Leslie burgers

I have learned a great deal about cooking. I have learned from Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques. I have learned from Julia Child. I have learned from Alton Brown, that bastard child of Shirley Corriher. (You can see it in the haircut.) Some things in the kitchen must be learned firsthand though. For instance, your wife will look at you really, really funny if you say you want to name a dish after another woman. I learned this look (I already had the skillet dodging skills down.) when I suggested that we name tonight’s dinner Leslie burgers after the Commercial Appeal‘s recently departed (for Seattle, not dearly) food writer, Leslie Kelly.

So what made tonight’s burger a Leslie burger? Simple, it was one-third proper, two-thirds wild. Actually, the original reason, the reason that Leslie won’t kill me for, is that the burger was one-third grass-fed beef. I know that Leslie is a big fan of The Omnivore’s Dilemma as is Mama Squirrel. It is Mama who is getting us into healthier and more sustainable habits, the proper thing to do. I’m not sure how Leslie feels about hunting, but the wild two-thirds of the burger was ground venison. I’m not a hunter myself, but I am fine with it when the meat is used. Clearly I am very fond of the meat. I suppose I have issues with man’s environmental impacts and the elimination of natural predators, but that is a ramble for another day.

Leslie burgers are quite simple. Take a half pound of grass-fed ground beef and a pound of ground venison. Add a sprinkle of garlic powder, a shake of toasted onion, salt, and pepper to the meat then mix it all together well. After the patties are cooked on one side, I flip them, top them with slices of avocado, then a slice of pepper jack cheese. A nice organic bun with a good slathering of chipotle mayo, and you have a tasty burger. The only bad thing is that as soon as you really learn to savor them, they are gone.

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