Where’s the beef?

Commentary by Jeff Burgar
for Smoky River Express

Were "yupiettes" responsible? You might know them. Heck, you might be one!

Do you want me to eat local produce? You know, the "100 Mile Menu." Only food grown or grazed inside of 100 Miles, er, pardon me, 160 kilometres, is fit to grace my plate.

No problem. I’ll just sneak in some occasional orange and apple juice. Grapes. Bananas. And coffee of course. Roasted barley might be a cornerstone of good whiskey. It doesn’t make a good cup of java, sorry.

Yuppiettes love "wild" fish. None of that fish farmed stock for a sincere lady who wants to do right by her kids, and everybody else. No sir. And speaking of organic, anything treated with pesticides, fertiilzer, or preservatives is verboten. Forbidden. Poison. Trash. And I now have to bring my own bags for grocery packing. No plastic. Has to be cloth. No more chocolate either. Unless it is super dark, and super bitter. You may already know how sort of useless those citronella burners are for chasing off mosquitoes. The list goes on and on.

I’m suffering. I’m trying to be organic, healthful, tiny carbon footprint and as supportive of best practices, whatever those may be, as much as possible. I’ve suffered enough.

The last straw was a charity cookout. The usual suspects were all there. Service club volunteers getting gassed and smoked over a giant barbecue. The aroma of hamburgers wafted through the air. Onions were sliced and diced. Squeeze bottles of mustard and ketchup were handy. Fresh baked buns sat in stacks. I eagerly presented my slathered bun to one of the cooks.

"I’ll take that one," I said, pointing to a big, fat, round patty of browned meat. I have to admit, it was a gooder. Looked juicy as heck. Probably about medium well to well done, with a little bit of charcoal searing. The only thing missing was melted cheese topping it off.

"Not done yet," said the fellow handling this section of the grill. He took his tongs, reached to one corner of the stove, and pulled what I thought was a poor man’s hockey puck from a stack of, well, a stack of more poor man’s hockey pucks.

The puck sat in the middle of my bun. Black. It was so small, there was room for another four in the bun. Truthfully, I didn’t want to chance another. I slapped on the lid, took a bite, and thought, "This is what one of my dress shoes would taste like. If I was stupid enough to burn and eat it."

I said I blamed yuppiettes. There was one behind me. I’m sure she was sincere. "Are you sure it’s cooked?" she asked the cookie. "We can’t take any chances with hamburger disease."

Yes, I know. Charcoaled leather is so much better for us.

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