Burger and Pie *batteries not included (#89)

For the next movie on our list, my guests voted on *batteries not included. I had never actually seen this movie before so I had to do a little Googling to pick my theme. Without giving any spoilers, the main story revolves around an old diner that a developer wants to destroy and build over, but the tenants refuse to leave. This made the theme pretty straight forward. I decided to have diner food. Based on pictures that I found online, I saw a few references to hamburgers and pie, so those became the focal parts of the meal. Having now seen the movie, I think I made the right choices, but there are other food items you can include if you want. Hot dogs and milkshakes also make a brief appearance in the film.

I don't have any recipes for you this month. The food was pretty straight forward. I cooked the burgers diner style on my flat top, stove-top grill that I bought from Steelmade a few years ago just like I did for Footloose. I really love using this thing when I am grilling for movie nights. I cooked 12 burgers yesterday and it helps to be able to cook several at once and make them fresh. Yes, I could have put them on a baking sheet and cooked them in the oven, but I swear to you there is a big difference in flavor and quality. Plus, the griddle retains flavor the same way that a cast iron skillet does. 

I used frozen burger patties that I already had in the freezer. Six of these came from a Butcherbox order that I had received. Butcherbox beef is always high quality, lean, hormone-free, grass-fed delicious meat. My other six patties were lower quality, cheap frozen patties from the grocery store. I knew they wouldn't be as good, and I also knew that my stovetop grill retains flavoring, so I cooked the high quality meat before the lower quality meat. I seasoned each premade patty with kosher salt and pepper on both sides. They came out really good. As the cook, I was one of the last ones to eat, so I got one of the cheaper burgers, but I was surprised that it didn't taste cheap at all. It was still a good burger. I credit a lot of that to the way that it was cooked. I have definitely had those same patties cooked in a frying pan and they didn't come out half as good.

For the pies, I made one cherry and one mixed berry. A guest also brought a key-lime pie. I won't share the recipes for mine, because I struggle to make pies that hold their form. Once I figure that out, I will be sure to share the recipe with you all.

Before dinner, I put a playlist on that was playing classic jukebox songs. There were references to a few classic artists in the film as well like Fred Astaire and another whose name I forget now. Playing jukebox songs makes sense for this film, but I would suggest focusing on 50s or 60s songs. Even thought the movie is from the eighties, the main characters are elderly and the diner definitely has an older vibe.

Overall, the night was success. The movie was more emotional than I expected, but it was good story and we all seemed to enjoy it. Having a diner theme was the perfect choice for this film as well.