Angie & Jim

Where there’s smoke, there’s… Frisco burgers?by Angie

So, I made Frisco Burgers* for dinner last night. We don’t have an outdoor BBQ grill or a stove-top grill plate, so I used our flat griddle. I make the hamburger patties with 1 part ground sirloin to 1 part ground round or chuck (with no seasoning except salt), which makes for very tender, juicy burgers… however, those cuts are pretty fatty, and on a flat griddle there’s no way for the grease to drain away. Instead, it just sits there getting so hot that it reaches the smoking point and, obviously, starts smoking. A lot.

So, yeah, the smoke alarm went off. It was kind of embarrassing, but we (Jim, Jon, Justin, and I) opened all the windows and turned on the vent over the stove and laughed about it. And then it went off again. So, we turned on the ceiling fan and laughed about it some more. And then it went off again, and I was rolling my eyes instead of laughing. And then it went off again, and I was exasperated to the extreme.

I fully believe in having smoke detectors and I know they save lives – I just wish they had a button labeled, “I know there’s smoke, but it’s only because I’m trying to cook and making a wretched mess of things, so I really wish you would quit screeching and making me feel even more incompetent than I’ve already proven myself to be!”

At least the burgers tasted good.

*For those of you who don’t know what Frisco Burgers are, let me explain this marvelous Hoffman Family tradition: Instead of using hamburger buns, you place your patty and fixin’s between two slices of toasted sourdough bread. Hence the name “Frisco” Burgers, as in “San Francisco” – I have to admit, I didn’t “get” the meaning of the name until we had moved out here to the Bay Area 😛