Cheeseburger in Paradise
by Noel Preston

   Every now and then I need a cheeseburger. It's wonderful to have so many great restaurants so close to home, and some of them are just fabulous. Pork Panang Curry, Veal Saltimboca, Chicken Cordon Bleu, Pasta Carbonara…Oh! I could absolutely faint thinking about those extraordinary culinary delights. They are so good my taste buds actually go into spasm and my mouth hurts at first bite. Eating food this delicious is nearly a religious experience. Mae West said, "Too much of a good thing is wonderful," and maybe 98% of the time she was right, but once in a while I need Comfort Food!
   The O K Café has a luscious chicken pot pie, and I haven't had a meatloaf with Creole sauce as good as their's is since I was nine years old. My Aunt Adah fixed a wonderful chicken Country Captain; she would add very thinly cut carrot cross-sections to give the dish more visual impact. One if my all-time-favorites is split-pea soup. I have a recipe for Mystic Sweet Communion Chocolate Pecan Pie that is so good, after one taste you're in love and charity with your neighbor for at least ten minutes. Mmm, mmm, heaven itself, right here on earth!
   But, sometimes we need something even more basic, even more primitive than Comfort Food. McDonald's Corporation hit on this craving some years ago when it launched its "Big Mac Attack" advertising campaign. Junk food! That's what we need every so often. Good old junk food! Not gourmet food with sun-dried tomatoes and balsamic vinaigrette and artichoke hearts flavored with toasted garlic. Not tarragon-flavored cream sauce over baby asparagus. Not even Comfort Food. Sorry, Aunt Adah. I worship your Country Captain, but sometimes I need a cheeseburger.
   On Memorial Day weekend Susan and I went to a Greek wedding, and after so much wonderful ethnic gourmet dining, all we wanted on Sunday was a pizza and a salad. On Memorial Day itself we wanted something even more basic. Even a New York strip at Longhorn steakhouse, a fine choice most of the time, seemed too fancy. Maybe it was the surfeit of good food at the wedding, or the Memorial Day tradition of grilling out in the backyard, or the Jimmy Buffett song, but suddenly, the only thing we wanted was a cheeseburger.
   And what a cheeseburger it was! Half a pound of ground sirloin, three-quarters of an inch thick, grilled a tiny bit longer than usual on the first side, then flipped over and covered with sliced yellow onions, blanketed with sharp American cheddar, and grilled a tiny bit shorter than usual on the second side, while buttered burger buns wrapped in foil warmed on the upper shelf of the closed grill. Then: off the grill, onto the buttered bun and covered with blood red, juicy slices of tomato, and topped with a bit of lettuce and dark brown ballpark mustard. Oh Lord! I must have died and gone to heaven. Ecstasy. Warmth. Love. Tenderness. America the Beautiful!
   The Europeans don't have beef like ours. I've tasted their fancy-schmancy Charolais cattle, and the meat is tough and stringy and cut way too thin and they don't know how to cook it. The reason the French have those elegant Bearnaise and Bordelaise meat sauces is to disguise the mediocrity of their meat. American beef (please God, save us from Mad Cow Disease) is beyond compare. It is just flat-out good, and sometimes a cheeseburger is more than a necessity. It's food for the soul.
   God Bless the U.S.A.!

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E. Noel Preston, M.D. is a pediatrician in solo practice in Peachtree Corners. 6063 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 202-A, Norcross. (770) 448-1553.

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