Friday Roundup #39

We did burgers on the kamado this week, which means we did them the way we always do them: everything out on the counter, and everybody builds the one they actually want. Toasted buns, sharp cheddar, lettuce, tomato, red onion, and no committee decisions. I’ve never understood handing somebody a burger you already made up your mind about. Half the pleasure is watching a person assemble exactly the thing they’ve been thinking about since you said the word burger.

Today is National Cheeseburger Day, which means the calendar caught up with us a few days late, and that’s still closer than it usually gets.

It’s mid-September and it’s starting to feel like fall, in the particular grudging way it does down here. The days are still a little warmer than I’d like, but the mornings have gone cool and clean, and the leaves are just starting to turn. I’ll take it. There’s a post coming October 4 about why October through January is my happy place, so I’ll save the rest of that for then.

• Coming on the blog: Sunday is Creek House Wildlife #2, everyone else who showed up: the ones who actually came when called, unlike a certain owl. Tuesday is the overnight oven chicken stock, rewritten and reshot, because the old post was one of the first things I ever put on this blog and it shows. And Thursday is how we do burger night, the whole setup, which I’ve been meaning to write down for a while and which this week finally shamed me into.
• This past week: Tuesday was the taco meat that hides a whole vegetable in it, which is the most-requested thing I make and also a lie I tell my own dinner table on a regular basis. Nobody has ever caught it. I’m not sure whether that says more about the recipe or about my family.
• Cheeseburger Day: It’s today, and I’m not going to pretend I planned that. The short version is a hot grill, buns toasted on the grate in the last minute, and sharp cheddar; never mild, I have opinions. The long version, with pictures, is Thursday.
• Hispanic Heritage Month: It started Tuesday and runs through October 15. I’m not going to spend a month borrowing other people’s food and calling that a tribute; that’s not honoring anybody, it’s just shopping. What I can do is keep being straight about where the food on my table comes from and who taught it to me, which for a Texan is most of the good stuff. More on this over the next few weeks, and it’ll be about people and credit, not a costume.
• Garden Update: The collards are in the ground. Finally. After two roundups of me announcing that they were about to be, which I’m aware is its own kind of gardening. Going in this late is fine down here; that’s one of the few mercies of the climate. I’m also about halfway through pulling the Japanese stiltgrass, and it’s slow going, which is the politest way I can put it. You can’t rush it and you can’t cheat it, and every handful I pull is a handful that doesn’t seed.
• What I’m Reading: Fury in Death by J.D. Robb [Bookshop.org* | Kindle] I told y’all last week I was three chapters in and couldn’t say yet whether it was a good one. I finished it in two days. Sixty-three books into a series and the woman can still make me give up an evening and then most of the next one. They’re fun, they’re easy, and I don’t need every book I read to improve me.
• What I’m Watching: We rewatched Project Hail Mary [IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes] and it held up completely. I knew every beat that was coming and it still got me in all the same places. Amaze, amaze, amaze. If you haven’t seen it, go in knowing as little as you can stand to know.
• What I’m Eating: Honestly, not much. I upped my Mounjaro dose and it’s kicking in hard, so this week has been about keeping the protein up more than cooking anything: cottage cheese, strained yogurt, and a lot of liquids. I built myself a beautiful burger this week and got about a third of the way through it. Zach’s been fending for himself out of the freezer stash and the frozen meals (there’s a post coming about those, and it’s more interesting than it sounds). I’m hoping next week eases up and I can get back to food with some structure to it. Oven nachos are on the agenda if it does.

What are y’all reading/watching/cooking/dealing with this week? Let me know in the comments.

P.S. Sharp cheddar. I know the mild stuff melts prettier. It also doesn’t taste like anything, and you put it on a burger you cooked over hardwood, which makes it a waste of a perfectly good fire.

P.P.S. Halfway through the stiltgrass means halfway by my own reckoning, and my own reckoning has been wrong about this plant every single time.

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Friday Roundup