Self Promo and Burgers

A delightful pairing

Hello! I’m back! I got sick and then got distracted by the Olympics and etc. You know the vibes. Mainly I am just really good at being unemployed. I am never not busy, even if busy is me watching Law & Order and knitting in the middle of the day instead of applying for jobs or writing this newsletter. Okay, before we get into it, I wanted to plug something that I wrote for Toronto Life (please ignore the click-baity headline, I did not choose this and I would not have chosen it but ultimately they are trying to get those CLICKS mama). Anyways, here she is, thank you for reading if you choose to do so.

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One thing I miss about working in a kitchen is the amount of food people are constantly trying to offload on you. And yes, I will take the day olds, or produce that won’t get used, or a mistake - I am not picky. When I was at my last job, we got all of our grains from Ontario farmers so we had a lot of farmers rolling up to deliver them to us. One of them used to bring my boss extra things from the farm, like a whole chicken or a bag of marrow bones. Anyways, one day when he was making a delivery, he asked if I ate meat, I said yes, and so he went out to his truck and brought me in a little package wrapped in butcher paper and told me it was hamburger patties and they were mine if I wanted them. And reader, I did want them. I am not dumb enough to turn down organic ground beef already formed into perfect one ounce patties. Now, those patties had been in my freezer since December since I was finding it hard to commit to defrosting all four patties at once but last week I decided it was time. Burger time.

My first burger was kind of a fridge clean out burger, but she did in fact slap. I had bought buttermilk for something else so I needed to use more of it (classic buttermilk situation) so I made a buttermilk ranch with dill and garlic (I use sour cream, buttermilk, and mayo and then just season with whatever I am feeling in that moment, use fish sauce, you won’t regret it). I also needed to use up an avocado and the butt-end of some aged cheddar, and the last of my pickled red onions. Because I was feeling fancy I turned my cheese into a cheese crisp for the texture I was missing here (I did not feel like leaving my house to buy a crunchy lettuce or something), and it really was quite nice.

I have literally never claimed to be a food photographer.

My final three burgers were all the same because one day I was having a craving for a McDonalds cheeseburger and since I have not eaten McDonald’s since October 8, 2023 I wanted to re-create it myself. Now, I think that the 3 most important aspects of a McDicks cheeseburger are as follows: diced white onion, thinly sliced savoury pickles, and an American cheese slice. When they decided to use diced onion instead of a slab of onion, they were really fucking COOKING (pun intended of course), like, who wants a large mouthful of raw onion, what you want is the raw onion taste but not…..like that. So, I made my way out into the world to acquire a jar of pickles, a package of processed cheese (no name brand, not Kraft, I am unemployed after all) and a small white onion. And friends, I fucking did it. I made the McDicks cheeseburger and it was perfect and so much better than theirs because, well the organic beef and also, I get to control the ratios. Three slices of pickle? Not in my world, not in the world I’m living in. Please, peep the proper pickle placing and portion:

corrrect

Now, I will say that the other things I think are required here are ketchup and yellow mustard (no Dijon or honey or whatever) and no mayo (pains me to say as a woman of Dutch heritage but sometimes the mayo is for the fries and the fries only), and I found personally that toasting the bun in the beef grease left in your pan is a non skippable step. Love yourself and your buns, it’s just that easy.

I ate this for 3 days in a row, but I am low iron so this is actually health food for me

So, you too can avoid McDingles, but still indulge in what never ceases to remind me of being drunk in my 20s (slamming a McDouble and a Jr chicken after a long night of debauchery).

Thanks for indulging my non baking post and for reading the Toronto Life thing if you do. It felt like a kind of vulnerable thing to write and release into the world but that’s being alive baby!

See you in the next one, xo.