. One with American, three with cheddar... two of those medium and one medium rare... one of the mediums and the medium rare with fries and the other medium with onion rings...

The food arrived and a lot of hungry people began to eat. After a few minutes, once the initial feeding frenzy had died down, someone mentioned that her burger was perfectly cooked. Then someone else, someone with a vastly different set of hamburger parameters, said the same thing. We all looked up around the table at each other and we all had the same satisfied expression. Even the person with the pulled pork.

The Perfect Wife indeed!