Tag: food

searching for the best cheeseburger

I heard someone say:

A life spent in the pursuit of the perfect cheeseburger would not be a life wasted. I wonder if the same could be said of milkshakes…

That sounds good, in a way. I’ve pursued the best cheeseburger (and found it on my own grill), and I’ve pursued the best milkshake. One time in high school, my best friend and I had driven to the nearest city, and we decided we’d try milkshakes from all the places we knew about, to see which was the best. Looking back at that now, when I understand more about calories and fat grams, I wouldn’t do it again. At least, not all in one day. I still enjoy milkshakes just as much, but my metabolism is many times slower than it was then, so it’s just not a good strategy to have them often. But in high school, I could do that and not gain any weight. (I sure miss my metabolism!)

But thinking back to that philosophy of chasing the best, it’s not always the ideal mindset. There’s nothing wrong with trying to find a better version of something, and I encourage that to a degree, but I’ve learned that chasing perfection can lead to not enjoying what you have.

You can’t always eat at the best burger joint or the best steakhouse or the best seafood restaurant, and if your mindset ends up being, “This isn’t the best” and that makes you disappointed, that’s unfortunate. Then you have a lot of meals that you aren’t enjoying because they aren’t the best.

I’ve met people who became that way, where they were never satisfied at a restaurant nor with home cooking, because it wasn’t the best it could be. I felt sad for them, because they could be eating really good food that they used to enjoy, yet be disappointed and complaining about it.

I’ve learned to try to enjoy where I am. My meals today probably won’t be the best they can possibly be (although I will try to make them good within reason), but I will still choose to enjoy them.

Your mindset makes a huge difference in how much you enjoy it. Even if the taste is the same, how you think about it — your expectations and your narrative about the experience — play a large role in how you think and feel about it. I’ve seen children talk themselves into not liking chicken strips or spaghetti or mac ‘n cheese, even if it’s the exact same kind they had the week before and really enjoyed. Adults can do that, too. What we tell ourselves matters.

So choose to enjoy today. It won’t be perfect or ideal — it never is — but enjoy it anyway. Where you are right now is your actual life, and you will not pass through this day again. You can choose to make the best of it, or you can complain about it and not enjoy it. It’s your choice. (I recommend trying to enjoy it.)

What to do about this hot weather?

Everybody likes to talk about the weather, but nobody does anything about it…

And somebody really should, with this current “heat dome” of heat and humidity. But, nothing…

I would, but unfortunately, our R&D department is woefully underfunded. It takes a substantial amount of money to build a weather dominator-inator. You can’t just go to the local store and buy the parts you need since they aren’t invented yet!

Meanwhile, while we wait on the millions in donations we need, we’ve had an idea before that should be considered. For places where the heat is oppressive — say, anywhere with a heat advisory in effect — the government could provide free ice cream sandwiches. It’s really a win-win solution. It would boost morale of the citizens (voters), and the politicians providing this would gain some popularity and be responsible for something good. I know, the issue is how to pay for it. The cost wouldn’t have to be great, if they leverage their buying power to get discounts (which is entirely possible). But they’d have to cut out the red tape on the middleman and not enrich themselves, which is most unlikely. After all, just this year, DOGE and Elon Musk with his chainsaw have cut thousands of jobs, slashed billions from budgets, which could potentially do some good (although the haphazard way it was done was incredibly inefficient and irresponsible), yet the current budget bill will lead to greater debt. So what exactly is going on where they can save billions of dollars yet spend trillions more? The math doesn’t add up. They haven’t told us where all that money is going.

Sorry, got on a political rant there. Our government is inconceivably wasteful, so no free ice cream sandwiches. In fact, your groceries now cost more, despite the campaign promise of Donald Trump to bring grocery prices down on day one. Instead, everything costs more.

Oops, started ranting again. But while I’m on the topic (not really), here’s a random pivot to chew on: I saw an interview with someone who had traveled to various other countries, and he said the main difference in politics in America is that we tend to blame the “other party” while in other countries they hold their elected officials currently in office responsible for what’s wrong. I can see that…

Enough ranting. It’s hot outside, and I sure could go for an ice cream sandwich… So I’ll go get one myself. I don’t depend on politicians to make my day better. (That would be a disaster!) We all have the option to do things to make our day better.

Is there anything you will do today to make your day better?

Do dinosaurs taste like chicken?

Let’s continue the last post about having dinosaurs in my backyard. Supposedly all birds are dinosaurs. Even chickens. So you can say that dinosaurs taste like chicken. 🙂

To consider all birds to be dinosaurs seems crazy to me, but what do I know? So I did an internet search about whether birds are dinosaurs. (Are you ready to go down a rabbit hole filled with dinosaurs? Read on!) Check out this answer to whether birds evolved from dinosaurs or reptiles:

The answer is both, but with a crucial clarification: birds evolved from dinosaurs, which themselves are a subgroup of reptiles. Think of it like this: all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Similarly, all birds are dinosaurs (specifically theropod dinosaurs), but not all dinosaurs are birds. And both birds and dinosaurs are within the broader group of reptiles.

So dinosaurs were reptiles, which then became birds. Except not all dinosaurs are birds. And birds are reptiles. Got that?

I’ll admit it’s been a few years since I was in school, but that’s not what I learned. Still, I read on, and saw this on the same page:

The closest living relatives of dinosaurs (excluding birds, which are dinosaurs) are crocodilians (crocodiles, alligators, and gharials). They share a more distant common ancestor with dinosaurs than birds do.

So crocodilians are more closely related to dinosaurs than birds, but birds are dinosaurs. I think I’m getting more confused… But I’ll keep reading. Maybe it’ll all make sense soon.

What about the pterodactyls, the flying dinosaurs? Is that where birds draw their lineage?

Pterosaurs, including pterodactyls, were flying reptiles, but they are not directly related to birds.

So there were flying dinosaurs, but they’re not related to birds. Apparently the flying birds came from dinosaurs that didn’t fly. I don’t know if they had useless wings or if they somehow developed wings and learned to fly. Honestly, there’s a lot about the theory of evolution that just doesn’t make sense. I know it’s often taught as fact, but it doesn’t add up and there’s a lot of missing evidence. I suppose you just say “over millions of years” and it’s supposed to be acceptable. Nonetheless, let’s continue this rabbit hole. There’s more weirdness you probably don’t know.

The chicken is currently considered the closest living relative to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. This is based on genetic and anatomical evidence.

That’s interesting! So not only does a T-Rex taste like chicken, it WAS a chicken! Or rather, it became a chicken. So the next time you watch the movie Jurassic Park, imagine a giant chicken chasing them in the Jeep. 🙂 Or, we can let AI imagine it…

Now you know a great conversation piece — you know what dinosaurs taste like! You can ask people what they think dinosaurs (or specifically a T.Rex) might taste like, or tell them you ate a dinosaur the other day (if you eat chicken), or that you saw a dinosaur in your back yard.

Do you want a chicken bird sandwich?

Why do people say “tuna fish sandwich”, yet nobody says “chicken bird sandwich”? Think about it…

I asked someone about this, and they said that maybe “tuna fish” is the actual name, but I looked it up, and tuna by itself is proper. So the joke still works. People say tuna fish, but nobody says bass fish or salmon fish or crappie fish or catfish fish. I figure it’s a marketing thing from decades ago. (I’m not going down that rabbit hole to research it, but if anyone has any idea on it, leave a comment.)

Speaking of tuna, the “chicken of the sea”, do you realize how large they can be? Tuna is often served in these little cans, yet the original fish is huge! The albacore tuna can weigh up to 133 pounds, and the atlantic bluefin tuna can weigh up to 1,508 pounds and be 15 feet long! That’s the size of a small car!

Some tuna are rare and valuable. At the beginning of this year, a bluefin tuna weighing 608 pounds sold for more than $1.3 million. The group that bought it has a chain of famous sushi restaurants. The company president thinks the first tuna of the year “is meant to bring good fortune” and “our hope is that by eating this tuna everyone will have a good year”. That seems quite far-fetched to me. Maybe it’s more marketing and promotion than actual belief. But to each their own. I’ll eat my $1 tuna and have a good year regardless. 🙂

Anyway, back to where all this rambling started… Ask people about the opening question above. It can be fun to get people to think original thoughts. Besides, everyone should do original thinking more often.