Home Cooking

The outside temperature last night dipped to about 45°F. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t know the temperature in the house, but it was too cool. I was determined not to turn on the central heat so early in the heating season, so I put a small electric heater in my bedroom and closed the door. Periodically, I looked at my clock. The last time I looked it read 5 AM.

I skipped breakfast and decided to eat a hamburger for lunch. I warmed a pre-cooked Ball Park hamburger patty in the microwave oven (60 seconds). Then I warmed a slice of pre-cooked Food Lion bacon (22 seconds). I put mayo and a little ketchup on the bun. I placed the patty on the bun, a little salt, then the bacon and a slice of onion, and finally the top half of the bun. I nuked the assembled burger for 15 seconds to warm and soften the bun. Then I ate it. Best burger ever. It was the bacon that put the burger over the top.

<—This is the goodness that put the burger over the top. Everything tastes better with bacon on it. Oh you vegetarians, you think you’ll live longer and healthier lives than us carnivores. But even if you do, they’ll be wretched, miserable lives without the goodness of bacon. Bacon rules!

You can ruin a good hamburger by putting too many extras on it. Lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, pickles—where does it end? Your taste buds will be very confused. I can hear them screaming, “What the hell is all this?” Suppose you had a plate of French fries. Would you drench them with mayo, ketchup, melted cheese, pickle slices, and other assorted glop? No. Then why do it to a hamburger? There is a lot to be said for simplicity.

I finished the meal with a small salad. It’s Poppyseed, made by Fresh Express. Lest you think that everything I eat is made by some anonymous company in China, I want to inform you that I added the croutons. That’s right: me, personally. That was my idea. The cabbage, lettuce, carrots, green onions, Greek Yogurt Poppyseed dressing, dried cranberries, and pumpkin seeds came in the bag, but the croutons were entirely my doing. And people say I don’t cook meals.

Here is what the salad kit looks like. —>
There’s enough salad in the kit for three servings, if you don’t hog out. And it’s very tasty. The Poppyseed dressing is sweet. The salad above looks like a small amount of salad for a serving, but the bowl measures 8.5 inches (21.6 cm) across the top, so it’s more salad than it appears to be. A single crouton measures 1 inch per side (2.54 cm). (I’m an engineer; I measured it.)

I bought all these ingredients at Food Lion. You may have noticed I seem to buy a lot of food items at Food Lion. I’ve been grocery shopping at Food Lion and Publix ever since the “potato incident” at Walmart, which used to be my go-to grocery store. If you’ve forgotten or never read about the potato incident, you can find the whole sordid story here. -–> Walmart Fail.