Mustard Burgers and the Great Outdoors

I’ve never really been the outdoors type. That’s to say, I’m not an outdoor sportsman. Now I like the outdoors and could play football and baseball the live long day. But I’m talking about hunting, fishing and camping. Never really been my bag.

Hunting is more like ambushing. You hide in a tree and wait on whatever it is you're “hunting” to walk by and you shoot at it. I don’t really see any game in that. Even things up a bit. Get on the ground and give the animal a weapon too.

I’ve never really cared to own a gun for recreational purposes. Now when I was a young boy, I had an air rifle like every other young boy did and I shot at my share at birds and squirrels but never actually hit one. I was pretty good at terrorizing the neighborhood cats with it though.

We even got the great idea to have “gang wars” with them. Yes, we actually shot at each other. I got hit in the chest once and the BB lodged under my skin. Of course, after a trip to the doctor to have it removed, I never participated the wars again.

My friends in high school would get up on Saturday mornings at dark thirty and sit in a stand in wait for ambushing Bambi. I was invited to partake a few times but, after playing four quarters of football and going to the victory dance after the game on Friday night, I only wanted to sleep til noon Saturday.

My one and only experience with hunting was an afternoon I spent in the woods with two friends who were tracking deer. We were all armed with shotguns, my borrowed. We, unbeknown to us, ended up on someone else’s property and came across said property’s owner who was armed as well.

He was a crotchety ole coot and threatened to shoot us if we didn’t get off his land immediately. One of my companions, feeling bold behind his own gun, told the man he couldn’t shoot but one of us. Of course, I, being the largest of the three, was the best target and my heart sunk.

The ole man, who had more sense than we gave him credit for, thought better of shooting any of us and taking the chance of the other two returning fire and just escorted us off the property.

Now fishing. Fishing is waiting. Waiting takes patience. I have more patience now that I’m a father but when I was younger I had none. I lived by the old creed “hurry up and wait.”

Needless to say, with my lack of patience, I didn’t care too much for fishing either. I did go a few times but became bored with it very easily. The one time I did enjoy going was to a friend’s granddaddy’s farm where he fed the fish off the dock right before we cast our lines and the fish virtually jumped onto the dock with us.

Camping. Another activity I took part in a few times but never really enjoyed. Why does a person sleep in a tent on the hard ground with bugs biting them all night when they can stay in a nice, climate controlled room and sleep in a soft bed and not worry about bugs?

We used to sleep out in the backyard quite a bit when I was a boy. But I couldn’t wait for the sun to come up so I could get inside and bathe and get in my own bed.

The summer after I graduated from high school, I got talked into going on a camping/fishing trip with a couple of buddies. We loaded for bear with fishing gear, camping gear and coolers full of cold beverages and food, including a couple of pounds of ground beef from Tommy’s, a corner store which, until it switched over to a clothing store, had “The Best Meats In Town.”

We arrived at West Point Lake over in Troup County, secured a campsite and set up our gear for the weekend. A group next to us was water skiing and invited my friends to join in. I was told that, because of my size, the boat was probably not powerful enough to pull me out of the water.

It was just a small craft. I probably needed a tug boat.

Anywho, the boys, who had never water skied before, had a good time while I sat back at the camp wondering what in the heck I was doing there.

By nightfall, I had convinced my pals that this was not a good idea and they gave in to my pleas and we broke camp and went and found a motel room but pledged to at least come back the next morning to do some fishing.

At the hotel room, we began to get hungry and, since we had all that meat from Tommy’s, decided to break out the Coleman stove and cook up some burgers and, for some reason, I was chosen to be the chef. I can’t cook a lick. The best thing I make is reservations.

But I did my best impression of Emeril and whipped up a dish often imitated but never duplicated…the mustard burger. Gonzo’s greasy mustard burger to be exact.

My buddies who partook of this culinary delight so named it because, in high school, my nickname was Captain Gonzo and it was greasy and full of mustard.

I put the ground beef in a pan, doused it with Worcestershire sauce and French’s yellow mustard, and scrambled it in butter. It was kind of like a Sloppy Joe but loaded with mustard.

I thought it was pretty tasty. Not sure about the boys though. But they were hungry and ate it.

After a night of consuming the burgers as well as all the beverages we brought, we didn't make it back to the lake the next morning, opting instead to head home.

I was never invited to hunt, camp, fish or cook ever again.