Heaven on earth with an onion slice

There we were at a cookout the other day (this is the time of year I love cookouts best, when hanging near the grill actually feels good, and you need a hoodie and long pants outside) and a guy was flipping burgers off that Weber, and they were goooooood!

I'm not gonna lie to you. From a frozen patty on a whitebread bun, to fresh-ground top round on a ciabatta roll, I love a hamburger sammy. I can even skip the cheese, and I can live without the fried onion and relish and lettuce and tomato if need be. If the other goodies aren't available, just a squirt each of catsup and mustard will do me fine.

Cook it on the grill, broil it in the oven, fry it in the cast-iron pan, it's all good.  Even if the patty is ground turkey or chicken, I'm fine. The amazing pizzaburger sub is great, too: toss some pizza sauce and cheese onto an opened-up sub roll and toast it, while meanwhile cooking up a couple of thin patties, which you then toss into the roll and dress up with shaker cheese and oregano. Swiss cheese! Provolone (from the Italian, meaning "in favor of volone")! Port wine cheese spread!  Even good old American cheese. I'm just a "cheeseburger in paradise," as the old Jimmy Buffett tune had it. Buffett said, "I like mine with lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57 and French fried potatoes, Big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer..."

I had to talk about all this because, as you probably heard, the World Health Organization now issued their monthly reminder that red meat likely is bad for you, and you might as well smoke ten Lucky Strike cigarettes while you chow down on bacon, sausage and other processed meats.  

They have studies about how bad it is to eat red meat, like beef, lamb and liver. Well, I have said all along that liver is not good! So I have that going for me. And hot dogs have been part of the American diet for over a century. So what are we going to do, stop going to ballgames?

And sure, eat more fish, the scientists say. I wish I had time to do more fishing for dinner! Right out near us is a lake owned by the Paul family, where the wily stickfish swim. Rectangular fish born without heads, these tasty treats come already breaded and ready for the pan, right out of Mrs Paul's lake.


I am sorry, vegans and vegetarians and malt-dextrose gobblers. I know you will be alive to see the year 2100, and I won't be. I can only hope that the presidents of the end of the 21st Century (Carson III, Trump IV, and Pee Wee Herman) will treat you kindly.