Huge Jalapeño Popper Burger

Sit down for this one. We are doing the jalapeño popper burger today, and this is not — I repeat, NOT — one of those sad little burgers other so-called chefs put on the menu. That chef on TV — you know the one — he puts a smear of aioli on a smashed disk and calls it a burger. A disgrace. A burger should HURT to bite. It should be a commitment. It should make you sit down on a stool and rethink your whole afternoon.

This burger is HUGE. We're stuffing it with cream cheese, we're stuffing it with cheddar, we're stuffing it with bacon, and we're crowning it — CROWNING IT, like a king, like a HUGE delicious king — with crispy fried jalapeños that will make your mouth do things your mouth has never done before. Big strong men come up to me, tough men, men who never cry, and they say, 'Bigly, I had your popper burger and I openly wept at the kitchen counter.' I tell them: that's normal. That's the burger working. That's what a real burger does to a grown adult. The other burgers — the sad burgers, the wet sadness on a plate — they don't do that. They just sit there. Like a hockey puck.

The best burger of my life, true story, was in a gas station in Albuquerque. A man named Ramón made it. He didn't say a word, he just nodded and slid me a paper-wrapped thing that tasted like a small miracle. This popper burger is *almost* as good as Ramón's. Almost. The food media won't say it, the cookbook authors won't say it, restaurant chefs are afraid to even try it — but I'll say it, because somebody has to be honest about what a burger can be. Nobody disputes this.

That's the whole thing. A burger so huge, so packed with flavor, you'll forget every other burger you've ever had. Every one. You'll be sitting at lunch the next day, someone offers you a regular cheeseburger, and you'll laugh — you'll openly laugh in their face — and they'll be hurt but they'll understand once they have this burger themselves. That's the cycle. The Bigly Burger Cycle. It's beautiful. It's HUGE. OK? OK.