Coffee heat rising

The Writer’s Dinner

I did it to myself. I’m crankin’ away at the second installment of Bobbi and the Biker’s tale. He takes her to his favorite sh!t-stompin’ place, a country-western biker joint in a bad part of town. Tells her they have the best hamburgers in town. She thinks he’s putting her on, of course. But lacking anything better to eat, she orders a cheeseburger after they sit down to a big ole picnic table with his cronies.

Ketchup and mustard were passed up the table, and we dug into a classic American dinner like I hadn’t tasted since I was a little girl. Tender beefy flavor enriched with the nutty cream of melted Swiss and the tang of dill pickles and the sweet overtone of Heinz filled my mouth and I thought this was something I’d never get enough of. The fries were fat and hot, crisp on the outside and floury tender on the inside.

“Satisfactory?” BillyBob asked.

“Oh, my god!” I said when I could speak.

He smiled and bit into his own burger.

{chortle!} Well, by the time I finished this delectable passage, I was craving a hamburger — a real one — so bad I could hardly sit still.

Anyone remember real hamburgers? The ones that had real meat in them? Enough meat that when the short-order cook fixed it “rare” it actually came out rare? With tomatoes that had a flavor? And kosher dill pickles? And potatoes that looked and tasted like chunky slices of real Idahoes, not like long thin potato chips?

Dayum!

If you can remember that, I’ll bet you can remember real milkshakes, too.

Welp. By the time I finished the scene, nothing would do but what I had to have a real hamburger!

Needed to go to the grocery store, anyway, so it was off to the Safeway.

Back in the Day, Safeway and Smitty’s (defunct now, alas) used to sell beef round and chuck roasts for less th an they sold ground round and ground chuck. So I used to buy a roast and ask the butcher to grind it for me.

And the DIFFERENCE! Oh my. Fresh-ground hamburger was an entirely different critter from the stuff you bought off the counter in a styrofoam tray. That always mystified me…only because in those days we’d never heard of “pink slime.”

Ew.

Eventually Safeway got wise to that strategy and butchers would refuse to grind it for you. At that point I pretty much stopped buying hamburger. Even in my ignorance of the glories of pink slime, the cost seemed like just too much money for what it was.

Today, though money was no object. Such was my Art-induced craving for a real hamburger.

Also picked up some crumbled blue cheese (speaking of too goddamn much money for what it is…). Stuffed a patty of hamburger with some of it. Threw the meat and the potatoes on the grill…not quite the same as real French fries, but a helluva lot better than a bath in hydrogenated oil.

Tossed together a salad from one of those hydroponic heads of lettuce that tastes a lot like lettuce used to taste.

Incredible. You forget how good real food is.

Now. Let’s see what else we can do to get Bobbi to utter, “Oh, my god!”

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