[title type="h5"]Friday, September 19, 2014.
Hamburger Off Balance. A Big Doughnut.[/title]
I awaken before everyone else and make my way to the glass doors connecting the deck and the kitchen. That's where the cat Twinnery meets me every morning for a set-in-concrete ritual. He takes the long way through the kitchen to the back door, which I open to let him out (it is less than fifteen seconds since he came in). I will watch him jump about two feet straight up onto the roof of the tool shed. Tumbler and the several late members of the cat family would have to hoist themselves up in a claws-out, scrambling climb. But Twinnery flies right up there in one leap.
That's what he would do, but not today. He still carries some of the mud that covered him at this time yesterday, and he's still moving about gingerly. He seems injured, but I can't figure out how. He gets into the poisition to make the jump up to the food dish, but he doesn't attempt it. I lift him up there. He still doesn't flinch when I pat him all over. If he has broken anything, he's hiding it well. And when he's finished eating, he takes his usual route to the other end of the shed, where he jumps some three feet down--another feat the other cats past and present never attempted. He makes it without difficulty.
I now think he's going to be okay, perhaps even a miracle cure. But I still can't dope out what he went through the night before last night.
I go into town for the radio show, produce a few commercials, the head out to supper. I am drawn by one of the commercials on the show to have dinner at Charcoal's, the major gourmet hamburger restaurant (not a stand, a shop, or a joint). I have been there before, about a year and a half ago. That time, I had a burger made of game: antelope, I think. Maybe bison or elk. (It's somewhere in this journal, but I don't have time to look for it.)
I learned two bits of data from that meal. First, they make everything in house at Charcoal's, just like the gourmet restaurants do. They bake their own buns, make their own pickles, grind their on beef, and cook their own sauces. I don't think they make all of their own cheese, but my order today reveals that indeed they do make at least one variety. (More on that in a moment.)
Second, they do not grill their burgers over charcoal. Charcoal is just the name of the big black Labrador retriever belonging to one of the owners. That's a little sneaky, I think, but not enough to indicate perfidy.
The manager recognizes me from the days when he was a waiter somewhere and served my table. Between him and the young woman assigned to the table, I put in an order of a straight hamburger made with beef and the usual dressings. I change this a minute later when I hear that the days' special is a pizza burger, made with fresh-milk mozzarella. On any other day, this probably would not have grabbed me, but it suited my appetite now.
[caption id="attachment_43921" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Crab cake at Charcoal's.[/caption]
I have a pint of IPO and wait for the unlikely appetizer that also spoke to my hunger: a crab cake with corn macque choux. The cake lives up to its advertising as being made almost entirely of crabmeat. The corn is crisp and good, with a creamy-looking butter sauce and a pleasant tang. At $12, it seems a pretty good deal to me. It's also the best dish I will eat here today.
By no means can it be said that Charcoal's burgers are second rate. The quality of the ingredients alone insures its goodness. On the other hand, it illustrates a matter in all kinds of restaurants that has bothered me for some time.
[caption id="attachment_43922" align="alignnone" width="320"]
Charcoal's hamburger and fries.[/caption]Let's take the burger apart. The bun is very well made, better than the bread served in a lot of restaurants I can think of. It's too big (this is endemic in nearly all hamburger vendors of every stripe), and mushes the whole sandwich in the direction of dryness.
The mozzarella cheese is very good. So are the pizza sauce and the other dressings. A sandwich of just those ingredients would be pretty good.
The meat patty is thick and fresh-tasting. It strikes me that it's a little overworked and a little low on fat, but these are small problems.
What gets under my skin is that after all the in-house work on the meat and bread and pickles and sauces, the potential excitement from the grill is minimal. No crusty exterior. No juicy interior. And a uniformity of texture that reminds me of a machine-made burger, even though I know it is not.
I see it everywhere I go these days. The fabulous ingredients from the famous raiser of pedigreed meats, with fresh produce from the local farmers, and all this stuff made in house. But when it's time for the cooking, it almost seems to be an afterthought.
In a phrase, restaurants are thinking too much about ingredients and not enough about cooking.
I eat half the burger. It's too big for anybody but the teenage boys coming in with the coaches of their teams. I eat darn near all the fries, because they're hand-cut (of course they are!) and the fry cook really does know what he's doing.
My car is parked across the street in front of District Donuts, Sliders, Brews. I haven't been there yet. I go in and buy a doughnut--cinnamon-sugar coated–to take me home. It's twice or thrice the size of a regular doughnut, fresh and good. I wonder where they get their cinnamon.
When I pull into the driveway at home, it is very dark. Twinnery is sitting in the middle of the lawn, and walks over--no, he trots over--to meet me at the car, as he does every night. He comes inside and goes right out the other door. I feed him on the roof of the tool shed. He jumps right on up there. He's still kind of muddied up, but I think he will make it.
[title type="h5"]
Charcoal's Gourmet Burger Bar. Uptown 1: Garden District & Environs: 2200 Magazine St. 504-644-4311.[/title]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris September 26, 2014 12:01 in
