Recipes Jazz Up Your Basic Burger
Does all this talk about grilling vegetables make your mouth water for a big, juicy hamburger?
Heinz Ketchup is offering free place mats featuring 25 hamburger recipes styled after cities nationwide, from Buffalo Wing Burgers to Kansas City Barbecue Burgers to Seattle Space Needle Burgers (Asian-accented turkey patties with teriyaki sauce and plum jam). For a copy, write to Mine’s Gotta Have Heinz, P.O. Box 57, Pittsburgh, PA 15230-0057.
For further inspiration, cyber types can check out the burger variations at the Searchable Online Archive of Recipes (soar.berkeley.edu/recipes/burgers/indexall.html.)
If you’ve got a great original idea for a burger, Sutter Home Winery’s annual Build a Better Burger Recipe Contest boasts a $10,000 grand prize. Entry deadline is Aug. 31; for rules, visit www.sutterhome.com or send a stamped, self-addressed, business-size envelope to Build a Better Burger Rules, Sutter Home Winery, 303 Green Island Road, American Canyon, CA 94589.
Apple Opie?
You can bet Aunt Bea fed Andy plenty of burgers back in Mayberry, but what else do you suppose they ate?
“The Best of Mayberry,” by Betty Conley Lyerly — a home economist in Mount Airy, N.C., the actual hometown of Andy Griffith — includes more than 600 time-tested recipes ranging from Snappy Cheese Balls to Coca-Cola Roast to Hawaiian Sunset Cake.
Lyerly will sign books and offer food samples Sunday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main.
Like they say in Mount Airy: “Eat ‘til it ouches you!”
Fin dining
Creative seafood recipes are being sought for the annual cook-off at the Washington State Seafood Festival (also known as OysterFest) in Shelton.
Professional and amateur finalists in three categories — main dish, soups and stews, and appetizers — will be selected to compete at the October festival. Top prize is $400.
Entries must include amateur/professional status, category, complete recipe (including preparation time), name, address and telephone number, on regular-sized paper. Send by Aug. 15 to Bob Rogers, 200 SE Mermaid Lane, Shelton, WA 98584; for information, call (360) 426-1754.
Hole-y cow!
If you’re not doing anything this weekend, head over to Mattoon, Ill., where Lender’s is making a bid for the Guinness record book by baking the world’s largest bagel: a 650-pound blueberry behemoth.
Look for it next to the world’s largest container of cream cheese.