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Creating a winning burger
(by Daniel O'Keefe - June 04, 2008)
Inspiration drawn from gyro
Misha Seo of Lyndhurst found out last week a recipe of hers is going to be included in a cookbook that will benefit kids that aren’t as lucky as she is.
The seven-year-old’s recipe is for a Gyro Burger, a culinary invention created by her and her mother. The recipe is one of 50 chosen out of over 10,000 entries to be featured in a hamburger cookbook being released by the chain restaurant Red Robin. The recipes are all invented by children ages six to 12 and proceeds from its sale go towards benefiting the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Of the top 50 included in the book, the winning burger, the "Au Brie Burger a la Francais" created by a 12-year-old from San Diego, CA will be featured in Red Robin restaurants around the country.
So what’s so special about Seo’s burger? It’s really yummy, especially if you like Gyros, says Seo. It’s a hamburger patty on a pita with lettuce tomato and tzatziki sauce, the traditional Greek yogurt and cucumber sauce that goes on gyros. However, the secret to the burger is inside the patty: bacon and feta cheese are mixed in with the beef.
Also featured in the book are several recipes from child celebrities.
"And the kid who turned into a blueberry [in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory]," adds Seo.
Seo enjoys cooking with her mother. Their culinary collaborations run the gamut from cookies and muffins to sushi and dumplings. Seo’s mother is encouraging her older daughter to sell the cookies she bakes online this summer as an experiment in running her own small business.
Secret to Mishsa’s burgers:
Seo comes from a diverse background. Her mother is of Korean and Japanese heritage. Her father is Chinese, but he was born in Cuba and lived there until he was five. Along with Seo’s two older siblings, Mian and Joshua, both students at Lyndhurst High School, the family has lived in Lyndhurst for 18 years. Seo’s father works at PSE&G and her mother is trained to be a dentist. However, lately she’s stayed at home in order to do the full-time job of raising her three children.
Seo comes from a diverse background. Her mother is of Korean and Japanese heritage. Her father is Chinese, but he was born in Cuba and lived there until he was five. Along with Seo’s two older siblings, Mian and Joshua, both students at Lyndhurst High School, the family has lived in Lyndhurst for 18 years. Seo’s father works at PSE&G and her mother is trained to be a dentist. However, lately she’s stayed at home in order to do the full-time job of raising her three children.
And with a schedule as crowded as Seo’s, it’s not surprising. Last week she auditioned for a part in the upcoming sequel to the Transformers movie released last summer.
"I was a little nervous at first, but it was fun," she says. "The kids in my class were like, ‘Are you going to be in Transformers?’" Seo had to audition without a script, since the studio maintains a certain amount of secrecy. She isn’t even supposed to give an account of what she had to act out for the audition.
It’s not the first movie she’s auditioned for. She even had a role in an independent film called "Tea and Justice." Being five at the time, Seo had to learn lines without even knowing how to read. She’s also been in several TV shows, such as "Sesame Street," Nickelodeon’s "Nick Jr." shorts and the cable television program "Jack’s Big Music Show."
"I had to talk to an orange monster," she said about "Sesame Street." Orange monsters aside, she’s also had to perform a variety of different parts in which she’s acted, told jokes, sung and even danced. An avid fan of Shakira, Misha likes dancing ballet, hip hop and jazz, though belly-dancing is her favorite. Just last week she performed her belly-dancing at the NJN Hispanic Youth Showcase at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.
When she isn’t performing on the stage or screen, Seo is a second grader at Lyndhurst’s Lincoln School. Her favorite classes are gym and art and she’s fond of reading and writing.
As for what she’d like to do when she grows up: the same thing she’s doing now. She’d like to be an actress or a dancer. How many people can say that at seven they had already started doing what they imagined doing when they grew up?
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