1loaf French breadpreferably homemade—see recipes in Yeast Breads section
1stick buttersoftened
¼Cprepared mustardpreferably homemade—see recipes in Basics section
Instructions
Combine ground beef, onion, blue cheese, salt, and Worcestershire sauce, and shape mixture into 10 patties slightly larger in diameter than French loaf. Cut French loaf into 20 ½ inch slices. Blend butter and mustard, and spread generously on one side of each bread slice. Reassemble loaf, buttered sides together, wrap in heavy oil, and place on grill over medium coals for 15 minutes. Grill burgers to desired degree of doneness and serve each between 2 bread slices.
3Tbspchili sauceor to taste (preferably homemade—see recipes in Basics section)
¼Cice water“the ice water helps keep the burgers juicy”
4large onion rolls or hamburger bunssplit (preferably homemade—see recipes in Baked Goods section)
¾Cshredded iceberg lettuce
Instructions
Combine onion slices and tomato slices with lemon juice and 3 Tbsp olive oil, and turn to coat evenly. Set aside to season. Prepare fire in outdoor charcoal grill (or preheat indoor grill). Combine meat, salt, pepper, chili sauce, and ice water, stir together using a fork to mix well, and form meat into 4 patties, each 1 inch thick, being careful not to handle meat too much. Place onion rolls or hamburger buns, cut sides down, on grill rack and grill just until golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to individual plates or serving baskets, cut sides up, and brush evenly with remaining 1 Tbsp oil. Position grill 4 inches from heat source and grill burgers, turning once, for 6 minutes on first side and 5 to 5 minutes on second side (for medium-rare to medium). Place each burger on bottom half of toasted bun, top each with a reserved slice of marinated red onion and tomato, sprinkle with a little of the lettuce, cover each with top bun, and serve immediately.
Notes
“Beef patty sandwiches have been eaten in America since the early 19th century, although it was not until the late 1920s that the White Castle chain popularized the hamburger as roadside diner fare. Garnish the burgers with mustard, catsup (tomato sauce) and pickle relish.” —Diane Rossen Worthington, Diner: The Best of Causal American Cooking (1995)
This is a great cookbook! We’ve both cooked out of it for years and never had a bad experience.
It’s 50 degrees outside. Which means the indoor relative humidity should be 50%. It’s 41%. I’m pumping water into the atmosphere of The Den as fast as I can.
A colleague of Mr. Big Food’s gave us deer meat last week. You know what that means? Saturday. Deer meat burgers. On the grill. Hardwood & charcoal.
What a great time to be alive! Mr. Big Food grilled burgers out already this season. I’ll be posting a few (beef) burger recipes tomorrow, but why wait? Here are two of our favorites. (You can make Spicy Cow Meat Burgers with Lime Mayo if you don’t have any deer meat in your deep freezer.)
I’m taking it easy today. JK! (That’s kid speak for “just kidding.”) [For the toxic among you, I’ll be talking about Makitta drills below!]
After our return from Memphis, I had five and one-half days to get the joint– including the Bunkhouse and some outside parts– ready for company on Saturday afternoon. And not just any old company, the guest speaker was from New York City. Not that it matters, but we take our obligation to put on our best Mississippi faces for Yankees seriously, and that means full-on prettification. (Mr. Big Food did full-on Southern cookin’!)
No pictures, but a corner of the dining room table was laid out as a little G&T and wine bar with silver goblets and mint julep cups, and the other corner had lots of pretty cheese boards and knives, and silver bowls for crackers and grapes. Looked very nice. Ice bucket was worth every dime of the 15 bucks I paid for it. I have, however, come to realize that I do not own silver tongs.
The project– the new draperies and door panels– required a tremendous amount of measuring, remeasuring, and drilling 26 holes. (Also, ironing and steaming a lot of fabric.) As you are well aware, I dislike folks telling other folks what to do but I’m here to tell you that every homemaker needs the very best drill he or she can afford. And a complete set of bits &c. I bought a high end Makitta drill about 20 years ago and never looked back. (Oh! This is a really nice combo pack with a drill, an impact driver, and two batteries.) Batteries on mine lasted about 15 years, so I did have to get an after-market replacement, but hey, such is life in the world of power tools.
The project was not one of decorating but of functioning, which is to say the drapes and panels don’t just look pretty, they have a purpose.
“We’re not going to have coffee in 30 years to grow where it grows right now so we try to start growing it in other places and learn how to grow it ourselves,” he said. “And that’s the backup plan for caffeine.”
Please forgive t,he relative silence. We’re having a thing here at The Farm. I’ve been busy cleaning and drilling hole for drapery rods and other things.
Floors look great!
Duck gumbo!
Ha. Drilling holes for drapery rods and other things. Have I drilled a hole for something other than a drapery rod? Technically, yes. The hold backs. But that’s not what I intended to say.
NCAA: So, it’s hard to actually calculate the exact odds of a perfect bracket, but if every game were a coin flip, the odds would be about 1 in 9.2 quintillion.
Linked at hot air.com
but I’ve been focused on trigonometry. Mr Big Food is all about probability lately— Bishop Reverend Bayes, et al. We will discuss.
UPDATE:
The probability of the dude having a perfect bracket after 48 games is 2^48 or 1 in 281,000,000,000,000.
The probability of having a completely perfect bracket under the same assumptions, and including the play in games, is 2^67 or 1 in 1.47e20. Or put another way, 1 in 147,000,000,000,000,000,000; one in 147 quintillion.
How are they getting 9.2??
How is it “hard to actually calculate the exact odds of a perfect bracket?” Each game is played by two teams. In this scenario, each has even odds. There are a total of 67 games played. Two-to-the-sixty-seventh-power: 2^67.
Do the math.
Figured out yesterday’s trigonometry problem, by the way.
The first lightening strike was at 4:20am. The closest was 1 mile away. We got 0.40″ of rain right there over on the fencepost. We had 23 lightning strikes.
The current temperature over there on the fencepost is 55 and falling; humidity 77% and rising; pressure, 29.92″ Hg and rising.
I’m pretty sure my personal weather station will amuse me for years to come.
Memphis Zoo and Aquarium, Memphis. Memphis, Tennessee.
Traveling Sunday– a day late on account of the fact that we were traveling!
The hotels in downtown Memphis are to be avoided at all costs. The SleepInn elevator (1) malfunctioned. Stopped at every unoccupied floor on the way to 5 & 6 and back down again
We checked out, and checked out a Memphis landmark. Some breakfast joint in Midtown. That was one serious slice of ham.
I am ambivalent about zoos. Not shown is some video of the two tigers roaring at each other as they try to figure out their space issues. (There’s not enough of it.)
Also not shown, the Bonobo vids. I have a soft spot for Bonobos. Comes from having seen a family of them at the Cincinnati Zoo one Sunday a long time ago.
But it was a most enjoyable Sunday morning, from this primate’s perspective.
His reputation was savaged because he had the temerity to question the ‘Good War’ narrative.
[Andrew J. Bacevich, The American Conservative, March 21, 2019]
Bacevich’s review of Charles Austin Beard: The Return of the Master Historian of American Imperialism (Richard Drake, Cornell University Press, 2018) caught my attention because I have a few of his crappy old books, most notably, A Basic History of the United States (Charles and Mary Beard, 1944), from which this comes:
“But there was something in the spirit of those who made the break– a force of character not simply determined by economic, political, or religious conditions– that made them different from their neighbors who remained in the turmoils and poverty of the Old World.”
I like that quote. Don’t ask me how Beard justifies the assertion– seems more of an assumption, to me– but I like it nevertheless. FYI: the quote does not appear in The Beards’ New Basic History of the United States (1960), published after the deaths of Charles and Mary.
An interesting review. Recommended if you like history or historiography.
Here’s a biography on Beard from that infallible source.
