Gooder Than Hell!

I went out and got a cheeseburger for lunch today. Hooray for me! But it wasn’t just a plain old cheeseburger. No, it was from Red Robin, a gourmet burger emporium.

Gotta admit, my previous visits to Red Robin left me underwhelmed, if not outright disappointed. But I was prepared to give them one more chance. Glad I did. Here’s the beast that was on a plate a few hours ago, and is currently breaking down inside of my beautiful body:

That’s the Bleu Ribbon Burger, a “juicy burger basted with a tangy steak sauce and topped with crumbled Bleu cheese. Served with onion straws, lettuce, tomatoes and zesty Chipotle mayo on an onion bun.” I opted to forgo the mayonnaise, because, you know, I would hate to be debaucherous.

Eagle-eyed reader Dan weighs in with this gooder than hell item, one with which I concur wholeheartedly: Chili Cheese Fritos!

… if I had a comically large bag of chili cheese fritos, I would most certainly snap a picture of it and send it to you BEFORE I would tear into and devour the entire bag because Lord knows I wouldn’t want my orange-coated fingers touching my keyboard (anything that turns your fingers orange has to be good for you because it has beta-carotene, right?).

Well, right-o. If you look up the phrase “gooder than hell” in certain dictionaries, you will see a picture of me, bag of Chili Cheese Fritos in one hand, the other hand giving a very enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Notice too that these lovelies have zero grams of trans fat. Says so right on the upper-right corner of the bag. That technically makes these things health food! Doesn’t it?

The BBC’s version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – that is, the user-edited online encyclopedia that attempts to emulate the tone of Douglas Adams’ creation – offers some great insight into why Brits are so passionate about tea and why Americans are mystified by it.

The answer, the writer says, is that most Americans simply have never had good tea. We put hot water in a cup and dunk a tea bag into it; British wisdom, on the other hand, holds that the water absolutely must be boiling when it hits the tea leaves.

Here’s a little bit of the play-by-play:

Go to Marks and Spencer and buy a packet of Earl Grey tea. Go back to where you’re staying and boil a kettle of water. While it is coming to the boil, open the sealed packet and sniff. Careful – you may feel a bit dizzy, but this is in fact perfectly legal. When the kettle has boiled, pour a little of it into a tea pot, swirl it around and tip it out again. Put a couple (or three, depending on the size of the pot) of tea bags into the pot (If I was really trying to lead you into the paths of righteousness I would tell you to use free leaves rather than bags, but let’s just take this in easy stages). Bring the kettle back up to the boil, and then pour the boiling water as quickly as you can into the pot. Let it stand for two or three minutes, and then pour it into a cup. Some people will tell you that you shouldn’t have milk with Earl Grey, just a slice of lemon. Screw them. I like it with milk.

This question on Ask Metafilter shocked and delighted me for two reasons. The person asking the question is looking for recommendations for a “sausage of the month” club, preferably with first-hand opinions.

The two reasons this shocks and delights me:

1. There is such a thing as a “sausage of the month” club
2. There are enough of them that people need help choosing between them.

Just last night I grilled up some Italian sausages for my family. Did it ballpark style – big griddle, lots of green peppers and onions. Served on the best soft roll I could find, although there still isn’t a roll in my opinion that lives up to an Italian sausage.

Leftovers, then, will consist of the remaining links sliced on a bias, tossed with whole-wheat penne, tomatoes and some grated Parmesan Reggiano. Truly gooder than hell!

Life can be a bit much at times. As someone famous said, the world is always too much with us, and sometimes more than that – sometimes it’s sitting squarely on top of us, wriggling, pressing down with all of its enormity.

But then, there are things like this to relieve the pressure and make you glad to be alive once more. The Skyline Chili coney is a miniature hot dog, doused with the Cincinnati-style chili (secret ingredient: cinnamon) and loaded with shredded cheese. It’s small, so you can easily eat three of them.

When you sit down, they bring you a bowl of oyster crackers; there’s hot sauce on the table, and cold beer in the fridge. I’m telling you, this place is Walden for the 21st century.

Skyline only operates in four states – if yours isn’t one of them, it’s totally worth a road trip.

I have no idea whether or not General Tso was a real person, and frankly I’m too tired to research it. Plus, I don’t want to risk disillusionment – I’m still stinging from finding out that those Bartles and Jaymes guys were actors. So I’m happy to let the mystery be, and leave the legend alone.

But the food stands on its own merits, whether or not it has any real military lineage, and good General Tso’s chicken is an experience that is unmatched. For those of you whose only encounter with this dish is the soupy, sticky, too-sweet soggy mess that is passed off on most Chinese buffets, I encourage you to seek out a real dish of it from a place that makes it one plate at a time, and plates it straight from the wok so the outside is still crispy and hot.

Evidently, Peng’s on East 44th in New York is the place to go, according to an old article the Times. In my part of the world (Kentucky), there’s a great little hole-in-the-wall called Double Dragon, where the wok-line is within arm’s reach of the cash register and air conditioning is a luxury that their low prices cannot justify. This is the stuff to break your diet on.

There is not much finer in this old world than bacon. Well, except perhaps for some expertly grilled bacon, served up between a coupla chunks of artisan bread!

The bacon sandwich is woefully underappreciated, and is usually messed up by well-intentioned folks throwing too many extra ingredients on it. A bacon-and-egg sandwich is a fine thing; bacon-egg-and-cheese fine in its own right, too. But neither of them have the simple, uh, simplicity of bread and bacon and nothing else.