The Best Burger Ever!

 2/10/2023

Had the best hamburger of my life today, another dimension of burger, a taste that sweetly erupted in my mouth.

Imagine this: you thought you were walking into an elegant, lovely, but very polite chamber music recital in a big city art museum and instead found yourself in a magnificent concert hall reverberating with the full philharmonic creating Mahler? Got that? Imagine asking for a Pop Tart and getting an entire devil's food chocolate cake - free - instead. By now, you get it.

Jamie and I had spent the morning going through pre-op exams at Vassar hospital before my upcoming surgery. If you're reading this, the operation already happened. I assume it went well. To make it all tolerable, J staked out this tiny place for lunch - the eponymous Match Box - comfort food and cookies - two tables,eight seats - charming and original - The Match Box. Now, obviously,I'm curious with a penchant for looking into things, but I don't necessarily seek out the "charming". J brings them to me. J's like NORAD when it comes to seeking. You know, NORAD - North American Aerospace Defense Command - 24/7 sky surveillance - What's out there? Have we seen it before? Does it want to play? Ambience was important but out PR'd by purportedly having the Hudson Valley's best burger. How do I describe this hamburger? Hint: re-read paragraph two above.

A slew of lifetimes ago, shortly after The Jazz Singer opened, I was hired by EMI to write an original based on the Spanish Civil War - Butch & Sundance go to Spain. When I think of that idea from this distance I shudder, but what the hell? What has this got to do with the best hamburger I've ever eaten? Plenty. Stay tuned. The deal is I need to stay in London to write it. We're talking months, but, since Jamie and I had only recently married, it might as well have been years. Anyway, part of the deal is a ticket for J to come and stay a while. We lived in Tim Curry's apartment; I was making a shitload of money; what could be so bad? Comes the week-end I say to Jamie what should we do? Let's go to Paris, she says, so we jumped on a plane and did. It was Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse dancing through the spangled streets of Paree. Hollywood is all about myth, and, if one is fortunate enough to be in the town's good graces, life itself becomes myth. How many times did Cary Grant say to a maitre'd, "You decide"? How many times did I? Once - only once - that week-end in Paris. With my honey. Dressed by Saville Row and Rodeo Drive. At a four star restaurant."You decide, Monsieur." It was a spectacular meal, but was it the best I've ever had? If I told you - almost  - second best - lamb and duck, pate' and patisserie, sorbet between courses, fine wine, armagnac - what could be better? Here goes: The Match Box in Hyde Park, New York, that tiny place with eight seats and a hamburger that catapulted the species into the stratosphere. A tower of thick tomato slices, crisp lettuce, sweet, clean, pristine, sliced onion, and a hockey puck sized mound of beef cooked precisely to the degree  promised. A logjam of thick, hand cut fries. A bite that took goodness for granted but turned out to taste like no other. How to describe this hamburger? Find another genre. It was like a thick malted compared to a scoop of ice cream, like a Maserati Quattroporte compared to a Ford 350 pick-up, like a Napoleon compared to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I bit into it, expected goodness, got rapture - expected Neil Diamond but never Chopin. The Match Box. Twelve stars? Is there such a thing? Well, now there is. It was not a lunch. It was a launch. The Cape Canaveral of meals.