I went for a walk today, down the main street of my new town. There's not a lot of shops in comfortable walking distance for me, but a few more than I had availbable in my former city, certainly.

One of the shops is a gourmet burger joint. The burger joint is set up in, ironically, and old White Tower shop--a burger chain from my childhood, that made the best burgers in the US.
Unlike the old White Tower chain, whose burgers cost about 75 cents, back in the 60's and early 70's, this posh shop wants almost $7 per burger, and none of them are just ordinary burgers, oh no!

(Looks around, then whispers conspiritorialy) They're POSH, don'tcha know. (Snif.)

They've got to have all these fancy-shmancy toppings, and set atop some posh roll, no doubt. Yes, for the cost of a package of ground beef (mince), you can buy one gourmet burger.

White Tower was put out of business by McDonald's. They cooked their burgers to order, w/ fried onions. Nom-nom! Never had a better one.

You see, hamburgers are supposed to be greasy. When it comes to steaks & burgers, fat is where all the flavour is! Lean ground beef (mince) is tasteless, like cardboard. That's why posh restaurants have to jazz up their burgers all the time.

Ideally, hamburgers should be 80% lean, not 90 or 95%. Then, you don't need to add feta or asagio cheese, jalpenos, or whatever. Add just a little bit of ice water plus salt and pepper to your taste, to 80% lean ground beef (mince), gently blend it and form your patties, fry or grill it--preferably with minced or chopped onions, slap it on a toasted, grilled, steamed or plain bun, add your favourite condiments...and viola! You have the perfect hamburger.

That's another thing: Ground beef doesn't like being manhandled too much. Too much handling toughens the meat.

I prefer to cook my burgers much like the old White Tower lady used to do. I like to not only fry my burgers with onions, I like to grill the burger rolls--toast them in the pan, as well.

Sometimes I'll do a posh burger. I like BBQ sauce, sliced cheddar and breaded fried onion rings. Or, swiss cheese, lettuce, raw onion and my favourite salad dressing, such as Russian, poppyseed, bleu cheese or ranch.

Mostly, I add ketchup, mayo and fried or raw onions, to one of my homemade burgers.

Last week, at the posh supermarket, meat was really high, so I cut out the fresh beef hamburger patties. Too expesnive! Instead, I found an inexpensive replacement: Greek turkeyburgers (ground turkey patties), w/ spinanch and feta cheese added to them.

I got 2 Greek turkey patties for around $2.50, instead of 4 beef patties for approx. $6. Dunno' if I'll like Greek turkey burgers, but for the price, I'm willing to give it a go. Thought I'd try topping them with some sweet & sour poppyseed salad dressing.