On Craving A Burger

     Page Two Hundred Fifty-Seven.

     Have I ever mentioned the fact that I could live on hamburgers? I just love nice, greasy, ketchupy, oniony hamburgers. Don't ever give me a veggie burger and expect me to accept it as the real thing. It isn't. If you say to me: "Jeremy, here's a veggie burger which is just exactly that: a veggie burger", then I'll be fine with it. I'll know that you're not trying to mess with my mind by giving me an imitation. But if you tell me to come over for a "cookout with all the normal things" and I show up drooling, and you give me a turkey burger, I'll start crying. I may only cry to myself and smile ingratiatingly at you, but I'll still be crying on the inside, none-the-less.
     Let me tell of the best burger I've ever had in my life.
     In 1989, I went to summer school in Jerusalem. The Israeli burgers sucked. They may or may not be any better today, but in '89 they were just awful. Dry, gray, cardboard is one way to describe them. Imagine McDonald's on a particularly bad day. Allegedly, it was because Israel doesn't have any cows, so everything has to be imported. Shipping costs are prohibitive, so they primarily get cut-rate stuff. By the way, Israel, '89, is when and where I first heard the international urban legend of America, Australia and Argentina having the best inexpensive beef. Meaning: you can go anywhere in the world and pay top dollar to get great stuff. But where can you go, pay less, but still get a decent beef meal? Brother, it sure ain't Israel. Rather it's the three "A's". We have tons 'o cows and space for them to roam. Seems like since the '90's I've heard that Brazil has good, cheap beef too.
     And in Israel you can forget about cheeseburgers. It's against kosher dietary laws to mix any milk product with any meat product in the same meal. This is a topic I've talked about in prior blogs. So, no drippy cheddar with lettuce/tomato or stretchy mozzarella atop those sauteed mushrooms/onions. Just toss that concept right out of your third floor window and watch it go "splat" on the sidewalk.
     So, by the time I was on the return plane, in late-August, after an unsuccessful school experience, I was dying for the greasiest burger or cheeseburger you can imagine. When I landed at JFK on that sunny afternoon, the first thing I did after retrieving my backpack and going to the bathroom was finding the nearest burger stand and ordering a cheeseburger with the works. After a short search I found a stand. It wasn't a chain restaurant either. It was, like, "JFK International Airport Brand Grease-Burgers". MY GOD it was good. The best burger I've ever had in my life. Lots of gooey cholesterol dripping down my fingers and chin; a strong flavor of sodium and beef; an oversized bleached-flour casket in which the thing lie. It was glorious. I was never so grateful for America in my life.
     Well...
     Last July (2013) I went on a diet and have really changed how and what I eat. I lost weight and have kept most of it off. (Lost 22, put 7 back on, lost 2 more so still down 17. Would still like to loose 10 pounds or 1 more inch around my waist.) Here-in lies the problem: no regular splurges of burgers, much as I might crave 'em. A grease-burger occasionally? Who cares. But nothing regular. And I really could have burgers 3-4 days per week and be giddy with delight. I love them that much.
     Perhaps because it's summer and I smell neighbors' grills.

A Hindu Beef-Eater

     Page One hundred Eighty-Six.
     My Indian roommate has changed his tune. I've mentioned before that he will eat beef. Well, it turns out that he's only eaten beef once before in his life. That was a hamburger in London's Heathrow airport on his way to America last December. While eating that burger, Raja couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about. It was dry, dull and dead. He made up his mind right then and there that beef was a Western mystery which would confuse him for the rest of his life.
     When he told me this story, I said, "well, no wonder? It was an airport burger." I proceeded to explain airport food in general and specifically: quality (or lack of), freshness (or lack of) juiciness (or lack of) and flavor (or lack of). He sort of gave me the benefit of the doubt, but not entirely.
     Last weekend, for the Superbowl, I made boatloads of food, including BBQ Beef. I told him that BBQ Beef is a rather typical Superbowl food and great quantities of it would be consumed that evening. Raja admitted that it did look good in the pot; and after the first bite he was hooked. He enjoyed it very much. I think he's interested in trying a steak now.
     I hate to be someone who corrupts somebody away from their religious dietary restrictions, but he clearly wasn't very religious in the first place and he told me so. So it's not entirely my fault.
     Incidentally, one of the best burgers I've ever had in my life was at JFK in New York City. It was the summer of 1989 and I was returning home from summer school in Israel. I'd been there for 8 weeks and their beef sucked the big one. At least the beef that I had was gruesome. It was just awful. I don't know if things have changed, but at the time, Israel's beef had a justifiably terrible reputation. You want some wonderful fresh veggies? Israel's your place. Just don't order the beef. And on top of that, you simply cannot get a cheeseburger in Israel for religious dietary restrictions. (No dairy product may be consumed with any animal flesh according to the Torah.) So I was seriously craving a really greasy, gooey cheeseburger by the time I left that country which has other strengths, just not beef.
     During my lay-over in JFK I disembarked from the plane, walked over to the nearest burger stand and placed my order. I watched them make it. My mouth was moistening like a leaky Hoover Dam. I  sat down and inhaled that thing. It was glorious. It was much greater proof of God than any Torah study class I'd attended in my ancestor's homeland, of which there were many. (After arriving in Jerusalem, as an after thought, I enrolled in Torah study classes at Aish Ha'Torah, a very famous yeshivah or seminary with world-wide satellite campuses.) That burger was glorious.