It doesn't get much better than this. My dAd grilled hamburgers one night this week. We sat outside and ate them by the pool.

My dAd said this is summer: a hamburger with homegrown vine ripened tomatoes and thick cut Walla Walla sweet onions. I can't help but agree. (Then he wrote a <a href="http://wallawallalocal.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/its-finally-summer-in-the-valley-of-the-two-wallas/" target="_blank">blog post about it</a> and yes, now I am copying him. Only my pictures are better).
<a title="dAd making burgers by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801868900/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8296/7801868900_98368157a1_z.jpg" alt="dAd making burgers" width="640" height="480" /></a>
Now the thing about Walla Walla sweet onions is that they are a special breed of onion.

No, really, I am not kidding.

They grow really big. In many cases they are bigger than a softball (or a large apple). On top of this, they are sweet. Well, as sweet as an onion can be. Really what this means is that they aren't bitter and they don't make you cry when you cut or slice them. Farmers around town claim that what makes these onions special is both  the variety <em>and</em> the soil.

On a hamburger what this means is that you can have a number of big crunchy slices on your burger without being overwhelmed by the traditional white, yellow or red onion flavor. What you get is a hint of onion and a lot of crunch.<!--more-->
<a title="My burger by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801864904/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8296/7801864904_f6520c303d_z.jpg" alt="My burger" width="640" height="480" /></a>
As a total side note, I used to work at a fruit and berry stand in high school and one day a customer told me that he loved to eat Walla Walla sweets on sandwiches. Just to be polite, I asked him what his favorite sandwich for these onions was.

He told me: peanut butter and mayonnaise on rye bread with 1/2 -3/4 of a inch thick slice of Walla Walla sweet onions. The teenager in my turned my nose up at it then (and she still does). The customer must have seen the look on my face. He said: I know, I know. It doesn't sound good but it tastes great.

Years later, I'm still unconvinced. I've never tried it but I've always figured why waste perfectly good onion on peanut butter when you can put the onion on a hamburger?!

Of course, no restaurant made hamburger ever tastes as good as the hamburger you make at home (with 100% ground beef) and eat in your own backyard. I might even go as far as to say that the only thing that makes a backyard hamburger better is if it's your dAd who's made the burger.

Dads are magic like that. Or at least my dAd is.
<a title="My dAd's burger by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801861478/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7252/7801861478_db1bea0234_z.jpg" alt="My dAd's burger" width="640" height="480" /></a>
When we made our burgers, the backyard smelled of grill, the water in the pool looked bluer and more inviting than normal, the beer tasted that much better (which maybe isn't hard to do with Milwaukee's Best) and my hamburger was perfectly juicy. The kind of perfect that comes from the meat, the tomato, the melted cheese and the softening of the condiments--in my case--yellow mustard and a little mayo.
<a title="Milwaukee's Best beer by the pool by karolinka.sofia, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/7801857878/"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8295/7801857878_ab1026bc61_z.jpg" alt="Milwaukee's Best beer by the pool" width="640" height="480" /></a>
Ah, summer.

Then my dAd said: I hate that the days are getting shorter. It means we're on the downhill side of summer.

Gesh, dAd, way to ruin a moment.