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Onion roll, hellman's mayo, ketchup. sharp cheddar and good kosher pickle, fried onion

Soft, thick roll (brioche or low-bin restaurant bun), buttered & grilled; American cheese, lettuce, thick slices of tomato, red onion.

Kaiser roll, seasoned turkey burger topped with american cheese, sauteed onions and mushrooms, salt and pepper, lettuce tomato, ketchup and mayo...yum..

I have to say, the chopped olives intrigue me.

I'm not fussy about my cheeseburgers, but my favorite way is the old Friendly's "setup" way - a hamburger patty grilled and then inserted into a white-bread yellow American grilled cheese, with nothing but ketchup as a condiment. Wait, does bacon count as a condiment?

Fancy-schmancy burger: coarse ground sirloin, grilled rare, on a toasted ciabatta roll from LaBrea bakery. Topped with smooshes of Oregonzola, a couple strips of Nueske's bacon, sautéed Walla Wallas and a thin schmear of chipolte mayo mixed with chopped green olives.
Basic goody gut-bomb: good chuck formed into the thinnest patty, heavily salt & peppered, quickly fried. Add some onions to the pan, top the burgers with American to maximize the melty-cheesiness, and pile the whole drippy mess onto squishy white buns dressed with Nalley's horseradish mustard and bread & butter pickles. If it's tomato season, throw on a slice or two and call it good.

Roll, either standard or English muffin. Beef: Angus, rare if I am making it or know the restaurant well, medium rare if I don't. Blue cheese with bacon and sauteed onion, or cheddar/American with raw onion and pickle. Best topped burger I ever had was the Mooseburger (not moose) with provolone, mushrooms, onion, and special sauce. It was in VT or NH, can't remember--my Home of the Mooseburger t-shirt is at the laundry!

Honest ta' Murgatroid, I did not see that coming. ;-)

I mix my seasonings into the ground beef (medium amount fat content), sauteeing the chopped onions first. Add sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, lots of it. Toast a ciabbata roll or whole wheat English muffin in the pan with olive oil, then sear the burger, flipping then covering. Reduce heat, cook a few minutes, flip again, cook a minute or two, then place on bun and eat. No toppings, just seasoned beef and bun.

A nice thick patty (mixed with Worchestershire sauce, salt/pepper, sometimes a tiny bit of chili sauce), topped with cheese (Muenster, often), balsamic grilled portobella mushrooms and onions, bacon, and a tomato on a standard sesame seed bun. Or I like a good burger topped with avocados and pico de gallo on two slices of a good crusty bread.

My burger of choice is a quarter pound of 85/15, grilled medium. Serve it on a grilled onion roll, with bacon, bleu cheese, horseradish mayo, catsup and carmelized onions, plus a couple of tomato slices if they are in season in my garden.

Those of you who specified "angus" beef have got to be kidding if you think you can tell the difference in the flavor of meat between Angus and other breeds of beef cattle. I grew up on a cattle ranch and I can tell you that there is NO difference. There may be slight differences between individual cattle depending on age, health and diet. However, Angus beef's supposed superiority is simply a marketing ploy. The vast majority of the beef sold as "angus" beef is actually crossbred Hereford and Angus cattle. A wider gene pool is better for the herd and the individual cattle. In botany they call that concept "hybrid vigor."

Zabar's is now selling pre-sliced Danish bleu cheese...seems perfect for a burger.

OK, the disclaimer to Angus is mostly untrue, rather than true. We raised our own steers for a while, and one of the most important determiners of flavor is the feed that the cattle are raised and finished with. This also helps determine how lean or fat they are. To that end, grass fed steers taste a bit gamier than those who are finished with corn or a mixture. But there is an important caveat to all of this: to wit, bison, oxen, elk, and genuine Angus taste quite different than do most domestic cattle breeds, even when raised on a pure grass diet -- their meat is leaner, yet quite flavorful and relatively tender. The more that cattle run or graze over wider territories (like in the movies where they would herd them to the stockyards over hundreds of miles or more) the tougher the meat.

So saying that Angus taste like any other beef is false, but conditions do amplify or improve the final result. Why is Angus specifically different? It's because the Scots bred the Angus from hybrid stock to begin with, they are part old European zebu buffalo and more modern cattle strains. If you have ever actually seen Angus bulls in person, the resemblance to other cattle breeds ends fairly quickly. They are big, very big. And their heads look like something halfway between bison and cattle.

Again, all that being said, there are grades of Angus, just like any other beef and perhaps low grade Angus is indistinguishable from better grades of Hereford, Limousin (which I also like), et al, but a good cut of Angus can be easily taste tested as different from an equal cut of the others.

Let's face it, if all cattle tasted the same, or provided the same quality of meet, then they would all sell for the same price per pound, which they never have, even before the "marketing ploys" of the last decade. That is why dairy cattle are rarely the choice for meat, and why the Japanese can get $100 a pound for Kobe beef -- and yes, again, how they feed and prepare the beef is critically important.

There are many of my friends who cannot taste the difference between
ground chuck and sirloin, too. And those who cannot appreciate the difference between a Grand Cru Bordeaux and a low price bottle of California Pinot (don't get me wrong, there are some extraordinarily good California Pinots -- I live in the Central Coast!) but that does not mean that others cannot tell the difference or even recognize by taste the origins and identities of what they drink or eat.

Bon Appetite!