The Magnificent McGriddle

If you've never had a McGriddle, you've been living a sad existence. Do yourself a favor and stop by your neighborhood McDonald's tomorrow and devour one. You'll be happy you did. If you've never even heard of a McGriddle (I think you're on the wrong website), the following will explain everything:

The concept of a McGriddle is so simple, yet so incredibly brilliant. It's simplicity lies in it's brevity: only 4 main components. Eggs, cheese and breakfast meat of your choice (my go-to is sausage), sanwiched between the pièces de résistance - syrup infused griddle cakes. It combines the very best that breakfast has to offer into one handheld package bursting with flavor from every direction. A true marvel of modern culinary ingenuity and excess, the McGriddle is in a league of its own (perhaps rivaled only by the KFC Double Down).

But the McGriddle does have its cons. They are on the small side, their structural composition can vary depending on the elementary school drop-out who crafts yours, and who knows whats going on with that gelatinous disc they call an egg...Obviously, they're still delicious, but the concept definitely has room for improvement.

As a huge fan of breakfast sandwiches in general, I know how good they can be when they're hot off the pan and made with real ingredients. A McGriddle-style sandwich is no exception. As delicious as pancakes are, they rarely come to mind when I'm thinking about making my own breakfast at home. I can count on one hand the number of times I've personally made pancakes in my life...But as someone who loves making my own breakfast feasts, I have always thought about crafting my own McGriddle. So when I was in New Orleans last month I came across something that looked too good to pass up. While visiting Southern CandyMakers on Decateur St. and filling up a huge bag with chocolate-covered everything, I noticed a bag of Bruce's sweet potato pancake mix...normally I would have just walked right past it, but for some reason it caught my eye: These would be perfect for making a McGriddle! So I bought the bag of mix, brought it home and it just sat on my kitchen counter for a couple of weeks waiting for it's moment to shine.

Then a few Saturday's ago, I found myself at Fiacco's Pork Store in Greenwich Village (260 Bleecker Street btw. Cornelia & Jones). If you've never been there you should definitely stop by if you're ever in the neighborhood. Full butcher shop, deli, pre-made Italian dishes, cheeses, fresh baked bread...you name it. But the real reason I went was for the roast beef. For my money, it's the best homemade roast beef in NYC - Rare and juicy throughout and they craft a flawless sandwich with it. But I digress...While I was waiting in line, I noticed some amazing freshly ground sweet Italian sausage patties. So I bought a few in anticipation of a Sunday breakfast feast the next morning.

Right before watching the Giants reprise their weekly role as the NFL's version of Rodney King at 1pm Sunday, I fired up my electric griddle, which remains to be one of the best $20 puchases I've ever made. I threw the sausage patties on, and while those started to cook through I mixed the batter with water and infused it with Aunt Jemima Butter Lite syrup (the best) and started to make sandwich-sized pancakes on the other side of the griddle. I stacked those up on a plate and started craking a bunch of eggs on the griddle, topped them with American cheese and started to assemble the McGriddles. Bottom pancake > Sausage patty > Egg > Cheese > (some Crystal hot sauce - optional for you, required for me) > Top pancake. It was that simple, but holy shit were those fucking things amazing. Here's the finished platter:

As I anticipated, it all came down to the ingredients: top quality authentic sweet Italian sausage, fresh eggs (made with slightly runny yolks), and sweet potato pancake book-ends which had an incredible, sweet cinnamon flavor melded with the butter lite flavor in the background. If Autumn had a flavor, it would taste like these pancakes. Of course, there are many other variations that can be made on this sandwich: Bacon, Ham, different types of sausage, different varieties of cheeses, etc...but this was a pretty promising inaugural effort. These McGriddles also differed from the real thing in the other way I expected: they were LARGE...they were basically breakfast cheeseburgers. You can see how thick they were:

Ever seen a yolk like that on your McGriddle?

So I ended up eating 1 3/4 of these breakfast behemoths and then I wasn't able to move off the couch for at least an hour...which turned out to be a curse considering the miserable Giants were on TV and the images of opposing running backs running for 13 yards a carry all afternoon were burned into my retinas.

Unlike my Big Mac re-creation, which turned out great, but not as good as the real deal...this McGriddle remake was undoubtedly more delicious than the McDonald's version with far more complex flavors...and I didn't even have to put pants on to leave the house on Sunday. If you don't believe me, then come on over and join me on a lazy Sunday...you'll be sold before long.

NOLA: 2 Weeks Later

So here we are, 2 weeks after the fall NOLA trip...everything was looking so good then...how quickly it can come crashing down. The once 5-0 GMEN are now on a 3 game losing streak with an extremely tough schedule ahead, the goddamn Phillies and Yankees are in the World Series (and I'm forced to become a 10-day Yanks fan according to the principles of the Lesser-Of-Two-Evils law), and that supposed Indian summer turned very cold, very quickly. But why dwell on the negatives when you can dwell on New Orleans?

After one of the worst travel days ever: half of an airplane drink cart's contents spilled all over my jeans, completely incompetent airline employees, and the craziest in-flight thunderstorm I've ever seen, I finally arrived at 4am Friday. Terrible. But at least there was a shit-ton of Jacques-Imo's and Crabby Jack's leftovers in the fridge for me to get a taste of what I missed on Thursday. Woke up early Friday on a few hours sleep, ready to kick it in the ass...a nice run to Oak Street Cafe got me back in the NOLA state of mind right quick. A little live jazz music, some freshly baked cake doughnuts, and the best egg dish known to man...Eggs Beauregard. 2 buttermilk biscuits, topped with 2 sausage patties, topped with 2 poached eggs, all smothered in white gravy (and my own hot sauce addition) with potatoes (or grits) on the side. If you've never had it, imagine an edible heaven topped with white gravy. Yeah it's that good.

After breakfast, we did what any self-respecting southerner would do on a Friday morning...we went shootin'. After a quick drive to The Shooter's Club in Harahan, we rented a couple of Glocks (.40 & .45) and popped off a few rounds.

Only in the deep south do they supply you with targets that look like these:

I was proud to see how packed that place was on a Friday at 11am...that crazy redneck owner should write a thank you letter to President Obama for the spike in business and the exorbitant ammo prices he can charge due to the Great Bullet Shortage Of 2009.

Anyway, we followed the range up with a quick tour of ol' 828 Broadway...that place is as much of a shithole as ever...literally 2-3 foot high piles of trash and old furniture on every front stairwell landing (which was definitely worse than when we lived there), mold all over the place, and obviously no working locks on the doors in the murder capital of the country ha. Plus my former penthouse apartment was converted from 2BR to 4BR and now its just a shittier version of the other units. What a shame.

The next few hours get a little hazy...Boot happy hour, Drago's (don't ever eat there...terrible service and AWFUL food other than the char-grilled oysters), Harrah's and then a little stroll down Bourbon to Pat O's, Gold Mine, etc.

Saturday...the weather was perfect and we headed down to the CBD to Lafayette Square Park on St. Charles for the Crescent City Blues & BBQ Fest. It was basically a Fall version of French Quarter Fest with amazing BBQ platters like pulled pork, cochon de lait poboys, delicious jerk chicken, and about 9 different types of sausages (pork, gator, crawfish, etc...). And some pretty good local blues acts up on stage too..

After feasting and a few beers to wash it down, we ventured into the quarter, wandered around for a few hours...of course we ended up at the Chart Room as usualy for Chartreuse shots and Budweiser pony cans...I'll admit, as gross as that shit is, it really gets you going. In the words of Quentin Tarantino, "Chartreuse, the only liqueur so good they named a color after it."

Eventually, after boozing in the sun for hours, we found our way to Yo Mama's on St. Peter's (directly across from Pat O's side entrance) for a burger. I sacrilegious as it sounds, Port Of Call was just too far at that point in the day. Plus we figured, why not try something new? So this place is a dark, shit-hole bar (what bar in NOLA isn't...) with 2 tables, which were full. So we snag some seats at the bar and take a look at their menu which had at least 15 different crazy burgers. I see one in particular and had a "When in Rome" moment...the Peanut Butter Burger. As strange as it sounded, I couldn't resist ordering it. When the fuck else am I gonna eat a peanut butter & bacon burger? So after a couple of Abitas and the tatted up female bartenders offering their opinions on bush shots in the latest Playboy sitting on the bar in front of us...my feast arrives:

Yeah...that's peanut butter with a pile of bacon on top...and a LOADED baked potato. And I'll tell you what...it was pretty fucking good. By the end, I was a little sick of peanut butter, and maybe just a little sick in general considering it's a 1 pound patty plus all that other shit on the plate. But overall I'm happy I tried it. If I ever go there again (I definitely wish I discovered this place when I lived there), I'll probably stick with the more standard burger choices, which were quite delicious.

After another rowdy night downtown, we somehow woke up at 8:30am on Sunday, packed the car full of Budweisers, threw on the Mardi Gras/SB XLII-tested Eli jersey and hauled ass to the Superdome.

(Amazing Side Note: While tailgating I noticed the still-Katrina-ridden Hyatt next to the dome...the "H" had fallen off one of the main signs, leaving only "YATT"...If you ever lived in NOLA you know just how incredible that is...I tried to take a pic, but it was blurry)

Finally got into the dome, sat in our amazing seats...and then it was all downhill after that...it

wasn't even a fucking game. It was 14-0 Saints before I blinked. That dome was the loudest sports venue I've ever experienced, and I've been to a lot of loud ones...you couldn't even talk to people 3 seats down from you. But you know what, when I walked out of that game, the sun was shining down on us on a perfect 75 degree October day and I was walking down the street with an open beverage in my hand...what a city. If a city can make you forget that your team just got Rhianna-ed in front of your eyes, then that's a special place. Follow that up with a little Sunday afternoon football at the Boot like the old days and I almost never left for the airport...

Overall, an incredible trip that lived up to the 4 month hype and I can't wait to go back for the Gras & JazzFest in 2010. See you there...

The Real Big Mac

I can't think of a better way to begin than with a little story about the perfect sandwich:

2 All Beef Patties
Special Sauce
Lettuce
Cheese
Pickles
Onions
On A Sesame Seed Bun

The Big Mac...One of mankind's greatest culinary achievements, it tastes phenomenal, and you can get it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week...but let's be honest, sometimes one doesn't even fill you up. Our good friends at MacDonald's don't exactly pile on the beef (and I won't even get started on the content and origin of that indescribable mystery meat).


So while sitting on the couch last Sunday watching the GMEN stomp out the worst team in the NFL (the Chiefs), I had a stroke of genius...Being the proud American that I am, I thought to myself: I can make it bigger (and maybe, just maybe, I can make it better). After quick run to the store, 7 simple ingredients and a couple of flips on the grill, I had crafted a 9 inch-tall tower of burger brilliance...







After I devoured this monstrosity and washed it down with a couple of Budweisers, I realized two things: 1) I am a fat fuck and 2) Although my Mac dwarfed the real thing (and tasted pretty damn good), there truly is no substitute for an authentic Big Mac. God Bless you Ray Kroc.


I then digested until halftime and went for a short walk to get some ice cream (see "fat fuck" realization)...All in all, a pretty nice fall Sunday in America.