Hatching a plan for a better burger
It's Hatch green chiles. Get it? "Hatching" a plan??? I'm hilarious.
Last year, we were visiting with friends who were selling their house. Because of this, their realtor had them do a few things to make their home look better for their upcoming Open House. It was all simple things, like placing out a bowl of fresh citrus fruit on the counter, placing a lamp in a dark corner, and arranging the books on their bookshelves by color.
The last tip felt so counterintuitive to how we’ve always put books on our bookshelves. It’s not like we were using the Dewey Decimal system, but we felt we had them arranged in a way that made sense of some sort. Non-fiction books, thrillers, memoirs, etc, etc. But our friends’ bookshelf was so interesting to look at, Nate immediately took it upon himself to color coordinate our shelves when we got home. At first, this offended my but-I-know-where-everything-issssssss sensibilities, but hotdog, that realtor was right. It immediately made the entire room look better. It looked more organized, thoughtful, and put together, and all we did was put our sweet knowledge of Roy G Biv to good use.
So simple. So easy. So, so, so, so much better.
It just goes to show that sometimes simple edits can make a world of difference. Like taking news apps off of your phone to reduce stress and anxiety. Or unfollowing all celebrities on social media when, during a pandemic, they keep posting about how “we’re all in this together” from their backyard swimming pools while eating a meal made for them by their personal chef after having just completed a personal training session in their expansive backyard.
Lololololo, Gal Gadot! We’re not in this together. We’re not even in this in the same tax bracket.
Or — to finally get to the topic at hand — adding a simple ingredient to an established sandwich, to take it to the next level. For me, that usually means bacon and/or avocado. Game changers, both of them. But this week, it was a vegetable — a vegetable — that made all the difference.
This week we sauntered into New Mexico territory, where the list offered up the Green Chile Cheeseburger. It’s a cheeseburger served with fire-roasted Hatch green chiles on top. A simple edit to a classic sandwich.
And what a fantastic edit it was.
I didn’t really expect to have an opinion on this burger outside of, “it was a tasty burger,” because burgers are tasty. That’s a fact. But the hatch chiles and pepper jack cheese combo gave the burger a little oomph. A little zujgh. A little pow. A little somethin’-somethin’ that made it feel a little extra special. Want to upgrade your burgers at your next backyard bbq? No, it’s not your “special sauce,” which we all know is just ketchup and mayo and the tiniest dab of mustard mixed together, Greg. It’s hatch green chiles. Trust me on this.
And if you don’t trust me, trust the scientists working on the Manhattan project who made this burger their go-to burger. And if you can’t trust the minds behind the creation of the first nuclear weapons, who can you trust, you know?
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