Thursday June 24, 2010

For lunch my brother-in-law and my nephew and I trekked over to Meridan to Ted’s Steamed Cheeseburgers (totally defeating the purpose of yoga this morning but whatever.) I saw a special on tv about this place last year so I was excited that I had finally had the time to check it out. They’ve been around since 1959 and have been named best burger by a dozen or more food programs/blogs….including the Food Network and Travel Channel. It is a tiny little shack with a small menu but the burgers are pretty amazing.

The little metal cabinet is where all the magic happens.

The ground beef is placed in trays and steamed to sear the flavors and juices inside. They are healthy burgers!

Once the steaming is finished (only a matter of a minute or two) the burgers come out and the icky bad stuff is drained off and voila! Even though it looks like dog food, it is juicy and flavorful and doesn’t taste greasy at all.

The cheese is a secret blend of cheddars and the owner will not disclose anymore than that….They also go through the steaming process.

I chose to not order the bacon cheeseburger despite having worn my “If God didn’t want us to eat pigs … He wouldn’t have made them out of BACON” t-shirt today.

I dont even really like potatoes but the home fries were out of this world … they were sprinkled with paprika and a tub of oily buttery goodness.

…you can order them with or without cheese.

Louis was chillin’ outside the restaurant but was not very camera friendly.

For dinner we met up with my sister-in-law Ann Marie (from the AU/NZ trip) and my nephew Danny (Vegas)

We went to a place called Sofia’s in East Windsor… unbeknownst to us it was All-You-Can-Eat pasta night and it smelled like a fucking nursing home in there. My ex Tony always used to call places like this “God’s Waiting Room” lol

Despite the geriatic crowd who probably don’t know the difference between good food and hospital fare… the pizza was awesome! Classic East Coast pizza with the perfect crust…not too thin and not too thick… we ordered sausage, hamburger and bacon (yeah I cheated a little today)

Danny and I also shared a hot ham grinder: the name for a submarine sandwich in New England. Now… this took me some getting used to when I moved west. Before Quizno’s started serving hot subs people would look at me like I had three heads if I ordered a sub sandwich and asked for it to be heated up. It was like they thought I would die if I had wilted lettuce or warm mayonaise. I wasn’t asking for the thing to be baked for 20 minutes, just slightly toasty. I haven’t traveled around the midwest much at all so I can’t say for sure that they are unique to New England,  but I can tell you that they do have some of the best hot subs I have ever had. Not to be missed…something I crave and must eat when I come here.

When we got back to the house my nephew and I decided to attempt to catch and photograph fireflies. You can see where this got me.

You can see a few here in this clip. Riveting, yes, I know. We were getting eaten alive by mosquitos so it didn’t last very long.

And then I heard a scuffle in the bushes and nearly shit myself when this stray cat ran over to me and rubbed himself all over my ankles.

He followed me back to the house and I set up the kitty-cam to see what I could catch him doing.

Anyone in the central Connecticut area want a cute grey kitten?

My brother-in-law FED THE DAMN THING! I thought my sister was going to freak out when she got home, but surprisingly she was like “Whatever, what’s another animal in the house?” So I am curious to see if he returns tomorrow. An hour after this incident I could still hear him meowing outside my window. Good Lord I am glad this is not at my house because I would have a cat in my bed right now. I am such a sucker.

I have a very exciting day tomorrow so I must get some rest!