hamburgers – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Tall Burger, Sena Style

Sena made tall burgers for lunch today. Now, I know you have to be careful what you call a tall burger when it comes to questions about how tall is tall. What do you mean by “tall”?

We’ve all seen pictures on the web of tall burgers that are 4 feet and better in height and what have you. I’m not talking about the extremes which make it big on the internet but which nobody can realistically eat without a hook and ladder.

Sena’s tall burgers are tall but not crazy tall. We have different approaches for how to eat them. Sena always just picks her burger up and takes a big bite out of crime, often ending up with much of it on her face (mayo mustache, lettuce eyebrows, mustard chin, etc.).

On the other hand, I’m a knife and fork guy and always attack it like a salad—which she laughs at.

You have to consider your plan of attack on a tall burger. It’s like two wrestlers, the burger and the eater. They have to size each other up, circle each other, lunge, feint, head fake this way or that—then just go for the takedown.

Sena would get a step over toe hold and be done eating before I’ve even raised my knife and fork after figuring out that with all that sauce on my fingers, I probably can’t hold on long enough to get it to my mouth.

It reminds me of a quote from Men in Black 3 (what doesn’t remind me of things like that?). Background is that Andy Warhol in 1969 is actually Agent W, one of the men in black under cover and he’s talking with young Agent K:

Off camera, woman says to Andy Warhol (really Agent W): Andy, Yoko’s here to see you!

Agent W: [under his breath] Oh, Yoko!

Agent W speaking as Andy Warhol: Tell her I’m filming this man eating a hamburger, it’s… transcendent. Okay, now the pickle!

Watching Sena eating a tall burger is transcendent.

The Big Tomato On The Vegetable Hamburger, Please!

Sena bought a pretty big tomato at the grocery store the other day. When she picked it up, she said to a store employee that she was going to make a huge “vegetable hamburger” with it.

Evidently, the guy didn’t know what to make of the name “vegetable hamburger” because he asked her why she wasn’t going to use any meat.

This was the same situation when she tried to order a “vegetable hamburger” at Wendy’s over a year and a half ago. Nowadays everybody seems to think that means “meatless.”

I checked the internet again and I still can’t find a definition of a “vegetable hamburger” that corresponds to what Sena and I grew up with. Everybody seems to think that lettuce, tomato, etc. are no longer parts of a vegetable hamburger.

I think we need to bring this concept back-because I doubt Sena is going to change what she calls it.

All in favor say, “Vegetable hamburger, please!”

Walking the Clear Creek Trail—Looking for a Hamburger

Recently, we took a walk on the Clear Creek Trail in Coralville. There are always a lot of birds out and they all have different songs. We hear more birds than we see because the trail is crowded with trees.

On the other hand, the highlight of the afternoon was stopping for lunch at the Wendy’s drive-thru. They’re selling that $5 Biggie Bag. We ordered a couple of those and the cashier who took the order asked what we kind of burgers we wanted. She rattled off the choices so fast.

I guess we weren’t listening. I think you get 3 choices for burgers (although I cheated for this post by googling it): junior bacon cheeseburger, crispy chicken BLT, or a double stack. You also get chicken nuggets, fries, and a drink.

Sena said, “I want a vegetable hamburger, two of them.” I had to laugh when the clerk was silent for a long moment—and repeated “vegetable hamburger” in a puzzled-sounding voice. But I give her credit; she made a quick recovery and said “Oh, do you mean you want the junior bacon cheeseburger?”

Sena just said, “Oh yeah!”

I’m pretty sure the cashier was having a moment about the “vegetable hamburger” bit. It’s likely a dated term and many younger people might think it means a meatless sandwich.

In fact, when I did a quick internet search asking “does anybody know what a vegetable hamburger is these days?” I got all kind of hits for plant-based burgers. No hits for a real meat hamburger with tomatoes, lettuce, onion, and pickles. A veggie burger nowadays is defined as a “burger patty that does not contain meat.”

And that reminded me of the Wendy’s 1980s ad campaign with the “Where’s the beef!” lady starring in the commercials, which I’m pretty sure nobody but baby boomers remember either.

And then there’s the Wendy’s new Biggie Bag commercial. It’s the one where a bunch of Wendy’s workers are singing about the Biggie Bag and a customer asks, “Is that a real song?”