Hold the Catsup and Mustard

It's so hot I couldn't eat a traditional burger on Memorial Day.

A group of us went to celebrate a friend's birthday (I'm beginning to think I only know Geminis) at Carytown Burger and Fries outdoors under the awning.

And, sadly, I couldn't bear the thought of a burger, despite my love of same. Hell, cheeseburgers were my birthday dinner of choice the entire time I was growing up when we got to choose our birthday dinners.

But I couldn't do it. I wimped out and got a salad, granted one with an abundance of bacon, avocado and blue cheese, but one that was mostly iceburg lettuce, tomatoes and baby spinach. Plant matter I could handle.

To make my self feel better about it, I had a bite of the birthday boy's cheeseburger, which merely confirmed what I already knew. It was too hot for eating flesh today, for me anyway.

Nearby, a certain local skull artist happily ate his. My friends ate theirs. The exotic looking family behind us ate theirs.

Note to self: adjust to summer's sudden arrival quickly. Life without cheeseburgers is not really living.

You can quote me on that.

Burgers Under a Blue Sky

(With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Carytown Burgers how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My mouth and soul can reach

I love your large, misshapen patties
Encased in a soft over sized bun
I love the oozing ketchup and mustard
Yellow as the mid-day sun

I love your thick cut fries
Salted and seasoned and hot
I inhale your enormous milkshakes
Even though I know I should not.

But what I love best is that tiny little patio area back by the a/c units. Not the plastic-encased "patio," where most people sit, but the back two-table gravel-floored rectangle where the sky is the ceiling and today it was so beautifully blue that it alone could make a person feel like anything was possible.

And maybe it is...once I stop feeling quite this full.

Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger

My love affair with the cheeseburger is long-standing and well documented, here.

No vacation is complete without one, even when the ground meat is from an unusual animal (South Africa) or it's being used as a hangover remedy (London).

And certainly no birthday goes by without a nod to the traditional birthday burger.

I was late getting around to it, but finally made it to Carytown Burger and Fries to relive my childhood birthday dinners today.

Just recently a friend and I had discussed our feelings about burgers being put on fancy bread or unusual rolls; we're against it.

For that matter, I know some people don't require cheese on a burger and that would have amounted to blasphemy in my family.

I'm all about the cheeseburger and not what's used to augment it ("gussy it up" as my grandmother used to say).

But I was alone in my purist feelings on the subject at lunch.

One friend got the Kojak Burger (bacon, egg, cheese, lettuces, tomato, onion, mustard, mayo and pickles).

I teased him about his burger, saying "You sure you couldn't have gotten more on that burger?" (it definitely qualified as tall food) only to have him inform me that it didn't have the chicken tender or it would have been the Barnyard Brawl Burger.

There are people who want chicken on their burger?

When did this happen?

I can more easily understand the Bomb (chili, melted cheddar, bacon, grilled onion, mushrooms, lettuce, tomato, onion, mustard, mayo and pickles) KA BLAM! than I can the Barnyard Brawl.

I wouldn't eat it, either, but it's not quite as off-putting.

Do I really want cow and fowl battling in my mouth?

Frankly, no.

So I happily ate my cheeseburger with catsup, mustard and pickles, although it took me longer than it did my friend to finish his Kojak.

That's just a guy/girl thing, though; I was savoring and he was inhaling.

A good cheeseburger is worthy of either.