Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Car Food, Summer Food, Salt Lake Food

So far, they all have one thing in common: hamburger. Something happens in the summer that makes me treat red meat less like dead animal to be served with some sort of reverence and thanks and more like potato chips. I can't eat just one and you just open the grill and out pop pre-made patties that are tossed out onto buns. I eat mine without a bun with a little salt. Just like a potato chip. I can eat two without noticing I ate anything. Sometimes, it requires a hot dog to inform my stomach that dinner is already over. I try to celebrate red meat like I do in the winter by making a more gourmet version. I'll do fancy hamburgers stuffed with jalapenos or with a little frozen pad of butter stuff inside, or, as Val made the other night, lamb burgers with delicious tzatziki sauce. But I'll also just eat whatever brown round thing comes my way. I'm not discriminating, at least in the summer, when it comes to burgers. On the drive up to Salt Lake, I had a double, plain Wendy's hamburger. Then last night, a plain burger from the Training Table. It was delicious dipped in Salt Lakean fry sauce* (making it, I guess, less plain). But I'm feeling cow sad and like I should take a break from the potato-chip like frenzy and eat something less dead and more healthy. Like potato chips. Except I think my in-laws are grilling hamburgers for dinner. Maybe I'll join my mother-in-law and have a garden burger. With fry sauce*.

* Fry sauce is made basically with ketchup and mayonnaise and some secret spices like at Hires Drive-in but at the Training Table, it is made with barbecue sauce and mayonnaise. Homemade versions never compare. Restaurants must add MSG or some other delicious, nearly illegal substance to make it taste so good and keep it so secret.

4 comments:

Sandy said...

My favorite hamburgers (much to Darin's embarrassment) are the little one you get at McDonald's. I will eat a hot dog anytime, anyplace. I've even eaten them at gas stations and movie theaters. Fry sauce sounds...odd. I've never heard of it.

Lisa B. said...

I admit to you, here and now, that I ate an In and Out burger in Vegas when I went to see Van Morrison with singing son et al. And it was GOOD. Whatever that sauce is on those burgers, it is delicious. Also, last summer I ate a hot dog on the 4th of July. Also, I bought a package of Colosimo's sausages, New York style, and ate one a day for lunch. And it was so good.

P said...

Robert calls it Utah sauce. Once he made it himself and I felt as if one of my true gifts were gone and my talents replaced. East Coast burgers are never ever comparable to those in the West. However, they do try at "Five Guys Burgers and Fries". Thanks for the dinner suggestion, but it is so hot here, leftover cold spaghetti and a beer might be all this kitchen can offer up.

Nik said...

Sandy, this reminds me of your facebook post. Once, I was a vegetarian. But I bacon was a vegetable. Lisa B., I'm at once feeling less guilty for eating meat because someone I admire has indulged as well and more guilty because I like to use my vegetarian friends to offset my consumption. In honor of your In and Out Burger experience, today I vow to eat no hamburgers! And P, you'll be here soon where the Utah sauce awaits.