My Burgers: Round 1

                So it is not just about finding burgers of delight and disappointment in the world around me.  It is about finding my own balance of wonder and delight in these selections of beef sandwich.  This is about the ones I made for Memorial Day (observed) 2019.   One of the truisms I have a difficult time refuting is that ‘the taste is in the fat’.  80/20 chuck has been referred to in a couple places as the best beef for a good hamburger.

                80/20 is the meat to fat ratio.  This kind of meat is 1/5 fat.  Put down ten dimes for a dollar and remove two for the fat-if the burger was a dollar…  So here’s a question, what sounds better to you?

“This ground beef is 20% fat.”  OR

“This ground beef is 80% meat.”?

                An interesting work-around to this is the claim that the grilling process will burn or melt off the fat.  If you have ever enjoyed a good grill top fire, you know there is truth to that.  I even have the sweet spot on my grill where it seems to be just a little hotter and the flames really flare up.

                Irrespective, 80/20 was not going to do it for me this Memorial Day weekend.  I went with 90/10.  What cut of meat was it?  Whatever Wegmans was putting out.  Lesson in mindfulness for the next time, figuring out what cut of beef I am getting. 

                A cool trick to keep burgers from turning into oblong meatballs on the grill is to essentially turn them into donuts.  When you form the patty, thin out the middle before putting the meat on the grill.  I have read an “oh, that’s cool” explanation for why it works, which would be good fodder for a future post (when I find it again).

                So the ground beef is 10% fat.  The packs tend to run from 1.15 to 1.25 lbs, so four patties per pack and it is more impressive than a quarter pound pre-cook weight.  The main flavoring for these burgers was the Grill Mates Applewood Rub by McCormick’s.  And, being me, I did not rub it into the meat but added it to the beef before creating the patties.  That and garlic/salt from a grinder and some garlic powder formed the ‘spice pallet’. 

                If anyone has followed these ramblings this far, the comment, “Hey moron, that was a RUB you MIXED into the ground beef for the burgers” is a fair observation.  To which I reply that is it probably good that I am focusing on mindfulness in my food blog.

                At the conclusion of all of this, I think the burgers were pretty tasty.  The applewood provided a sweetness to them that was not unpleasant, but probably not my favorite.  I think I need to try this once more, if for no other reason than to rub on the rub. 

                These were in fact, cheeseburgers, with deli American, tomato, and a little romaine lettuce (not a big lettuce fan on burgers). 

                All in all, I will remember these burgers (in large part because I am being mindful about them in this blog post).  The applewood rub was good-probably even better if I used it right.  And at least I did not make these burgers like I was making mini-meatloaves (which is another post). 

Worship: When It Suddenly Makes Sense

                This is about worship.  “I Give My Heart to Thee Lord, Eagerly and Sincerely.”  Maybe the most useful thing John Calvin has ever taught me.  That will cause me some trouble with the purists.  I am the one who complained that “The Institutes of the Christian Religion”, Calvin’s masterwork of theology and the Christian life, really needs a fresh translation into more contemporary English.  Maybe someone needs to do for the Institutes what The Message did for the Bible.

                Well, that is a bunch of Church-y insider jargon that is bound to lose a lot of readers.  This phrase surrounds the Seal of John Calvin, which is him offering his burning heart up to God.  It is the eagerly and sincerely offered heart to the work and worship of Jesus. 

                What confused me about the image all these years I have seen it in the Stained Glass at church is that I mistook it for the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  Not that the Sacred Heart of Jesus is not important.  It most certainly is.  But it is not mine.  It is iconography, religious artwork, that I am going to explore.  What took me by surprise was that the burning heart that John Calvin offers to the Lord was unknown to my experience before now.

                Which is really strange, because I must have been exposed to it in some form.  It is also the Seal of Calvin College and Seminary, the central institutions of learning of the Christian Reformed Church, in which I was reared. 

                Worship is a reactive enterprise.  God did great by me.  In gratitude I will seek to do great by God, in my own broken and sinful way.  I pledge my heart, I pledge eagerness, I pledge sincerity.  Up to this moment, I was caught up in the forms of worship-prayers, singing, sermons, not in the heart-nature.  This is not to say that I do not worship the Lord.  It is to say that worship has been fulfilling more by the intervention of the Holy Spirit than by the deliberate movement of my heart and soul.

                The next question is how to work this out in my life and worship.  The joy is that this invests everything I do with the possibility of being worship.  The fear is how much of my life is uninvested in my Lord, much less invested eagerly or sincerely.

The Quarter Pounder with Bacon: Not the Bacon Smokehouse Burger

I went to McDonalds for my first burger review.  It’s one I have very much enjoyed, the “signature crafted recipe” Bacon Smokehouse burger.  According to the news release, in addition to the standard elements, what pushes it up is a ‘sweet and smoky bacon-onion sauce’.  (From online press release dated June 25, 2018).  But my local franchise was out of the sauce when I made my order.

                We eventually negotiated on the Quarter Pounder with Bacon as a ‘substitute’, which delayed the order as it is freshly cooked to order.  And I made the cardinal mistake of ‘settling’ for a burger.  It was a fast food burger, beef, cheese, bacon, the regular add-ons, and a reminder of the NEED of mindfulness when it comes to my food.  

               I think the most interesting thing about the ¼ Pounder was how it trounced the failed attempt by Dairy Queen to introduce 1/3 of a pound burger.  It failed because most people thought that it was SMALLER than its McD competitor.  Not a good sign when the most interesting thing about something is the useless trivia I can harvest from my memory about it.

                Was the Quarter Pounder with Bacon a bad burger?  No.  Worse than that.  It was an indifferent eating encounter.  That has been my experience with most of the fare from the fast food places.  Wendy’s and Burger King have their own versions.  My favorite burger name comes from Wendy’s…the Baconator…but more bacon is sometimes just more bacon.

                So why even include it?  As a baseline?  As a tribute to the Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent?  No, more like a reminder to myself at how much McDonald’s upped the Burger Game with the Bacon Smokehouse. 

Cheese steak: A local review

The Cheese steak…

Living between New York and Philadelphia, I am a fan of all the foods that are so bad for me.  I love Philly Cheese Steak and New York Pizza!  Another love is for the Burger, an American sandwich that defies geography.  No, it doesn’t defy geography, it embraces it!

The naysayers will look at the Great State of New Jersey, tucked in between two great centers of culinary excess, and scoff that we are the outskirts, the suburbs of good eating.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The best of the best exist in the Garden State as surely as they do in these centers of good eatin’.

I am a Presbyterian, which means two things for absolute sure.  One is that I am Predestined.  The other is that I like my food.  And I will be obvious, when I see my profile in the mirror, I see that there is a definite over-love of food.  What’s the mood of the day in matters of self-improvement?  Mindfulness.  My apologies if I sound a little skeptical, but spiritual healing is one of the skills of my trade as a pastor.

In an effort to take mindfulness seriously, I turn it to something of great personal satisfaction.  Eating.  Specifically, in eating the things that I love to consume but do not always provide the healthiest return. 

So, the Cheese steak.  I have had amazing Cheese steak and I have had excellent Steak Sandwiches with cheese on them.  The menu’s label for most of the steak sandwiches has been ‘cheese steak’, which is something of an unfortunate misnomer.  These sandwiches are good in their own right, but… 

I was expecting to find such a misnamed ‘cheese steak’ at Jersey Mike’s.  I like their subs, I wanted something warm, something of beef, I did not see a burger on the menu, so I ordered a cheese steak.  I was prepared for a steak sandwich with cheese, good, but not of my Philly expectations.  I was delightfully surprised!  It was a cheese steak sandwich!

What makes a steak sandwich with cheese is that it is usually a different cut of steak than the cheese steak.  Often it is a sliced steak that, while very tasty, is a different varietal then what I expect on a cheese steak.  Jersey Mike’s aced that.  The roll was well matched, the onions well cooked.  The only thing that was a little odd to my palate was a little too much sweet from the green peppers.  Not sure if they were somewhat under-cooked or there were more in general proportion than I am used to (because I do like peppers on my cheese steak).

Jersey Mike’s makes a darned good cheese steak.  It comes in all their regular sizes.  I would recommend it for someone looking for a cheese steak and may be distant from their regular sources.  Thank you Jersey Mike’s and a shout out to the crew in the Metuchen store for a good sandwich!

From Our Stained Glass

The stained glass windows in First Church Perth Amboy are magnificent.  There is no other way that I can describe them.  Part of the power of preaching there each Sunday is that I get to see them.  It is in a way that the congregation does not, as they are tilted in the direction of the pulpit and the preacher.

This detail is especially powerful.  "I Give Thee My Heart Lord Eagerly and Sincerely."  This phrase answers a question that I have been struggling to answer for a number of weeks.  What does it mean to worship?  I have been stuck in trying to find an abstract, academic answer for what is an intimate, personal act. 

The image at the center, a burning heart being offered up, coupled with this motto, is the personal seal of John Calvin, whose theology, missions, and church structure are central to the structure and mission of the Presbyterian Church.  According to an article in Christianity Today, searchable by title "John Calvin: Did You Know?", this is "to signify his willingness to sacrifice all to the service of the Lord."

Wrapping around the image of the burning heart offered up is are the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, drawn from the book of Revelation where Jesus said, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End."

I had no idea what this was until I began to look into it.  It is so much more than simply John Calvin, founder of the Theological movement known as Calvinism.  It is the centerpiece of one man's devotion to his Lord.  May it be our inspiration as well.