In general, we try to keep this blog focused on restaurants rather than home cooking, but we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that, in addition to road trip season, Memorial Day weekend marks the beginning of the grilling time of year. If, like us, you are too much of a poor schmuck to jet off to any of the towns we profiled this week, may we suggest having some friends over for a good old-fashioned Memorial Day barbeque? Keep it local with a keg of Sam Adams or Harpoon, check out this article from yesterday’s New York Times about making the perfect burger from scratch (or if you’re feeling less ambitious, this Chowhound discussion about where to buy pre-made burgers), and fire up the grill. We’re even going to share our new favorite grill recipe with you!
As you may have figured out by now, we’re unapologetic carnivores. We recently ate a hot dog wrapped in bacon, and we liked it. Lately, though, we’ve been on a huge veggie burger kick and we MUST tell you about the miracle of miracles we’ve discovered: a veggie burger that’s actually satisfying. Crazy, right? Here’s what you do: grill up your favorite brand of veggie burger (we’re partial to the ones that don’t pretend to be meat). Hell, put the bun on the grill for a second too. Rough chop some grape tomatoes (it’s still too early in the season for the big guys to be good) and kalamata olives. Spread the bun with hummus, plop the burger in the middle, spread the burger with more hummus, add your tomatoes and olives plus a healthy sprinkling of crumbled feta and voila! A dinner that’s totally satisfying, but feels healthy enough that you can totally down an extra scoop (or ten) of ice cream. Sweet.
For the Love of a Good Burger [New York Times]
Stores with Great Burgers [Chowhound]
