Monday, May 24, 2010

Burger with the works, please.

I lived in Australia for a year a while back. I got to live a block from one of the beautiful beaches in Sydney and would go swimming every morning before work, and then again after work – work was at a restaurant right on the beach.
Things are obviously different there. People will run down to the beach for a five minute swim before going out at night, they call sprite ‘lemonade’, and coffee is ridiculously much better and has cool names like a ‘flat white’...
But there is one very important Australian item that Canadians must be exposed to, and come to embrace. It’s the Aussie Burger.

First off, I must say that there is nothing wrong with the Canadian hamburger. A homemade patty, some good cheese, and lots of dill pickles (my personal preference) all make a perfectly respectable hamburger. But if you go anywhere ‘down under’, be it gas station burger shop or fancy little cafe in the city, and order a ‘burger with the works’, on top of a standard hamburger you will be getting all of the following:
-a slice of beetroot (that’s what they call beets down there)
-cheese
-bacon
-pineapple
-a fried egg with a runny yolk

We made some for friends this weekend with no beets (I felt like watching the downhill skateboarding race instead of roasting beets – another story) and caramelized onions instead, and I think the enjoyment was unanimous - pineapple and eggs do belong on a burger.





Not only does this make a tasty burger, it makes a big burger. This was my dinner, and I will not post the picture of myself trying to take the first bite out of it.

+++

Not only did the weekend entail a burger reaching a height of six inches, a longboard hockey game and a perfect amount of funk music, it included a best good friend donning a wetsuit and taking her kayak out to collect oysters! Being only late May and the temperature barely breaking 15 degrees, even with a wetsuit that water was freezing and her hands could barely open up her bag to show us the 20 oysters she had handpicked for us all to eat.






We shucked them right on the deck - throwing the shells back into the ocean for the dog to chase - and ate them raw with only Tabasco and lemon. And obviously, a big glass of red wine.