I write and talk often about hurricanes. They are a part of life for coastal people, and the way the storms come and go leaving everything broken in their wake takes on a metaphorical sense for us that, I believe, strengthens us and celebrates our resiliency, our care for one another, our respect for Mother Nature, and our determination to build back up afterward—to rebuild our homes, our lives, and our personal ties with a new sense of what’s important. So for all of you living through the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, including the LuLu’s family at our new location in North Myrtle Beach, we are thinking of you and wishing you safety, love, and hope. Whether it’s a storm of water and wind or storms of a more personal nature, none of us is completely safe from the dangerous weather of life, and we can call on this shared experience to feel compassion and love for each other.
So I was supposed to write about National Cheeseburger Day, which is Tuesday. And even though we have people suffering out there I think I still will. You know me well enough by now to know that food for me is a tie that binds and a salve for what hurts. It brings comfort and nourishment. So let’s do a little cheeseburger dreaming, and if you’re not in a place where you can order up or make a Cheeseburger in Paradise right now, maybe thinking about it or singing about it or planning for it later might offer a little bit of a respite from your real-world dilemmas today.
In Gumbo Love, I mention some of my favorite burgers, and I couldn’t leave out my honest-to-goodness burger love for LuLu’s own Pa-menna Burger topped with pimento cheese, bacon, and fried green tomatoes, as well as the burger at Port of Call on Esplanade in New Orleans. I may have asked this before, but it’s been a while and on this day where we want to be forgetting a few of the storms of life and thinking about simpler, tastier things, I gotta know: What’s your favorite Cheeseburger in Paradise?
