There's nothing like doing research for a burger round-up to prove that far more interesting options abound than that well-publicicized "Two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions-on-a-sesame-seed-bun."

Over the past few weeks, I've eaten a multitude of burgers, shakes, sodas and fried sides for today's cover story for Ticket -- an expanding-pants-sizeable effort that gave me a chance to visit my old fast-food standby (Dick's), longtime favorites (Red MIll, Two Bells), a soon-to-close Happy Hour-honoree (Cascadia), and one fan-freakin-fabulous newbie (Lunchbox Laboratory).

First, I downed this beaut at Two Bells:

About two weeks ago, a well-connected restaurateur sent me an e-mail asking, "What's up with Vessel?"
Rumor had it the high-end cocktail lounge in Seattle's historic Skinner Building was going to close.

Vessel -- famous for its decor, its ice cubes and a disdain for vodka, just named among the "Best Bars in America" by Esquire magazine, home to Seattle Magazine's "Best Bartender" Jamie Boudreau, imported from Lumiere in Vancouver, B.C. -- closing?

Kelly Adams, from Olympia, writes:

"A couple of years ago, my brother raised two dairy cows for butcher. My husband and I bought one while my brother and his wife kept the other. This meat has made the most amazing, lean, flavorful hamburger you can ask for. The roasts have been fantastic when braised and the stew meat wonderful. What we have had trouble using have been the steaks; they have great flavor but lack tenderness. We are looking for great ways to use the mountain of steaks in our freezer before they get past the point of no return. We have discussed making sausage and pepperoni but that sounds like a colossal job. Do you have any other groovy ideas?"

Today in the Seattle Times, you'll find CeCe Sullivan's last "Cooking School" -- a story and video presentation:

It's great fun to watch that video, and see CeCe in her element -- the Seattle Times test kitchen -- explaining how to make glorious, colorful Dutch Baby pancakes. Or at least it would be if I wasn't going to miss her so much.

Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid don't just write cookbooks, they take you on an extraordinary voyage to places you never knew you wanted to see -- then make you so much better for having seen them. Reading about this couple's travels, and absorbing the photographs in each of their six cookbooks, I feel as if I'm sharing their senses: seeing, tasting and smelling along with them while learning so much more than how to prepare the recipes. Their latest effort, Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China, may be their best effort yet. And that's saying a lot:

More good news? They're coming to Seattle May 22 to promote it, signing books and showing slides from the "other" China -- the one that takes us far beyond moo shu pork and General Tso's chicken -- at a Cooks & Books event to be held May 22nd at Culinary Communion.

I spent much of the weekend poring- and "peering" over Beyond the Great Wall-- when I could pry it out of my husband's hands. (Their Seductions of Rice is his favorite cookbook.) And on Sunday, I cooked from it for the first time, making Uighur Lamb Kebabs after learning that the Uighur people of Central Asia speak a Turkic language, cook over a wood or charcoal fire, and that their sheep and goats forgage in the hills and oases of Xinjiang. You can view the results, below.

Say the words "John Hinterberger" and next thing you know, someone asks for his long-loved recipe for Clam Spaghetti.

For those who'd wrinkle their noses before putting their noses in the air and saying, "Canned clams? When you can get them fresh at any market in town?" John would surely say, "Get over yourself: Life's too short! Open the can, go outside and pick some dandelion greens, toss the greens with a little good olive oil and vinegar for a salad, and you've got a great, cheap dinner."

Let me give you a Hint:

After Kathy Benson read what I had to say about cooking on the cheap, she sent an e-mail, sharing some of her favorite food-budget tips. She says she can't claim the ideas entirely as her own, since many came from her days, back in the '70s and '80s, as a production assistant on the "Seattle Today" show, which later morphed into "Northwest Today" and then "Good Company." Part of her job involved handling the mail for the show's Household Hints segment, and lo these years later, she's continued to use many of them. She writes: