Chopped sirloin is, to use the parlance of my youth, where it's at. I know it's (relatively) expensive. And it never goes on sale. And I know that true hamburger sandwiches, made on a flattop griddle by a nicotine- and coffee-stained patron or patronesse of road food, consist of ground chuck. But for those of us who don't have properly seasoned (ie scraped but not washed in 30+ years) short-order cooking surfaces, chopped or ground sirloin is the way to make an at-home burger taste like it came from a restaurant. A good one.

Burgers being what they are, I seldom make them at home, so when I do, I should like to do it right. Besides, alpha-lipoic acid, arguably the most important nutrient to ocular health, is most densely found in red meat. As my eye sight has been suffering somewhat since moving (and going on the Stress and Poverty Diet), I make it a point, every couple weeks, to take a healthy helping of something beef on "manager's special."

But back to the point, for the kind of richness that cannot be found in the traditional, backyard, hand grenade "burger," ground sirloin is the way to do it. Try it sometime without telling your cookout guests, and let the compliments wash in. (If you want any more tips [such as make sure the middle of your patty is at least as thin as the edges in order to avoid the pine cone/hand grenade shrinkage endured by so many American "barbeque"* hobbyists, and always, always butter and toast your buns] or to take exception with my ignorant self-righteousness, please don't hesitate to contact me at theprincesofhollywood@gmail.com.)

--As an aside, don't buy Yuengling (America's oldest brewery and one of my favorite cheap, American beers) in Tennessee. It's, evidently, all skunked. We thought we had bought a misbottled selection...but it turns out that the vast majority of Tennessee's Yuengling just tastes like crap. This is probably a result of extended shipment time from Pennsylvania and slow sales, because no one down here drinks it.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is this: I just had a long day, and the only thing that cured it was half a pound of char-grilled chopped sirloin. Try it sometime. (You don't have to take as much as I did in order to observe the benefits.)

Happy eating,

HD

*"Barbeque" or "barbecue," the process of slow cooking meat in large quantities by means of indirect heat, often conveyed by smoke, is derived from "barabicu," in the language of the Carribean Tainu people, their name for the community-sized meals prepared by burying an assortment of meats and produce and building a fire atop the pile (not unlike a New England clam bake). This is not the same as "grilling," which is cooking by suspending food upon metal slats over an open fire, intended to expose the food directly to heat and flame. Probably you've never barbequed a burger--I never have. (I did buy a smoked burger once, in Dayton. It tasted like meatloaf.) I just wanted to set the record straight.