My Burger

It's summer in Toronto. It's hot, it's humid. We are wearing flip flops, drinking a ton of beer and doing a lot of bbq'ing. Ah sweet, dear summer; we wait eight months for this.


The 'Between The Buns' installment of Ritaboutit has been a monthly feature since January but a recent comment has opened my eyes to the somewhat anti climatic nature of my choice to talk burgers. I realized that you, may be tired of reading about burgers and I definitely have decided that I, am tired of writing about them.


We love them; for sure. But even a recent Now cover story http://www.nowtoronto.com/food/story.cfm?content=181874 had me sighing. Again? Ugh. Let's not beat a dead horse.


The fact is, burgers have been en vogue for the last two years; they no longer are the "it" thing. The other fact is that it's July and the chances are we are grilling our own. So in a very 'unlike my character' move, I have decided to abandon 'Between The Buns' as a monthly review. I am not a quitter but I will now only talk burger when it's news worthy; either awesome or horrible.


At this point, there is really only two things you need to know. If you don't own a bbq, go see Shant at The Burger's Priest http://theburgerspriest.com/ http://ritaboutit.blogspot.com/2011/01/burgers-priest.html and if you do, KISS (keep it simple stupid).

When making your own burger, avoid extra lean or lean ground beef. Fat equals flavour whether we are talking steak or ground beef. I favour medium ground beef, preferably ground chuck but sirloin will do fine as well. The only other points to note are A) only add salt and pepper and B) do not play with it too much. Pressing down on the patty while on the grill will only squeeze all those delicious juices out. Resist temptation! Don't press.


Add crisp iceburg, processed cheese, homemade dill pickles, tomatoes from the garden, a side salad and a cold beer.