The Perfect Meal: Rough Draft

For my Perfect Meal, I wanted to see if I could make an entire meal from fresh, local foods, either from farmers or stores committed to practicing sustainability.  

Four stops, five hours, and thirty dollars later, I had my meal.

The menu: Classic hamburgers made with 100% grass fed beef, topped with grass fed baby Swiss cheese, sautéed oyster mushrooms, and caramelized onions, all on a fresh baked pretzel roll.  Accompanying the entrée would be sea salt sweet potato fries, a field greens salad with cherry tomatoes, toasted walnuts, and a homemade lemon and olive oil dressing, and, of course, an ice cold Great Lake Brewing Company lager.  

Many hours before, however, my meal began as yeast rising in a local bakery, as mushrooms growing in the Kilbuck Valley, and as beef being packaged and labeled by a farmhand at Autumn Harvest farm.  For me, however, it began with a trip to Local Roots, a market located in my hometown of Wooster, Ohio, with my mom.  Committed to ensuring direct producer to consumer contact, sustainable farming methods, and fresh, organic producer, Local Roots proved to be my main supplier of ingredients for my Perfect Meal.

I began by selecting a pound of grass fed ground beef, a product of family friend and farmer Mark Ladrach.  The Ladrach farm, or Autumn Harvest Farm as it’s formally known, is certified organic and rejects the use of all artificial fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics, and herbicides.  Also the provider of a quarter pound of grass fed baby Swiss cheese, Mark and his family supplied two of my main ingredients: cheese and burger.  Next I visited the mushroom booth where my mom and I selected a large assortment of white, grey, and yellow oyster mushrooms.  Beautiful in color, and soft to the touch, these mushrooms would be perfect atop our burgers.  From there we moved onto the veggie booth, but were met with an unfortunately surprise.  Instead of the piles of greens I was expecting, a lonely sign was in their place.

No Greens This Week, it read.

Thing are growing slowly in the cold and needed time to recoup… sorry for the inconvenience!

I sighed. 

This would mean Plan B. 

We checked out at Local Roots, our total coming tonearly $16, before heading to The Bake Haus, a local bakery owned by my mom’s former ESL student.  We were greeted with, “Well look who it is!” as Sofie, a rather large woman with a German accent rushed out to give hugs.  It seemed to take forever to get out of there as news had to be traded, recommendations had to be made, and, finally, our rolls had to be bought, but eventually we got out of there with four perfect looking pretzel rolls, sold for $1.50 a piece.  Next we headed to downtown Buehler’s, one of the eight Buehler’s stores in the area.  Formally a local one-branch grocery store, Buehler’s has since gone on to open stores in numerous neighboring counties, and now considers itself corporate.  However, it was Wooster where Buehler's began, where the Buehler kids went to school, and where "Buehler Hill" is located, a plot of land where the entire Buehler family seems to live.  Even though Buehler’s has now expanded and is a supplier of industrial foods, it still promotes local products and sustainability whenever possible.  And it was there where my mom and I bought four large sweet potatoes, onions, lemons, cherry tomatoes, and regrettably, a pre-packaged field greens salad mix.   

Our last stop (which had been interrupted by a 2 hour wine tasting at the College of Wooster) was uptown Buehler’s to get a six-pack of Great Lakes beer on the way home.

At 4:30 I began cooking.  As a result of my limited cooking ability, and desire to eat sooner rather than later (I was hungry after 14 kinds of wine!), I enlisted my mom to help me cook the meal. 

First we peeled and chopped the sweet potatoes into french fry pieces, placing them in a tub of salt water, which, I learned, prevents them from turning brown and gives them a natural, salty taste. 

After draining the water, coating them in olive oil, salt, and pepper, I popped them in the oven at 400 to bake. 

Then I moved on to the burgers.  The beef had been sitting out and was room temperature by the time I molded it into 1/3 pound patties.  My mom told me three things when handling a hamburger.

1. Don’t over handle it.

2. Don’t smash it, or compact it too hard.  It should be loosely held together so the juices can flow.

3. If you want to make it really delicious, put a small square of garlic infused butter right in the middle.

After doing all of these things, and coating the outside of the meat in a salt and pepper rub to make a nice crust, I set the burgers aside to cook later.

Caramelizing the onions came next.  I sliced the onions, put some oil in a pan to heat, and plopped the onions on with a satisfying sizzle.  I let them cook down turning translucent, before removing them from the heat and sauteing the mushrooms.

While I was waiting for the mushrooms and the sweet potatoes to finish cooking, I toasted some walnuts and made a dressing for the salad out of lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Soon a burning smell let me know that the sweet potato fries were done.  I popped the burgers under the broiler, leaving the oven door slightly cracked and waited for them to cook.  Soon delicious smells were issuing from the oven.  After flipping the bugers and slicing the baby swiss into thin pieces, I placed the cheese atop the meat.  Two minutes in the oven and the cheese had melted and was dripping down the sides.  Perfect.  After putting the buns under the broiler for a few seconds apiece, they were toasted and browned, and ready to be eaten.
Everything was ready.  The candles were lit.  The table was set.  The Great Lakes was out.  We sat down to eat.
The first bite of the burger was difficult.  The pretzel roll was so thick and the meat patty so large that it was honestly pretty hard to get my mouth around.  I think I even ended up cutting the roof of my mouth on the hard, salted crust of bread before I finally got a good solid bite.  But when I did, it was delicious.
The meat was juicy and cooked medium well, just like I like it.  The fries, although a little burned, combined sweet and salty flavors making me reach for more. The mushrooms and onions added texture as well as flavor making the entire burger pretty irresistible.  Accompanied with a swig of cold beer or a bite of lemony salad, it was a pretty good meal if I may say so myself
Although by no means would I claim that my meal was as sustainable as Michael Pollan's, or as delicious as Anthony Bourdain's, I would declare it a success.  After all, there were clean plates all around.      


***Pictures to come later!
***I'm still working on the ending, character development, and the actual eating of the meal.