Cheese, beef (albeit a bit burnt) and the American way

It was our first time grilling hamburgers. A pair of sophomore boys might not be ready to take on chef Gordon Ramsay, but we weren’t going to let our lacking of cooking experience stop us —  we had a mission. A mission to make the most delicious, mouth-watering holy hamburgers known to mankind for the judges in order to win the newspaper cooking competition.

Not knowing how to turn on the grill and clean it started us off on the wrong foot. Enlisting the help of an adult trustee (Mrs. Albert) to get the show going, we waited 10 minutes for the grill to preheat and cleaned it off with scrubbers. Then it was time to get cooking.

However, we had no idea how to grill a hamburger.

After discussing a solid plan to begin, we decided to ramp up the heat on the grill and unwrap from the tray the delicious Sirloin beef patties Mrs. Albert so generously provided for us. We tossed the patties onto the grill, but to our disappointment, some of them got slightly burned because they were too close to the flames.

After the rough start, we decided to get our act together. We were going to win this competition. 

We flipped the crispy burned patties after five minutes on one side, and topped them off with cheddar cheese. About a minute later, the cheese melted onto the burger creating a mouthwatering aroma around the grill. We looked in despair at the patties we would never be able to consume, because they had to be saved for the judges. 

After removing the patties from the grill and placing them on the delicious hamburger buns, we were ready to present our masterpiece to the judges. 

Sadly, they did not appreciate the effort we put into our scrumptious cheeseburgers as much as we did, and we received a score of 49 out of 100, which placed us second to last. We came to the conclusion that the other teams had bribed the judges. Only we could treasure the gorgeousness of our American delicacy.

After grilling cheeseburgers for the first time and the less-than-generous critique, we realized that what counts is the love put into creating it and not the judgements of others. It is safe to say that our cheeseburgers should have won, and the judges were clearly biased.