A near-tragedy was narrowly averted last night in the Mansion kitchen. There I was, frying up some hamburgers for my men, when I made a crucial mistake.
But let's drag out the action a bit, shall we. Let me just toss in a mini-commercial for Save A Lot ground beef. It's delicious. It's delectable. It falls just short of de-lovely. It puts The Devil's meat to shame. So flavorful. My mom raves about my chili, and my spaghetti sauce. And the secret is in the ground beef. Not as big a secret as the BBQ in Fried Green Tomatoes. That would put me in a cross-bars Hilton at the corner of Murderer's Row and Cannibal Circle. But enough of my there but for the taste of Save A Lot beef go I possible murder conviction and incarceration.
I patted out the burgers and cooked up two for the boys forthwith. I put the burgers for Farmer H and me into the hot pan. A nice sear sealed in the juices, making a crispy thin crust on one side. I applied some black pepper, and flipped the burgers. At that point, I dashed into the laundry room to hang twenty shirts. I know. You'd think those kids of mine were runway models, not plain Hillmomba schoolboys. How that many shirts piled up with my weekly 8-10 loads of laundry is a mystery to me. And it was only the dark shirts. The pile of lights will have to wait until mid-week. It's not like my down-low Barbizon clients are going to run out of dark shirts.
Upon return to the stove, I saw that the burgers were poofy in the middle. They needed a good pressing with the flipper. So I did just that. Well, jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton! As that spoiled Winona Ryder said to Whoopi Goldberg in Girl, Interrupted. When I squeezed the burger to the pan, a stream of hot grease squirted out the side, jumped up over the edge of the pan, and seared my ample belly through my short-sleeved, button-down, purple-pin-striped oxford shirt. YOWSA! That was a tad painful. I turned to the sink and dabbed cold water and liquid hand soap on it. The shirt, not the belly. Skin will heal, but a grease stain is forever.
That grease shot out the side of that burger like a solar flare bent on setting a record. Like the mashed potatoes in John Belushi's Animal House mouth, right after he said, "See if you can guess. What I am. Now." And punched both cheeks with his fists. I don't mean to ruin the movie for you if you haven't seen it, but the answer is, "A zit."
Such a cheeky attempt by a hamburger to maim Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has never before occurred in the annals of Hillmomban culinary history. Something is afoot. I need to examine my Even Steven ledger, lest karma be feelin' b*tchy.
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