Living Dangerously: Burgers with Chefitude

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Weston Ochse is a former intelligence officer and special operations soldier who has engaged enemy combatants, terrorists, narco smugglers, and human traffickers. His personal war stories include performing humanitarian operations over Bangladesh, being deployed to Afghanistan, and a near miss being cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His fiction and non-fiction has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, The New York Post, The Financial Times of London, and Publishers Weekly. The American Library Association labeled him one of the Major Horror Authors of the 21st Century. His work has also won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. A writer of more than 26 books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. His military sci fi series, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war. Weston likes to be called a chaotic good paladin and challenges anyone to disagree. After all, no one can really stand a goody two-shoes lawful good character. They can be so annoying. It's so much more fun to be chaotic, even when you're striving to save the world. You can argue with him about this and other things online at Living Dangerously or on Facebook at Badasswriter. All content of this blog is copywrited by Weston Ochse.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Burgers with Chefitude - Sonoita

I love burgers.

Who doesn't, right?

But I also like a whole lot of other things. I've had two burgers this year. One was homemade from

lamb...awesome. The other was at the Haunted Hamburger in Jerome and was absolutely unremarkable. So when I saw a review of a burger place in Sonoita (a place I love) by GallivantingGirl called All Hail the Perfect Burger, I was intrigued. Then when I saw that I could make the burger a bison burger, I was excited. Then when I saw that you could order a burger and not know what's going to be on it, I was pretty dead on freaking excited. I had to do it.

Then came the call from the pops. He and mom and my kid brother were going to come down and spend a few days with us. All I did was connect the dots, so yesterday, we drove to Sonoita and arrived at the ubiquitously named "The Cafe." Here's their website. Their motto is Fresh Attitude, Fresh Food, Experience Chefitude.

About the place. They have wine. They have beer. It's in Sonoita. They have burgers and other things to eat. They have wine. Oh, I said that already. Wine prices were very affordable, especially with the local wines.

Wife's chicken curry soup and Black and Blue Burger

So what did we order? My lovely wife had the black and blue burger because of her love affair with blue cheese. Instead of fries, she substituted for the curry chicken soup. My mom had the black and blue burger as well but she caved in on the fries, although she barely touched them. I might have rescued a few from the dispenser with help from my brother, who had a green chili cheese burger.

My dad and I were the brave ones. We both ordered APE Burgers. We told them we didn't have any allergies. My dad said not too spicy. I said no peanut butter and jelly. Then the waitress left and I noticed a worried look on my dad's face.

"What is it?"

Close-up of wife's Black and Bleu Burger

Me telling them not to use PB&J made him worried that he should have said the same. "If they serve the burger with peanut butter and jelly I'm sending it back."

I smiled and said, "As you should," all the while secretly hoping they would.

Then the burgers came. All were cooked perfectly.

My father was served a Cordon Bleu Burger. Atop the half pound of 80/20 ground beef he had a piece of ham and chicken wrapped in cheese. With the addition of a garlic aoili it was magnificent.

Then I was served a PB&J Burger. No. Just kidding. I was actually served a burger with bacon, brie and green apple atop a medium rare bison burger. With the addition of siracha mayo and ketchup, this was the best burger I can remember eating. I'm not saying it's the best burger ever, but it's on that list for sure. Somewhere definitely in the top five.

Highly recommend you all go out there. You will not be disappointed. Burgers are a little spendy, but then you're paying for truly terrific ingredients and...chefitude!