Burgers at Rocky’s Burger Bus and Edamame
Can’t seem to quit the bread. Do you think if I strapped a bun to my arm it would work like a patch? (Yes, I twittered that yesterday.)
We kind of missed dinner tonight, having been lured to Rocky’s Burger Bus at around 2:30 this afternoon. (But listen, there was no one lined up! It’s like when you drive past a Tim Horton’s, and there’s no one in the drive-thru, so you have to go through and get a coffee just because you can.) Rocky’s is the old red transit bus half-wedged into the ground just behind Blackfoot Trail, which Jane and Michael Stern wrote about in Gourmet, and who make their burgers using actual Alberta beef and shape them gently by hand, so that they are tender and juicy and about as thick as they are wide. (Don’t order a double burger. Just don’t.) And the fries – if I am going to eat fries, I eat these. And DJs fruit and veg market, with whom they share a parking lot, is now open. (So you can ballast the burger and fries with loads of fresh fruit and veg.) We always share, to get our fix without downing an entire burger and order of fries each. And now I have to fess up that I went because there are at least two witnesses out there, who work at the Food Bank, where I stopped post-bus with mustard AND ketchup dripped down my front.
Later in the afternoon I was feeling a little low in the vegetable-fiber-vitamin department, so steamed up some edamame from the freezer. I’m never that inspired to make the stuff – it always looks freezer burnt – but it never is and I always enjoy it when I do. Edamame is the term for young fresh (or frozen) soybeans in their pods, which are easily steamed in about half an inch of water for a few minutes, then thrown into a wide dish, sprinkled with coarse salt, and eaten by half squeezing, half pulling with your teeth sort of like you do with artichoke leaves to get the beans out. (And as you do, you get the salt from the outer pod, which gets tossed.) Soybeans are legumes, and so as such a great source of fiber, protein, and other good stuff. (They also make a pretty fab hummusy sort of dip with parsley, walnuts and garlic.)
At dinnertime I strapped W into the car with a berry-banana smoothie, promised him a play at the park and we drove around the northwest delivering sourdough starter to some of those who were still waiting for their own specimens. My timing was slightly off, and I hadn’t counted on rush hour. Fortunately, my friend Tasha had recently dropped off a copy of her very first children’s CD, Big Bad Bantam Rooster, which is being pressed now (and will hopefully be finished by the time she appears at Children’s Festival next week), and so we popped it in and cranked it up. Tasha is a brilliant musician (not only did she write the music and lyrics of all 18 songs on the CD, she sings lead vocals and harmonies, plays guitar, piano, banjo, accordion, metallophone -whatever that is-, percussion, bells and whistles. She’s what you might call talented.
And even though it’s for kids, it’s a CD I actually find myself listening to when I’m alone; it’s not the kind of music that makes me want to throw myself out of a moving car. (W put this to the test tonight, when he decided Big Bad Bantam Rooster and Yawn and Stretch were his favourite songs and we listened to them 85 and 47 times in a row respectively, give or take.)
Problem is, I can’t stop singing to it. You know how when you sing along with a CD you sound just like the person actually singing? When I was a kid and we played ABBA on a regular basis (I was always Agnetha, being blonde and all) I was convinced I was some sort of child prodigy, with a voice exactly like both Agnetha and Anni-Frid. And wow, I wasn’t even ten, and didn’t even have to try! (I still know all the lyrics to most ABBA songs. Try me.) I had a haircut just like Agnetha, and wore those twisted headbands with the little thread of gold running through, sitting just underneath my curling-ironed, parted-in-the-middle bangs. My sisters and I put on a little performance for my Grandparents once, which included a rousing version of Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight). And then one day I recorded myself on one of those elementary-school-issue black tape decks – Take a Chance on Me, I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do, Waterloo – and then played it back. And you know, someone must have snuck in and taped over my singing, or the tape recorder was terribly broken, because it didn’t reflect my talent at all.
(I so want this poster for my bedroom wall. Wouldn’t it make a great ad for Reynold’s Wrap?)
So tonight as we drove I kept on singing along to Tasha’s CD, and every time I did, W would yell from the back seat “No Mommy! NO! STOP SINGING!”. And every time we started the song over again he would remind me to PLEASE NOT SING. Mommy, you just CAN’T SING! And I know he meant he just didn’t want me to ruin it for him by singing over Tasha’s well-honed voice, but really, he’s right – I can’t sing. So I guess it’s good that I have friends who can.
One Year Ago: Sweet Potato Cake
May 13 2009 | appetizers and beans and eating out and snacks | 25 Comments »
