"Carrero's Italian Sausage", Industrial Park, Chester New York

I spent the last week wondering where I would find a spot to write my first blog entry. Figuring if I wanted to find a really good burger and start this thing with a bang, I'd have to travel a great distance. I've lived in a small town in Orange County NY for most of my life. There's NOTHING good to eat around here, for sure. After coming to this assumption, little did I expect that the next day I'd end up putting my foot in my mouth as well as an awesome belly bomb of a burger.

In the town of Chester NY, there is an industrial park which employs a majority of it's residents. I did time in the industrial park when I was done with high school. The long hours and heavy lifting take a lot out of you. Some of the warehouses are constantly above 100 degrees, and some others keep a constant temperature of below freezing. There is no balance working in these places. I remember the days where the warehouse supervisors would call for a 30 minute lunch and I would literally have to scramble and drive like a bat out of hell out to town to get in line at the local McDonalds and spend most of my lunch break ordering something that I never really wanted to eat. Sure, I could have just brought lunch with me, but who really wants to make something to eat at five in the morning?

Five years after my tenure in the park ends, at the entrance to it, now stands a truck. A food truck. Sure, in New York a food truck is a common sight, and many people from outside the state reading this are not going to understand why a food truck is such a big deal. What they don't get is that yes, in New York you can find a food truck every 2 blocks. But that's only in the city. Drive more than 20 minutes north of it and you will find a barren wasteland of fast food and chain restaurants.

On this truck's menu you will find your typical meals on wheels menu. They offer rib eye cheese steak sandwiches, knish's, hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, all of which get slathered with caramelized peppers and onions. The truck is called "Carrero's Italian Sausage", a signature item of the truck. Talking with the cook (owner?) he informs me have all of their breads baked fresh, their sausage fresh ground to their own specifications, as well as their ground beef. Ground beef?! What for? I didn't see any ground beef dishes on the menu, or the flat top! Turns out they have a burger. Not something they really advertise due to the small truck, limited flat top space, and hoards of laborers that arrive during their lunch hour looking for their fill. But it's a burger for crying out loud. It can't really take up that much room on a flat top, right?

 Wrong

After I put in my order it started getting it. The cook opens his cooler, takes out a hand full of their own ground, 80-20 grind, beef. I immediately started thinking "damn, this is gonna be a good burger. Fresh ground beef, you can't beat that". What I didn't expect though, was him to put down three different, hand smashed burger patties. 

 

Not expecting to see three separate patties put down, I reminded the cook that I only ordered one. "This is for one" he said with a grin as he poured a ladle of clarified butter of each of them. Clarified butter?! I was both amazed, disgusted, and worried about my heath all within the same few seconds. OK, so I'm lying about the health part, but Clarified butter? Really? I've flipped and tossed many a burgers in my time in the culinary field, but adding butter to a burger? I'm stealing that idea.

So after he flips the burgers he puts down a Vienna roll and allows it to toast up a bit while he begins to assemble. On the bottom is a burger, which is then followed by a layer of perfectly caramelized onions and peppers. Then another burger and another layer. Finally the last burger patty is placed on top, and then covered in the trucks own recipe of liquid cheese.

 With the top bun placed, it was wrapped up and I was charged $5.50. A really modest price for such a decadent burger. Carrero's doesn't have any benches or seats outside of it, which kinda doesn't surprise me, seeing as how most clientele have to go back to work, so I took my burger for the long ride. The ride home wasn't an easy one. Those onions and cheese have the kind of aroma that goes up your nose and starts to punch all of your senses at once. If I didn't just buy a new car, I would have pulled over and ate it roadside.

   I arrived home five long minutes later, put the burger down, cracked open a Red Bull (the good die young), and began to peel away at the foil wrapper which had begun to adhere with a cheesy glue. Why someone would choose a wrapper like foil for a burger like this is beyond me. You have to take a second a applaud the golden arch for being smart enough to use boxes for their larger burgers. I finally hoisted up the pound of artery clogging goodness and took a bite.

It all made sense. When you have a burger that is assembled like a game of Jenga, you need the layers to all have their own flavor and still manage to come together. The burger managed to achieve that. After the first bite, I knew why the cook didn't use ketchup. The onions and peppers are so perfectly rendered that they basically become their own condiment. The cheese is melty and the burgers, although cooked all the way through, are still juicy keeping everything a pleasant mess. Each bite into this monster is a challenge. Where do you start? I found myself looking for different angles to approach the sandwich with, because a straight on attack could be jaw breaking.

So while the cheese, onions, and peppers stayed amazing, I found myself missing something. The patty's were indeed juicy, but lacking a bit in flavor. If I ground my own meat, I'd want that to shine through. They were thinner than you would get on your average burger, which makes it look like a more gigantic sandwich, but I think having the three patties separated into layers like that allowed them to get a little lost amidst all the toppings. This is however just a mere observation, and in no way a sandwich breaker.

"Carrero's Italian Sausage" is a food truck that while specializing in sausage, delivers what is one of the best burgers I have been able to find within 10 miles of the town of Chester. The truck has a good thing going for it, with a fantastic location and amazing menu that a lot of hard working people down the road are able to appreciate 5 days a week. Their triple Decker burger may not be heavily advertised on the truck, but don't hesitate to order one, and watch in amazement as this mammoth is assembled before your eyes.With their amazing, filling and economically priced food, this is a spot you just can't afford to miss.

Verdict: Perfect quick lunch stop for a carnivore. Not in the mood for a burger? Then try the stuffed knish. You won't regret it.

So, where to begin?

You can go out and get a hamburger just about anywhere. Go out with someone to a fancy steak house, and there is pretty much guaranteed to be a burger on the menu. Go around the corner and there's a gigantic food factory hiding under a golden arch slinging the things a million miles a second. Up the road? Chain restaurants claiming to have the "freshest" and "realest" burgers when all they're really selling are ground beef hockey pucks hiding under a coating of their proprietary seasoning. Snack stands at baseball games sell them, food trucks street side sell them, every dad having a backyard BBQ has them handy, even pizzerias have them on the menu. Why? For the most part it's because they're cheap, a comfort food, and when large parties go out to eat there is usually someone looking at the menu who doesn't know what they want or doesn't feel like anything, so they say "oh well, I'll just have a burger".

 They tend to look like this.

For the longest time, I was that guy. I grew up eating them at diners with my grandparents, and restaurants with my parents. As I got older, I kinda kept up the habit. As time went on I accidentally fell into the culinary world, and my tastes grew. I started learning about foods: sauces, meats, vegetables, wines, cheeses, and so on and so forth.  So when this education in food started, the last thing I ever though of was just a basic burger. "Heh, kids stuff".

Fast forward five years later.

I work in a resort now where I have access to any kind of food I can put my mind on. If I can think it up, I can cook it and eat it. Well, not always eat it. Sometimes, being surrounded by all of those fancy, expensive foods and sauces you get a little... bored. You get tired of it. Yes, theoretically it would take years, even a lifetime, to try everything under the sun. But when you think about all of the work involved, the time it takes, the getting it just right, and did I mention the time it takes? I find myself, when hungry, sitting with one thought: "Man, I could really just go for a burger". 

It's a food I grew up eating, and a food I love. But the problem I find is that most places, at least where I've been, take absolutely no pride in their burgers. As much as I love them, it seems the people making them can't stand'em! They're a throwaway ticket. Something they can take out of the freezer, throw on a flat top or grill, and forget about until its gotta go on the bun to be served. Now I say "most" places, because there are a few places I run into every now and again that have a burger that actually grabs my attention. Sometimes I take a bite and my brain has me snap back and look at what I'm eating. "Wow, something's different here. In a good way. What is it?

That's what I would like to do with this blog. Find the places that are taking one of my favorite foods and doing it right, doing it different, but not necessarily "well" (I prefer my burgers rather pink, thank you). I'm hoping to use this as a space to blog about the joints I went to, the food I got. What's great and not so great. 

Sure, this won't be the first burger blog ever written, and sure as shit not the last. But, hell, I live in New York! A prime area for some of the greatest eats around, right? We'll see.....