I guess there are people who don’t like hamburgers, but I’m glad I don’t know any. (Or if I do, I don’t know that I know you. Leave me in the dark, please.)

When I was a really little kid, my dad would fire up the charcoal grill and make his version of hamburgers, which were akin to charcoal pucks with very pink interiors.  He got better with practice, fortunately, and did not turn me off all homemade burgers.

The first not-at-home hamburger I remember with any clarity was at a now-defunct restaurant called Rod’s Steak House in Williams, Ariz. They would bring you a hamburger shaped like a cow, and I thoroughly enjoyed announcing that “now I’m going to eat its head; now I’m going to eat its leg,” until my mother told me to shut up and just eat already. (Rod’s was awesome. It served five generations of my family before COVID (or something) killed it. However! It looks like it might get resurrected! If you are ever in Williams, Arizona, look it up!)

Up until high school, I was a burger purist. Just meat and bun, with ketchup. No other stuff on it. Then I branched out into cheeseburgers, with various types of cheese. And then on to bacon cheeseburgers. And a whole panoply of condiments: Mustard. Mayonnaise. Barbecue sauce. Pickles (but only dill, not sweet).

And not so much on the lettuce or tomato, either. And absolutely no onions. Ever. Just no. Not raw, not in rings or strings or straws. Sorry not sorry.

These days, you can get all sorts of bizarre permutations. Macaroni on a burger. Fried egg on a burger. Burgers made of bison. It’s a whole new world. I’m here for it.

The kid—who probably wouldn’t be alive today if burgers did not exist because he would have starved to death at some point in grade school—says the best burger he ever had was at 3 a.m. at a place called Dave’s Diner in St. Louis. I was not along for that outing, but it is on the list to try next time we head that direction. The kid said this place also met his real basis for judging a burger place—what he calls the Fry Rule: You do not judge a burger place by the quality of the burger; you judge it by the quality of their fries. I am of an age where I barely touch the fries after finishing a burger, so I am not as wedded to this philosophy, but I acknowledge its validity.

But honestly, if you want the best burger in the world, you need to swing by my house on a night that the hubs is grilling. His creations are out of this world. I don’t know what he does to them, and the kid has not committed any measurements to memory, so the secret may very will die with the elder statesman. I’m hoping that’s not for some time to come, however, so you’ve got a while to plan a visit!