Happy National Hamburger Month! In honor of this made-up celebration of all things burger, let's get to the meat of the matter. When the weather is nice -- usually sunny, but let's be honest about where we live and include mildly foggy -- it's time to grill. And although you can get fancy on your Weber, nothing is easier or more satisfying to cook outside than an all-beef burger (unless of course you're vegetarian, in which case this post isn't for you). Plus after a winter of braises and stews, nothing inaugurates summer like a perfectly grilled burger sitting on a fluffy bun.

But not all hamburgers are made equally. There is an enormous difference between handmade burgers and the patties you find in a grocery store freezer section, which are really nothing short of inferior-grade beef hockey pucks. Plus making truly fine burgers takes only about five to ten minutes longer than preparing the frozen variety (depending on if you grind your own meat), and the time spent is well worth it. And if you're still not convinced, you can read this great piece in the New York Times called Anatomy of a Burger which details the process meat corporations go through to produce their ground meat. Just saying...

Please note that this article has nothing to do with turkey, lamb or pork burgers, and there are no discussions on toppings or condiments. No, our attention here is solely on beef patties: how to make, season and cook them. That's all. So with that in mind, let's now focus on how making a great burger is really a fairly plain and simple endeavor. Here are 10 helpful tips to keep in mind:

10 Tips for Making Great Hamburgers

1. Purchase the best meat possible. Burgers are really all about the meat, so don't skimp. Buy the best quality beef you can find. I'm not taking about filet mignon here. Rather I mean the quality of the overall beef instead of the cut. No shock to anyone who knows me, I prefer grass-fed organic beef, preferably raised locally. Environmental and health reasons aside, grass-fed beef has a more intense meaty flavor than corn-fed commercially produced meat and can stand up to the condiments you'll add later. Yes there is a price difference, but we're talking about ground beef here so instead of paying $3.99 a pound you may pay $6.99 or $7.99 a pound, which will feed a family of four. Not a bad price.

2. If you have a meat grinder then by all means take it out of the storage closet. Use a mix of sirloin and chuck. If you don't have one then be sure to purchase high-quality ground meat from the type of place where the butchers actually grind the meat on the premises and know which cuts are used.

3. Use meat that has about 15 - 20% fat (that's 80 - 85% lean on the label). Fat equals flavor in a burger. It also prevents the meat from drying out on the grill. If you want a leaner meal, then you probably shouldn't be eating a hamburger.

4. Don't include extraneous ingredients. Avoid eggs, bread crumbs and anything else that will detract from the beef flavor. These ingredients are for meatloaf, which is a fine dish but isn't a burger.

5. Keep the seasonings simple so the taste of the beef shines through. I use only salt, pepper, Worcestershire Sauce and a little onion or shallot. You can also add some chopped herbs, Dijon mustard or onion powder. And if your meat seems a little dry, add in about 1 Tbsp heavy cream for a pound of meat to add richness.

6. Don't over handle the meat as doing so toughens the burger. The meat doesn't need to be compressed into a patty for it to hold together.

7. Shape thin patties. When you cook meat, it contracts in on itself, so thickly-shaped burgers end up resembling meatballs. It's better to include two thin patties on your sandwich then one chunky burger that is unevenly cooked. You should also make your burgers a little wider than your bun as the patty will shrink in size when you cook it.

8. Press a little dimple into the center of the burger to keep it from bulging out when you cook it. As mentioned earlier, meat shrinks when it cooks and so the center has a tendency to swell in the middle. Indenting will counteract this.

9. Grill with the cover on at medium-high heat. Do not overcook. We usually barbecue our burgers for about three minutes per side for medium-rare meat and four to five minutes per side for burgers that are cooked through for the kids.

10. Don't press on your burgers while grilling them. I really can't stress this enough. If you press on your patties with a spatula you are pushing all the juices out and you're going to end up with dry burgers.

That's it. Easy right? Now if only we can convince Mother Nature to give us a sunny summer.

Last weekend, my oldest friends in the world threw a little potluck party for my birthday. While Shannon busied herself with preparing snarky party decorations, such as papering one wall with several copies of my 9th grade class photo (complete with braces and Sun-In orange hair) and supplying guests with empty thought bubbles to tape over my head, Craig took charge of the main event-- espetada. Guests were invited to bring food that I have discussed here on this website.

Fortunately, only one person followed those directions. Guests brought whatever they felt like bringing, which suited me just fine. Especially well-suited for my mood was my friend Sean's offering-- his own signature cocktail cleverly called the Thin Mint Julep. It's like eating a Girl Scout cookie followed by a slug of bourbon. It made me feel like some upper-middle class, slightly depressed den mother.

After a bit of fun, only some of which was at my expense, it was grill time. What else would you expect at a summertime party? Craig, who is half Portuguese (Azorean, to be exact), decided to make a beef dish that hails not from the Azores, but from a competing island-- Madeira.

If a lousy shrub hadn't already taken the name, I would have dubbed this beef dish The Pride of Madeira. It's that good. So I suppose the name espetada will just have to do.

Espetada lends itself to informality. Hot chunks of meat and juice-soaked crusty bread are like that. I went so far as to eat my dinner with my hands. Because, well, after a couple of Thin Mint Juleps, I'm like that.

This is just my small way of thanking Craig and Shannon and all of my fellow guests for all of their kindness. And fun. Oh, and absinthe.

I feel like one hell of a lucky guy.

Espetada

Serves 10 to 15 with an eye towards leftovers.

This Portuguese dish is the forefather of Brazilian Churrasco, which goes back to the days when Portugal was a major world player (read: a very, very long time ago.) Espetada is typically served with skewers of tomato, onion, and/or zucchini or other squashes. This preparation deals exclusively with the meat. I however, think that onion and tomato are important to the success of this dish. Especially the tomato. Rub a bit of the charred stuff on some bread which has been soaked in the meat juice. You will thank me for it, I promise.

Unless you are a vegetarian, of course.

Ingredients:

8 to 9 pounds of beef loin, cubed into 2-inch pieces.

1 whole head of garlic, chopped and ground into a rough paste

About 1 ½ cups Madeira wine (on the drier side. This is a Portuguese recipe, after all. Port, however, would be too sweet. Don't even think about using Marsala, because that's Sicilian. Besides, Sicilians aren't exactly famous for their beef dishes. Not that the Portuguese are either, but that is besides the point.)

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 cup (8 oz.) of butter, softened. Salted or unsalted.

Coarse salt. Kosher or Sea. Lots of it.

Crushed black pepper, to taste.

5 to 6 Bay Laurel* branches, ½ to ¾" in diameter and long enough to extend past the edge of your grill by 6" because you'll need a handle. Trim them of twigs and leaves; scrub them well.

1 to 2 loaves of rough country bread. Hearty is more likely the better word.

Preparation:

1. In a large, shallow baking dish, rub the cubed beef with garlic paste and crushed black pepper. Add the Madeira and olive oil to marinate. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight.

2. At least two hours prior to grilling, soak bay branches in cold water.

3. Cut a slit into each cube of meat and skewer onto branches. Cubes are allowed to touch each other. Leave about 6" on the ends of each branch meat-free, for purposes of handling the skewers when grilling time comes.

4. Once you have been liberated from the use of sharp knives, pour yourself some of the Madeira, as Craig suggests, just to keep in spirit. Drink.

5. Rub espetada generously with salt, but do not fully encrust. Cut bread into thick slices and line a large serving platter with them. Fire up your grill.

6. If you are grilling vegetable skewers as an accompaniment, grill them first, then unskewer and cover to keep warm.

7. Place your skewers 4 to 6" directly over a hot wood charcoal fire. We chose to remove the grill grate and be rather rustic. A grill grate, however, will ensure more even cooking. Rugged image or efficiency-- take your pick. Brush the meat with marinade as the mood strikes you. Cook until medium or whatever your preference. This is not, I should tell you, a rare-meat dish.

8. When meat has finished cooking, unskewer directly onto the awaiting platter of bread, covering as much surface area as possible. Dot the still-hot meat with softened butter to let it drip down the meat and soak into the bread. Let rest for about 5 minutes.

9. Devour.

*California Bay Laurel, our not-surprisingly local tree, has a much stronger flavor than European Bay Trees. As a result, the traditional rubbing of ground bay leaf into the meat has been omitted. As a fun, flora-geek side note, the California Bay Laurel, or Umbelluria californica, is also known as the Oregon Myrtle, the Pepperwood, and the Headache Tree.