Recently, a childhood friend of Wifey's, who came for a short visit in the summer
of 2005, called to ask me a question. He wanted to know how it was that I prepared hamburgers on one of the nights that he and his family were over. I was a little surprised that he called just to ask me about that. He and his family were only over for three evenings. We only ate at home one evening. I vaguely remembered the fare. Well, he apparently did.
I've never thought about it much, but I believe (if I do say so myself) that my acumen regarding grilling is better than the average person's. I grew up in Arizona where mesquite wood grows like a weed and cooking outdoors is a year round possibility. I've seen many people (men basically), especially in the summer, when outdoor gatherings are many, attempt to cook the simplest things and still have the grills catch fire and in turn burn much of what they serve. I just sit and watch these folks struggle with grilling's simplest rule......Don't burn the food. These greenhorns seem to mistake charring with burning.
Because of convenience, I have been using a gas grill for quite some time now. The hassle with charcoal and/or wood just makes no sense for short order grilling. Grilled food is better with charcoal or wood, however. I happen to have a natural gas grill and not a propane grill. Such a set-up is vastly superior here in the northeast during the winters.
Anyway, these grillin' greenhorns should master the hamburger before attempting to cook much else. Confidence, at least with the hamburger, before asking people over and submitting them to eating one's grilling efforts is just so necessary. After the hamburger, chicken is next. And after that, it's just about anything else. It's that easy. That and a little patience.
When it comes to hamburgers, its world is a vast and varied one. It seems everyone has their own personal take on the hamburger. What kind of ground meat? Rare, medium or well done? Salt before or after? What condiments compliment the burger best? Ketchup or tomatoes? Cheese? What kind? What about the bun? Chips or fries with the burger?
There are these two restaurants that have been escalating the size of their hamburgers to a size way beyond what one would describe the word novelty. The Clinton Station Diner in Clinton, New Jersey and Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pennsylvania have both been having a friendly escalation with the size of their hamburger offerings.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/03/pf/biggest_burger/index.htmhttp://www.supersizedmeals.com/food/article.php/20061029-Worlds_Largest_HamburgerI’ve been to The Clinton Station Diner and have ordered the 15 pounder. Four hungry adults and three children were not able to dent the 15 pounder more than 40 percent. That was a lot of hamburger. When people ask me if the burger was good, I always reply that the burger was big instead. Big isn’t always better and in this case the rule held.
There is an intriguing place in Memphis, Tennessee on Beale Street that deep fry their hamburgers in grease that has not been changed since 1912. Everyone in the world has been led to believe that Elvis Presley died from drug abuse. I believe if Elvis’ body were exhumed, forensic scientists would clearly discover that is was these Dyer’s Burgers that killed The King:
http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Writeup.aspx?ReviewID=1251&RefID=1251http://dethroner.com/index.php/2006/07/18/dethroner-destinations-dyers-hamburgers-home-of-the-94-year-old-grease/Up in New England, in the town of Meriden, Connecticut there's a restaurant named Ted's. They STEAM their burgers. Yes, that hot water vapor thing: steam. I've never tried one of these but they appear intriguing. I feel I can cook my own at home this way and at least achieve similarity:
http://www.roadfood.com/Reviews/Overview.aspx?RefID=112http://steamedcheeseburger.com/stories/yankee.htmI'm sure someone out in Kawai, Hawaii must be thinking of some way to offer hamburgers cooked over hot lava. And I'm sure that such a gimmick will someday draw moths like me there to try them out. I've seen rednecks at NASCAR races cook chicken inside their car's engine compartment and I'm sure that hamburgers can be easily rendered that way also:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375751408/002-6688161-5133633?v=glance&n=283155So, I found it delightful to recently read the story of a little 8 year-old girl from Oregon who has made some headlines out there with her take on the hamburger. Her version of the hamburger has emerged above 16,000 other contestants' wanting their hamburger to become the next hamburger served off the menu at "Red Robin" restaurants across the USA.
People should not be surprised about this little girl. She appears to be raised in a home with a rich ethnic epicurean history. A home that has exposed her to dishes based with lamb, fish, olive oil, honey, yogurt....even grape leaves. Yes, this little girl is of Greek heritage and yes she submitted a Greek styled hamburger.
http://www.recipecontests.com/news/messages/1513.htmlI have to admit that I did "white-lie" Wifey's friend last week when he called for the ingredients and instructions. I wasn't too keen on the idea that he'd be cooking hamburgers for others and perhaps take all the credit for it. I wasn't too keen with the fact that he's not grilled enough to have his own take on his very own burger. While I did feel empowered about my cooking a hamburger, I felt it was pathetic that as a grown man, he needed help cooking one. Courteously, off the top of my head, I rattled off a number of spices and I said that I had used Tzatziki sauce. That elicited a "WTF is that"? I told him what it was.
Although I never used it then, I felt that he needed to establish his own signature and originality to the simple hamburger. It's the most basic of items one should be able to cook on one's grill confidently. Boiling water is only easier.
Preparing a hamburger is oh so simple. I have heard that little 8 year old girls can make very delicious ones.
*!*
PARTISAN
I wasn't paying attention to the task at hand, I guess.
I'd angled forward to watch the beautiful young mother
three booths left shift her pink swaddled infant
arm to arm and her standing toddler boy
from one deft and patient hand to the other.
She caught me at my stare and smiled. She must have
noticed we wore the same good
quixotic candidate's hopeless campaign pin.
But just then, the citizen I'd been waiting for
rushed from the voting booth
like a rodeo bull from its Friday night catch pen,
and so close was I, he clapped me exactly
in the nose with his balding pate, and snorted.
I was silent as the blood burbled out,
and he was already barreling off toward
the sky blue and newly-fettered confines of the dark republic we'd become.
So covering my face with a red bandanna,
I stepped in and pulled the curtain closed. I'd been thinking
of a split ticket, for some reason, though now,
out of simple pique or pure American patriotism,
I voted, yet again, a straight ticket. So there I was then,
outside, seeming to myself at least
a hero in the contact sport of democracy, my fellow voters making room
to let me pass my bloody way among them, but I didn't move.
Instead, I looked to where the beautiful young mother,
my good comrade, had been. It was her toddler boy I spotted first,
slapping the blue curtain behind her back and forth,
his baby sister cupped on mother's left forearm like a football.
She had the boy's hips locked between her knees to prevent escape.
He was a little prisoner, but happy to be there.
"Mommy!" he yelled, throwing the curtain back, and "Mommy!"
throwing it closed again. A campaign slogan, it sounded like,
from a little man enjoying the best the nation could offer
and offering his own in return. "Mommy!"
he shouted,"Mommy!" His vote.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec06/poem_11-06.html*!*
I've been thinking recently (and that's something some people will swear that I do not do often) and have been feeling somewhat cheated lately with the way that time has been flying bye for me. Case in point is this blog that has not had an entry to it in two months. I had been making entries into this personal journal that only very few read for about a year now. I had registered at this site some years before that but had little inspiration to write about anything.
A couple of days ago a very good friend from Las Vegas, e-mailed to catch-up a little. In the communiqué he happened to have mentioned what birthday he recently happened to have celebrated. I could only think that I had recently "observed" mine, and though I'm only two years younger than he is, I still felt like screaming.....SHIT!!!
I've been cognizant of this ascendance of mine and of others' who I love. I've also taken to note that some entry level types at work have begun to call me "Sir". One upper management type has been calling me "Chief" for some time now. A little salt in the noggin and all of a sudd
en I'm part of the American establishment.
I honestly do not have much at all that I regret or that I have not done, yet. And "yet" is the operative word here because I am very confident that I will be fulfilling much of what I've always wanted to do in sober realistic terms. Rich, my friend from Las Vegas, is one of the types that has been there in the past when we both were living life at its fullest back when we were in college and for a few years afterwards. All of that before the responsibility bug and the gainful employment bug bit and afflicted us both.
Before we both had turned thirty years of age, he was bending in the emotional maelstrom of a failed childless first marriage and I was already living twenty-five hundred miles away focused on landing a job that would allow Wifey, the Rottweiler and me to live and work in Barcelona, Spain for 18 months.
Well, his marriage failed and we never did get out to Barcelona. He, however, is married to a great woman now and a former MGM Grand Hotel showgirl. Me? I was dissuaded from going to Barcelona when a different professional opportunity arose. Both Wifey and I are just fine and dandy about it. I did promise Wifey that a visit to Barcelona will become reality someday.
Friends like Rich and previously mentioned Julio are the types that I can call and it's a go every time. No awkwardness. We all know each other's families and extended families. I believe that if we all saw more of each other, we'd really get into trouble. When Rich and Julio are away from their spouses they want to fly on the envelope. They can both be easily derailed down to an earlier stage of their development. Because of that, they are both a whole hell of a lot of fun to hang with, but moderation from them is really the best thing for me.
Strangely, I've seen more of that Julio guy in the last six months than I have in the last 3 years. Let me see: I saw him in May when we travailed out to Baja California. I hung with him for another four days when we went to the LSU game in early September. I also saw him a couple of weeks ago out in Tucson again. So, Julio's been the protagonist this year of 2006.
Let me share with you that trip to New Orleans.
I had been toying with the idea of a road trip down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana since the day I learned that The Arizona Wildcats were going to be playing there. Yes, a road trip from New Jersey to Louisiana. Unfortunately, the road trip never came to pass. Fortunately, I still managed to attend the game and parlayed it into an entire weekend of anthropological awareness.
I had called Julio a month before the game and told him that I had some flight vouchers that needed to be redeemed or they would be lost. I was so grateful about the BC trip that I felt compelled to do something nice for him. Soooo, he flew to the game via Charlotte from Phoenix to New Orleans pro-bono. We both hooked up in Charlotte and flew into Satchmo's airport first class. Everything else was 50/50 after that and on the buddy system.
As the few of you (five that I know of) who read here know, Julio remains a friend of mine since childhood and we are both graduates of The University of Arizona. Except for the outcome of the game, the weekend of September 9th was one of those great weekend get a-ways. One I will never forget.
Thursday morning September 7th began at 4 a.m. to catch a 7 a.m. flight to New Orleans. The stop-over was Charlotte. I was in Charlotte by 8:45 in the morning. Julio was already there, having taken the red-eye from Phoenix. Such had been the plan. Hook up in Charlotte and fly in together first-class into New Orleans. It all clicked that morning. We were at Satchmo's airport by 11 a.m. central time. His town was sunny, hazy, warm and humid that morning. The weather in the area remained that way the entire weekend. I call it two-shirt weather: one shirt for the morning and one for the evening.
Pick up the rental and head into the French Quarter to our hotel was the first order of business. That did not take long at all. The reason that's the case is because right now, New Orleans is not a vibrant tourist destination. There was no congestion at the airport, none at the car rental office and the Marriott we stayed at had few guests.
As we settled into the town and after talking with a few people, both of us began to understand what New Orleans was as opposed to what it is today. Basically, it seems the town had a bigger buzz then than it does now. The "buzz" is getting a little louder and brighter every day, but this metamorphosis is very slow. I had never been there, but in a way I'm happy that I visited now because everyone was so happy to see us as tourists who were there to spend money. We both got a genuine good vibe from all the locals in and around New Orleans. The jaded and gruff native was no where to be seen.
We trekked out to the destroyed neighborhoods that remain that way. We drove around and were awed by the reality of these vast neighborhoods where one person has reestablished living in their home again, but that person or family not having a neighbor for several blocks. It was really like a scene from a science fiction movie after a neutron bomb having gone off. Hundreds of empty homes, street after street, windows blown out, silence........no people.
We drove around West New Orleans and came across this couple sitting across the street from their home taking in the early evening. I slowed to ask them if it would be OK to talk to them for a little while. They both said yes and Julio and I visited with Elenora and Jimmy for about an hour. Both seemed starved for conversation. They told us about their plight, they told us about their reconstruction, they invited us inside and into their home to see their reclamation efforts. They talked....we listened and empathized.
About the picture at the top of the blog above. That is of Elenora and Jimmy lounging by themselves. Jimmy does all the work; Elenora does her best to make a home and still look her best.
The other picture to the left here is of Elenora showing us her home, her fauna and her new automobile. When the neighborhood that you live in goes through an exodus and you become one of the few people to return and start again, is it truly a neighborhood when you don't really have any neighbors for a couple of blocks?
Once the sun set on us there, we went back to the French Quarter and began a run of hours of debauchery that first Thursday night.
The picture of Julio here with a he/she prostitute and his pimp in the background was achieved at about 3 a.m. Friday September 8th after many hours of drinking alcohol and me not having eaten a meal since noon and having not eaten before that since noon the previous day (Wednesday). I'm surprised the shot is so steady.
That's a strange thing about New Orleans. They're all willing to get you way drunk but their kitchens all close by 10 p.m.! Wuz up wit dat??? The pizza stand in the background behind the hooker and his pimp was the only thing open serving food for miles. The ugly old pieces of pizza behind their vitrines not only looked unappetizing, but each slice was six fucking dollars. I refused it. Julio had to eat something or as he said....."I've got to eat something soon or I'm gonna die on you here from alcohol poisoning".
The next day, after we slept the hangover off, sometime 'round noon we walked across the street from the hotel and ate po-boys at some sports bar. After we ate there, we went straight to an oyster bar and ate again. We didn't know if we'd get to eat again that day so we were eating while we could. We did not know how the day would fold out for us.
It's now Friday afternoon before the game, and around the French Quarter one can see that there are more Arizona fans crawling around. We talked to a couple of them. Julio and I sat in a plaza at a small park drinking a local beer named Abita. The Abita flavor type at this time was "Purple Haze". It personified the way we felt. But "Purple Haze" then took Julio and me into a surreal Outer Limits.
We were sitting at this small park, a plaza really, early on that Friday afternoon listening to live music and relaxing. An elderly couple walked bye. The gentleman was wearing an Arizona hat and Julio exchanged a mild pleasantry with him as he and his wife walked along. We didn't think much about it. We listened to the R&B some more and drank a few more and decided to walk around ourselves and do more exploring. About an hour or two later, that older couple noticed us in a different part of The Quarter and they both walked across the street to greet us again. This is where we both stepped into the Twilight Zone.
The gentleman called us both by our names! I had to think for a moment as to where we were and who would know both of our names? It was someone I had rarely ever thought about. It was our high school counselor! It was one of those WTF moments for me. I would have never thought that after having seen him for an exit/graduation interview 28 years ago, that I (both of us) would be running into him in New Orleans.
We talked for about a half hour and got acquainted again. He and his wife had arrived with a group charter flight of fans a few hours earlier. He happens to be an Arizona fan, grad and
booster. In retirement, he and his wife have few vises he said. The Wildcats and beer drinking are two of them. The picture of Mr. "Liz" and his wife here are along a sidewalk in New Orleans 28 years after I practically forgot all about him. Wow! He's got a beer in his hand! What are the odds of that? For the rest of the weekend I could not get over that happenstance meeting.
Went back to the hotel and asked the concierge to bring our car. We then drove to Mississippi. Had never been, thought it would be enriching and it was somewhat. We drove there via north through Lake Pontchartrane on the Causeway to a well recovered Slidell and then boarded I-10 for 20 miles until we hit the Mississippi border where we got down at the Welcome Center named after astronaut Fred Haise. Haise was an astronaut on Apollo 13 and Bill Paxton played him in the movie. He was born in nearby Biloxi.
Here's a picture of an artist's rendering of the lunar lander that he would have piloted to the
Moon's surface. It adorns the rest area's welcome center as you enter Mississippi. This artwork is made out of steel and iron and it is more impressive when you stand next to it.
We were back in NO before the night life began to get going that Friday night. We saw some great soul and jazz bands playing at three or four bars that night. We did our best to stay away from drinking anymore "hurricanes". Beer, beer and more beer until the next thing we needed to do was wake up and drive the 80 miles to Baton Rouge the next morning.
Saturday was game day. After a hearty buffet breakfast at the hotel, it was off to LSU's campus. A quick 90 minute drive later we parked our rental on the campus. I believe that there could not have been more than 500 Arizona fans total at that game and anyone who was brave enough to explore the campus and see their facilities while wearing their Arizona colors would have had a great time. The LSU campus transfigures into one big party and tailgate on game day. Julio and I were invited to at least five tailgates and we ate and drank friendly stranger's food and drink beginning at 11 a.m. and we did not stop until kick-off.
We met so many friendly strangers that I wish I could thank in some way. It began the moment we exited our car and were greeted by cat calls of "Tiger Bait!". "Hey tiger bait.....come over here and help us tailgate won't 'cha?" the hospitality was unreal.
About the third or fourth tailgate that we were asked to stop and chat at, this very gregarious fellah walked out of his way, came up to Julio and me and said...."I'm adopting you two." "I want you to meet my friends and family and experience some southern hospitality." How could we say no??
Chris was his name and this is his part of his story. Chris is 36 years old. Chris enrolled at LSU 18 years ago as an 18 year old just out of high school. Julio noticed this gaudy looking class ring of his and asked to see it. The grad date on it was 2006. He then went on to explain that soon after he enrolled in 1988 his "Daddy" passed suddenly. Being the eldest, he was thrust into becoming his family's wage earner so he took over his father's trucking business. He supported his mother and he married two younger sisters off. He himself is married and has two young children. He managed to do all that and still go to school part time. He said that about 4 years ago, after securing life for his mom, he decided to sell the family business and finally attend school full-time.
We were both genuinely impressed with his maturity and in the humble way he told the story. Julio was very impressed with his largesse at his tailgate. Three SUV's, tables and tables of food and drink beyond anyone's ability to enjoy them all. I noted to Julio something that he did not notice about Chris. Chris was sporting a Rolex President, all gold. Both my wife and I have Rolexs and both of ours do not add up to the purchase price of Chris'. His runs about 20 grand. His late Daddy's trucking business must have sold for a very very pretty penny. Good for him.
This is a picture of Chris wearing beads that my children made for me to give away for special people. The beads have the school colors of both Arizona and LSU. Chris, his wife and his two
young children took a set of them. In fact, the beads made us many friends that day and bought us much hospitality. After a while, Julio and I began to take this all in like we were visiting dignitaries. Since Arizona is not a conference rival to LSU, I believe that that made all the difference in the world regarding their warm offerings.
As I stated earlier in this post, everything about the four days in The Bayou, were great except for the game. Arizona got blown out and the team has practically been in a downward spiral since. Adding to the Purgatorial experience of having to endure my team getting mowed-down for 60 minutes, I had to endure the indignity of having a drunken frat boy sit in front of me. A drunken frat boy of the worst kind. The kind that believe that chugging Crown Royal is necessary to be elated. The kind that heckle extreme obscenities loudly like "Katrina had great aim mother fuckers" and "Go fuck yourself you web-footed cheerleading swamp bitches".
The buddy that sat down with him, the LSU fans around us, and both Julio and I believed that he needed to be talked down from the precipice that he was teetering on. This boy was too unsophisticated to realize that he could very well be spending the night in jail if someone were to call him to the attention of any Louisiana State Trooper stationed at everywhere within shouting distance around the stadium. We tried to distract him, and for a while we did a pretty good job of it.
His buddy seemed to be more classy than this greenhorn friend of his. I forgot his buddy's name but drinky-crow's was Tate. Tate's much more sober friend asked for an e-mail addy of mine. He was going to ensure that his "idiot" buddy e-mail me and apologize and thank us both for calming him down by talking to him for what seemed the entire ghastly game. When the game ended, I saw Tate stumbling away from the stadium by himself, his buddy went in a different direction.
After the game, Julio and I were both pretty quiet and tired. All we did was drive back to the hotel in New Orleans and ensure that we'd make our very early flights out of town. We sat and made phone calls, watched more football on TV and deprogrammed into a short night's sleep that last Saturday night.
The next day, Julio and I were both back to our respective destinations by 11:30 a.m.. He in Phoenix and I in Chatham, New Jersey.
When I got home I had an e-mail waiting with an effusive apology that went on and on. I was very surprised. I could not believe it. I told Wifey about the whole thing. He wanted to redress by offering to buy Julio and I lunch and insisted I call him back as soon as I read his e-mail.
Unfortunately, I was already back in New Jersey; Julio in the air en-route to Phoenix. I did call him that morning as he had practically begged me to do on the e-mail. From talking to him on the phone, from a sober and different perspective, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that what we saw was a "Gibsonian" aberration. I believe he may have felt powerless that he couldn't buy us both lunch for keeping him away from jail. He was trying to be magnanimous and I couldn't help him. Oh well, perhaps some other time when I'm in Tucson, I may touch base with him over a phone call and see what happens. I'll keep his e-mail addy and cell number in the back-burner.
Julio couldn't believe it when I told him about the e-mail and call. Wifey summed it up best: "....poor kid probably didn't know how to handle himself away from the familiar. He may have been scared. It could have been overwhelming for him"
This is a picture of a drunken frat boy in the year 2006. A sweaty, loud and vulgar one. It is a
picture of a frat boy who in my time would have been deemed to be having a bad trip. Perhaps this frat boy's personality will present to him, someday in the future, a career in politics. Hey, why not?
Anyway, that's was some, just a little, of what went down the last two months. I believe I do no need any lifestyle adjustments. I feel that I pepper it with enough spice today to enliven my soul. Escapades like these regenerate me. It is healthy to deviate from the mundane. Right here right now is where I want to be.
In 2007, I will strive to tap Rich on the shoulder so that he can enjoy The Beautiful Day.
*!*
