1098 Days Later, and Burgers

1098 days after graduation from our first graduate school, we finally triumphed over our student loans.  It's been about eight years since I haven't owed money to various banks or institutions, and it feels a little alien (great, but a little alien) not to.  We'll still be saving most of what we bring in while we're in Japan, but we'll get to keep it.  So, yay us and good luck to the numerous people we know who are still working on those loans.

That aside, this post is really about the burgers we made to celebrate.  Our internet butcher offers "Ridiculous Burgers" and they've been on our radar as something silly to do for a while.  We can get hamburger easily but hamburger buns are practically unheard of here, and the idea of 10 inch diameter real burgers with buns holds a certain appeal.  Given the excess of it all, a celebration themed as a reward for thrift seemed an appropriate time to deploy them.  We didn't hold much if anything back.

 No pan we own (and that's a 13 inch cast iron pan) was remotely close to being able to hold them both.

 The full spread - note the chocolate pudding and lemon meringue pies in the background - one each

 Ana's burger, complete less the top bun - she did one half with sauteed leeks and the other half had homemade onion straws with bacon.

 My burger was somewhat more adventurous - starting with the thick layer of cheddar cheese (pretty much have to go an expensive store to get cheese that is actually cheese and not a "cheese product" here) toasted on to the bottom bun.  Directly on top of the patty I put a thick layer of guacamole.

 On top of the guacamole I put sauteed onions...

 ...and then bacon...

 ...and then onion rings...

 ...and a whole sliced tomato...

 ...and then finished it with BBQ sauce from the US.

 That's no moon...

 Contemplating how to approach a burger of that magnitude.

   We both ended up slicing ours into quarters, which worked surprisingly well.  

We had concerns about maintaining the integrity of the burger during consumption, but they sliced easily and held together well in quarters, so it went very well, though we both stopped halfway through - were I not also eating fries and so forth I might have been able to eat it all in one go, but it'd have been a near thing.  I suspect it will not be quite as tasty the second time around, but those who know me know I probably won't care anyway.

The rest of the pictures are on Flikr if you're feeling brave enough.