Prompt: "A song that reminds you of your favorite recipe"
Selected by Gilson
"Patience"
Guns N' Roses
G N' R Lies, 1988
I realize this makes no sense on its face, so allow me to explain.
The Avalon Supermarket has come up many times already in my writing, including this past Thursday. It houses the deli where I work in the summer, and before the deli I worked there as a stockboy and lunch meat slicer and I helped out the butcher. In my college years, we had a very close group of guys who worked back there together. There was a few older, legit butchers, and then a few of us kids: Me, Matt, Kevin, Sean. We hung out after work almost every night and got drunk and listened to classic rock. The same classic rock we listened to together in the meat room.
One night on July 4th weekend, we were working a little later. Usually we had everything cleaned by around eight o'clock, but because of how busy the weekend was, we were still grinding meat and making burger patties around nine. All of us were quietly exhausted; it had been a long weekend, and it still wasn’t over. Matt and Kevin were making burgers, Sean was wrapping them, and I was weighing and labeling. The radio was on, tuned to 100.7, the only station we ever listened to. The chords of "Patience" came on, and we went about our business without acknowledging it even though all of us listened to a lot of Guns N' Roses. Then, in unison, all four of us began to whistle along to the intro, without saying a word.
One of the great joys in life, to me, is just a really fucking good cheeseburger. There is nothing fancy about the recipe for a good burger. 80%/20% mix, hand-formed patties (one of my idiosyncrasies is that even for a big get-together of about 30 people, I'd rather take the time to make the patties myself than use frozen). Let them sit out for about 30 minutes before you cook them, and give them a generous dash of salt and pepper. Put them on the grill or the skillet, both work. Don't over-flip. One might even say you need a little patience. Ideally, one flip will do, but two is ok. The best cheeses are creamy ones that melt well. Cooper Sharp is great, cheddar works, but there's nothing wrong with some american cheese for a burger.
As per toppings, whatever you want. This isn't rocket science.
2 comments:
Thoughts on marinating the patty before cooking? The only experience I've ever had was when a friend marinated them in PBR, so this is a good question to ask you, due to similar restrictions in that regard.
My view on marinating/ cooking with alcohol is I generally avoid it only because I worry the taste will make me want more. Same reason I avoid NA beers. But that’s 100% a personal thing, the alcohol cooks out of that stuff.
On just marinating burgers in general, I’ve never really heard of that before. I don’t think good ground meat would need that but I suppose if you’re going for a particular taste, have at it.
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