Mike Pound: Turning green over blue cheese

Local News

Discussion

December 3, 2009

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Thu Dec 03, 2009, 10:11 PM CST

I’m a pretty simple guy.

I don’t spend a lot of time brooding about the great questions of our time. Why are we here? What happens when we die? Why do people watch Nancy Grace?

Nope, I tend to leave the important questions like those for people who have the time to ponder them. Me? I just live my life and let the navel gazers do the heavy intellectual lifting.

But even a simple guy like myself will occasionally take time to consider one of the important questions facing all of us who share this planet.

Yesterday, I was driving over to Southeast Kansas. On the radio, the NPR station out of Stillwater, Okla., was airing a show called “Talk of the Nation,” and on the show was a guy talking about climate change.

What? Oh, you think I’m talking about climate change here. That’s crazy. What do you think I am, some sort of liberal?

No, while the folks on the radio talked about climate change, I started thinking about what makes a truly great cheeseburger truly great. Something, I think we can all agree, is way more important than climate change.

I write about cheeseburgers a lot. About once a month I will hop in my car and drive until I find a place that looks like it might serve up a pretty good cheeseburger. I’ve been doing that for several months now. And so far, I haven’t been disappointed. Last week, I drove over to Baxter Springs, Kan., and got on the outside of a cheeseburger at the Cafe on the Route.

A few years ago, shortly after the Cafe on the Route opened, several people told me I should stop by the place and eat. They told me it was my kind of place, but for some reason I never seemed to find the time to drop by. Then, one night, I was watching the show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” on the Food Network and saw a feature on a neat place called — you guessed it — Cafe on the Route.

“Darn,” I remember thinking. “I guess I should have stopped by.”

My cheeseburger at Cafe on the Route was great. But then again, everything on the menu at Cafe on the Route is great. By the way, if you walk away from Cafe on the Route still hungry, it’s your own fault.

The folks at the cafe know how to serve up a meal, is what I’m saying.

For lunch, the folks at the cafe sort of let you build your own cheeseburger. So I did.

When I built my cheeseburger at the cafe, I asked for Swiss cheese. I also asked for lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles. Then I added bacon. To me, that’s a pretty good cheeseburger.

But I’ve also had a pretty good cheeseburger with American cheese. I don’t mind cheddar cheese on my burger, but it’s not my favorite. Sometimes a few jalapeno peppers can add a nice touch to a cheeseburger, and to be honest, you don’t have to add bacon to make a great cheeseburger. Actually, technically speaking, I suppose adding bacon to a cheeseburger makes it a bacon-cheeseburger, not a cheeseburger. But maybe I’m getting too deep here.

The thing is, what I think what makes a great cheeseburger great is not necessarily what someone else might think makes a great cheeseburger great. My wife, for example, thinks a great cheeseburger must come with grilled onions. My Uncle Jim can’t eat cheese, so he thinks not having cheese on a cheeseburger makes a cheeseburger great. But that might be a Zen thing.

Other people prefer blue cheese (yuck) on their burgers.

When it comes to the meat itself, I’m partial to a greasy burger fried up on a flat grill, like they do at the Gooch Bros. Grill here in Joplin. However, there is also something to be said for a burger grilled on an open flame.

I guess what I’m saying is there is no one way to fix a great cheeseburger. I think as long as you have beef and two buns, you are free to toss whatever you want onto your burger. Well except, blue cheese.

That’s just gross.

Text Only

Local News

Water company cites reconnections
The May 22 tornado has caused a dramatic drop in water usage for the Missouri American Water Co., but things are starting to turn around — one reconnection at a time.

February 10, 2012 1 Photo
Survivor of ’78 Connor collapse dead at age 64
A big story in the history of Joplin was the 1978 collapse of the Connor Hotel at Fourth and Main streets. Alfred Summers, the man at the heart of that story, died at 6:41 a.m. Friday at St. John’s Mercy Hospital in Joplin after an illness. He was 64.

February 10, 2012
County asks for dismissal of sheriff’s suit
The Jasper County Commission is the final authority in budget allocations, including those from the county’s Law Enforcement Sales Tax fund, county lawyers have argued in a motion recently filed in Jasper County Circuit Court.

February 10, 2012
Winter weather back in forecast
The arctic front that passed over Missouri on Friday will bring cold temperatures to the region tonight.

February 10, 2012
Weather service upgrading radar at Springfield station
The National Weather Service radar station at Springfield will be out of service for about two weeks to permit the installation of dual-polarization technology.

February 10, 2012
MSSU, PSU to conduct financial-aid events
Missouri Southern State University in Joplin and Pittsburg (Kan.) State University each will conduct events Sunday to help high school seniors with completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid.

February 10, 2012
Authorities term deaths of teens murder-suicide
Authorities say a teenage woman apparently shot her estranged boyfriend several times before turning the gun on herself and taking her own life.

February 10, 2012
Mike Pound: One man in America wants his robo call
I like to think I have pretty thick skin. If I didn’t, all the emails I get with the subject lines that read “Hey moron” would bother me. But they don’t, so I do.

February 10, 2012
Proposed Kan. abortion ban blocked by abortion foe
An influential anti-abortion legislator is blocking the push for a ban on abortion in the Kansas Constitution, highlighting a split among abortion opponents over tactics and frustrating the group advocating the “personhood” proposal Friday.

February 10, 2012
Kansas House GOP issues tax plan
House Republican leaders are proposing a plan to cut Kansas income taxes, removing one key objection to an earlier proposal from Gov. Sam Brownback.

February 10, 2012
More Local News Headlines

Water company cites reconnections

Local News

Search Results

Discussion

Mike Pound: Turning green over blue cheese

Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr wants the city to distribute weather radios to all Joplin homes that don’t have one. That’s 11,000 radios. Do you think that’s a good use of $300,440?

Site Map

Contact Us