Hamburgers

This is truly a Runnemede recipe, not an Italian recipe.

My father rarely cooked. Oh, he'd make himself a poached egg once in a while, but that was about it. Well, one day he took to making hamburgers -- not on a grill, we never had one of those -- but in a pan on top of the stove.

Apparently he didn't like my mom's hamburgers. Who did? They were always overcooked and dried out and even I, who ate everything put before me except liver, didn't like them.

So, he decided he was going to make a better burger. I guess he thought he did. And, this was in the days way before McDonald's came to Haddon Heights -- a 2-mile walk up the pike. Up the pike was toward Philly, down the pike was toward the shore.

So he got the ground beef and formed a patty, a nice large patty. He browned it one one side and then flipped it. After flipping the burger, he salted it, and added to the top of it a dab of mustard and a dab of ketchup. When it was still a little pink in the middle, he took it out of the pan. Then he'd put it on a bun and include a pickle, a slice of cheese (American). That was it. Some of us preferred to add some onions, but dad didn't even like the smell of onions so we only got to do that at the Sunday School picnic when we were outside and he couldn't really smell the onions.

That was the Drexler burger. I liked it for a time or two, but burgers were never my favorite meal. Even if I were given the option of what I wanted, I would invariably pick pizza or cheese steak (my mom did them really well) over the burger.

So there you have it, hamburger, Daddy style.

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