As It Sprung From The Swine, So To The Swine Shall It Return

Pretty sure there’s a metaphor in here somewhere, but I’m too hungry to figure it out.

A Slow And Greasy Death: Experimenting With The Luther Burger

Let’s get this out of the way now: I have just eaten a pound of meat between two slabs of fried dough. I am not proud of the monstrosity I just crammed into my face, and I plan on making another next week.

Stage One: Planning

My flatmates and I are pretty avid culinary explorers. Andy’s a doughmaster and king of anything Italian. Silas is a potato wizard. I make meat – burgers are a personal specialty. After watching an episode of The Boondocks featuring the Luther Burger, we decided we’d lived long enough and had to have one.

.
The only meal in which every ingredient will kill you.

For the uninitiated, the Luther Burger – named for musician Luther Vandross – consists of a burger patty, cheese, bacon, and often a fried egg. Oh, and instead of buns you cram that business between two donuts. It’s terrible. Don’t even try to pretend otherwise. The glazing and red meat go together about as well as hot dogs and motor oil. With this in mind, we improvised.

Where Andy’s from, doughboys are a particular delicacy. So we figured, instead of donuts, why not throw burgers between fried butter and flour and then eat whatever that makes?

Stage Two: Preparation

After a long battle between sanity and our taste buds, the cravings won. We bought ingredients and got to work.

.

That’s Andy making the dough, and Silas readying the mac and cheese. Oh, yeah. We stuffed mac and cheese in there, too.

Look at this perfection:

.

Making the burgers:

.

My one complaint about this apartment, other than the wall that detached itself from the other walls, is that we’ve got nowhere to put a grill. Sadly, this means I can be less experimental with my meats, because cooking on electric coils is my single least favorite type of cooking.

Here’s the bacon:

.

And the dough:

.

Ready the cranes, ’cause it’s time to put these greaseballs together.

Step 3: Construction

We gained five pounds just fixing the ingredients. My stomach invoked the 8th Amendment’s cruel and unusual clause. I had to shower off a film of grease. But we had come so far already. We were building the Everest of hamburgers.

First up, the mac and cheese:

.

In our pledge to gorge ourselves on the worst kind of wonderful, we shunned the Kraft Dinner and went straight for store brand. Hell, we could have made it from scratch. But we’d committed to quality trash, and damned if we were backing out now.

Next, the patties:

.

Yeah, slap some more bacon on there.

.

Topping it off:

.

The finished product:

.
Oh, that’s the stuff.

You may have noticed two very important things about that last photograph. First, we absolutely did add a second patty. These bad boys weighed over a pound apiece. Second, the picture’s a little blurry. It’s not out of focus – that’s a layer of grease on the lens.

Here’s mine:

.
What it is is beautiful.

Step 4: Eating the damn thing

No longer fearing death, we jumped in.

.
“Jumped” in the way molasses “jumps” from a jar.

With the speed of a morphine-addled manatee, we trudged through the single most amazingly terrible idea three bachelors could come up with.

.
These photos were taken over a two-week period.

Slowing down:

.

I’ve got huge eyes and a tiny stomach, and was out of the running almost immediately.

.
Out of the plodding.

The last bite:

.
I will never again doubt that Andy and Silas are stronger men than I.

That night, we learned a very important lesson: We should absolutely do this again.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what the fate of that lone patty on our counter was, we fried that shit up. At this point, you really should have seen that coming.

.
There’s a cheeseburger in there.

Dear Socially Awkward: My Boyfriend Neglects Bats

Reader Submission #3

Dear Socially Awkward:

I have a problem. My boyfriend doesn’t like the gifts I get him. He said he wanted a pony, but I couldn’t catch one so for his birthday I brought him a big rat instead, but he screamed and threw it out and poured bleach on the carpet. I figured he probably wanted it alive, so I tried to make it up to him by bringing him a live bat instead. They’re cooler than rats, right? But he broke up with me, so now I’m wondering if an eagle would persuade him to take me back. There’s one nesting in the woods by his house that he’s been watching a lot and I think I might be able to catch it if I’m really sneaky. So what I really need to know is how do I get my paws to stop tasting like bleach?

Heartbroken in NY

Dear Anatomically Disfigured:

First off, let me say just how sorry I am about your heart condition. I’ve never heard of a heart actually breaking, but it sounds painful. For that issue, I recommend vegan brownies.

Now to address everything but your actual question. You should have contacted me immediately after he requested the pony. You could have had my little pony. But, I guess that’s a moot point now. I’m not entirely certain how a rat is a decent alternative to a pony. But then, you’re from New York, and to me that means New York City, and to me that means rats on steroids. So that’s probably where that comes from. Your boyfriend may be radically against steroid use, which could be why he threw it out. He must have poured the bleach to neutralize the steroids. That is not how science works, but you never clarified the intelligence of your boyfriend.

If you’re dead-set on the live bat idea, there is one very good way to make him appreciate it. You must release no fewer than seven thousand mosquitoes into his place of residence. The bat will eat the mosquitoes, and he will appreciate your gift. When the mosquitoes are gone, tell your boyfriend to inject the bat with radioactive spider DNA, and see what happens.

As everyone knows, eagles are delicious. Your boyfriend must be eyeing the eagle hungrily. If all else fails, then catch the eagle, clean it, and deep fat fry it using copious amounts of butter. Serve it to your boyfriend with a side of clam chowder. As far as being sneaky goes, that really shouldn’t be necessary, because by “eagle” I assume you mean “turkey.”

Use about this much butter.

Your last question has a very easy answer. Stop tasting your paws. Instead, clean them with the Brookstone™ PawMaster 3000. Either that, or get surgery so that you are not a cat.

Until next time, this is Socially Awkward. Today’s a Jimmy Hoffa kinda day.

Want to get published? Just email your question to xavieryes@pavlovshairconditioner.com. It’s the right thing to do.

Alternatively, check out other ways you can gain our attention under “Contacts” on the side menu.