Hamburger Heart

Dignity, hope, and love from your hands and knees.

Author: David

  • Restaurant Order: Steak

    Restaurant Order: Steak

    This one’s pretty easy. Most table service restaurants have some sort of beef slab on the menu. Cuts like prime rib, ribeye, T-bone, porterhouse, and NY strip are high in fat. Steaks are usually served with a couple sides, and there are typically a couple low-carb choices, such as a side salad sans any high carb ingredients like croutons (use a high fat dressing like ranch). Pictured is a side of coleslaw that is fairly heavy in vinegar and not too much sugar.

    If you’re worried about the dangers of red meat, just beware that eating beef on a ketogenic diet is very different from eating beef with carbohydrates in combination. Do take care to mind your portion sizes. Beef steak runs between 50-80 calories per ounce, and you can assume about a tablespoon of butter used in preparation. Avoid sides like corn, potato, rice, noodles, beans, etc.

  • I’ve Published

    I’ve Published

    It’s been two years in the making and I can’t believe that I’m such a big slacker, but you can now order a copy of my book. Within the next few weeks I’ll also make Hamburger Heart available on Kindle and record the audiobook version. The most difficult thing about this whole process was the level of introspection required to write the story about what already happened in my life, of which I am now doubly over. I highly doubt I will ever make enough money to recover the costs, but thankfully, I wrangled my manuscript until I felt like having it printed.

    Hamburger Heart on Amazon.com

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GTMBS88M

    I’ll be posting some snippets and profiles of the personalities in my book. For everyone that was waiting, thank you for your support. I’ll reach out to the folks I have a signed copy for, but I certainly won’t hold it against you if you order another copy anyway. I receive a couple bucks from the sale of each paperback so I won’t be complaining. In the coming weeks I’ll also publish for Kindle and record the audiobook version.

    Oh, and one more thing. The people mentioned in my book are referred to by generic nicknames. There are many people that are just as important to me as the ones in my novel that I chose not to write about because I limited talking about other people to the ones I felt were essential to telling the intended story of Hamburger Heart. I also hired a trusted editor to evaluate the fairness of my representation of the people in my book. Don’t worry, Hamburger Heart is no diss track.

    Oh, and there are some pictures in the back. I know some of you just need to know and that’s okay too.

  • Restaurant Order: Chick-fil-A Cobb Salad

    This one’s pretty easy: the Cobb salad minus the roasted corn, minus the crispy peppers, with grilled nuggets, with two avocado lime ranch dressings, add black pepper. It’s honestly a whole meal at just over 900 calories. You can play a little bit with the ingredients or drop one of the two 310 calorie dressings.

    Beware, the diet lemonade/tea at Chick-fil-A is NOT sugar free – it’s just reduced sugar/carbs. They do offer Coke Zero and other products for a carb-free beverage.

  • Author’s Proof Ordered

    Author’s Proof Ordered

    I ordered the first print, a proof so I can check out what the book will look like in production. If everything goes smoothly, I might make a few changes to the manuscript, go to print, and start taking orders for my book next Friday. I’ll start marketing the book in earnest once people can actually order a copy.

    I will, at some point, order myself a stack of books to do autographs and short messages to ship out. A couple places will be getting a signed copy, mostly places that helped me with making this book happen – an editor, my coworking spot, a bar in the Colorado Rockies, my first cardiac rehab facility, a couple cardiologists, etc.

    What I’d really like to say is that I’m looking forward to turning away from focusing so much on myself through the creative process, but it seems that something similar will continue in my marketing efforts. Hopefully it’ll be a much less narrow focus on myself as we go along.

  • Restaurant Order: Breadless Cheesesteak

    Restaurant Order: Breadless Cheesesteak

    One of my go-to restaurant orders on keto, wherever a decent cheesesteak was offered, is the breadless cheesesteak. Arguably, the most critical part of a cheesesteak, especially a Philly cheesesteak, is the roll. While diehards will insist on the OG Amoroso’s hearth-baked Italian roll, any thin crust, pan-less sandwich roll serves as the main interface that connects you with the heart of the meal. So how is it without the bread?

    My home bar is pretty used to preparing this order. One Philly cheesesteak with everything in it, no bread, add lettuce and tomato. Steamed veggies for the side. And sometimes I’ll try another topping like the sliced avocado in the photo (my server said they got in a really good batch).

    How is it without the bread? It’s not as good! But it’s still quite satisfying. I enjoy eating this with a fork, especially with the mushrooms, peppers, and onions cooked into the meat, it feels like a homecooked meal.

  • Nearing Publishing

    Nearing Publishing

    I’ve completed my final creative draft and accept all of the literary errors and shortcomings of my work. Every time I read through the draft, I make about 60 changes and I still feel that I have some copyediting to do. I’m confident in the overall structure of the novel although I don’t believe most readers will understand the choices I made to the structure later in the book.

    Still, I think the experience is complete. I’m navigating the world of self-publishing and am horrified to find that the industry of unique book identification is a monopoly. I’m somewhat mortified to learn that if I want to self-publish without random and odd restrictions, it’ll cost me a couple hundred dollars for a 13-digit identifier number and for one company to store just a little metadata in their database for books.

    They weren’t kidding when they said that freedom isn’t free. The good news is that Amazon and Ingram will give you a free ISBN that you can only use with them, so there’s that. I’m looking forward to having a reader find something worthwhile in my story. This is a work that has been two years in the making so I’ll try not to delay any further.

  • Website

    Website

    Put together a WordPress site today. I’ll be using it to market my book and talk a little bit about both the book itself and the journey around editing and publishing, as well as to reach out to any potential readers. I’ve just finished my second draft of the novel and I can really feel the missing and disconnected stories, as well as the problematic character introductions where I talk briefly about a person that is very important to me, but not necessarily for the story or the reader.

    I hope to have this thing published before the summer of 2026, so here’s to leaving evidence of my previous thinking to be held against me at a later date.