Since the family is away for a few days, and this last week has been a trying one, I’ve been getting a lot of work done and not cleaning up after myself- just like I used to do every single day before I had a family. To celebrate, and also to treat myself to some hedonism as the wretched poison ivy abates under the onslaught of steroids, I constructed a burger that may well be among the very best I or anyone else has ever eaten.
To wit:
- 2 thick slices of the home-cured, maple-smoked miso bacon, cooked until half-chewy, half-crisp
- 1/2 lb. of ground Washugyu beef, seared in the rendered bacon fat until just medium, with 2-year-old sharp Vermont cheddar melted on top to fuse the bacon to the meat
- a big handful of fresh wild black trumpet mushrooms, sautéed with garlic in the bacon/beef fat
- homemade kimchi
- a big slice of homegrown Silvery Fir tomato
- a toasted whole wheat English muffin from a local bakery
- a small squidge of a homemade ketchup-BBQ sauce hybrid
- our very first homegrown, raw-fermented dill pickle of the season
Now the family took the camera with them, so you will have to imagine the eye-rolling, table-pounding beauty of this hot mess. Since there’s no picture to burn the blessed image into your neurons for all eternity, you might want to print this post out and recite it before bed, perhaps using the convenient bullet points to replace your evening prayers or mantra.
I almost took Brooklynguy‘s advice from his recent comment and opened something rare and special to enjoy all by myself with this surpassingly exquisite repast. Two things stopped me. One, I am not 100% sure how drinking a whole bottle of wine would interact with these meds, and the possibility that drunken roid rage might find me teabagging at a health care town meeting was too grisly to contemplate. Two, I had some driving to do- there was music to be heard- and though I did bring a bottle (an ’02 Sirius Petite Sirah) with me to camp I shared it. Had I stayed home I surely would have gotten into something old and wonderful and followed its evolution all the way to the very last drop. It is what the burger wanted.
Tomorrow I have to clean the house.
Oh, baby! Who needs photos when you have a description like that?
that my friend sounds like a mighty fine burger.
kim chi…sounds like a righteous addition. you should have opened a phenomenal, but too young bottle of something so you could have a glass and then put the rest away for later in the week.
(raticarn) – verification word.
Sounds great (though I'm still not a kimchi-eater as of yet). In case you were curious, it's totally okay to drink while you're on prednisone, as far as your liver goes. It can increase the bone density issues that come with prolonged use of prednisone, and it can cause GI upset if overdone, but on such a short course of the medication, you're unlikely to do any long term harm.
It's hard to think food is delicious when I think of your blistered arms. Ick. But I'm weird about weeping bodily wounds.
Zoomie: It didn't look half so good.
Rachel: Oh yes. Mighty and fine.
Neil: I should have, at that. I'll defer your permission until next time I'm grumpy and use it as license then.
Kristie: How about meth? I'm trying out for MLB, and I have a long drive ahead of me.