As I sit here writing this at 9:34 in the morning while darling daughter is still asleep, I wonder why I’m not curled up in bed myself to take advantage of this oh-so-rare opportunity to sleep in.
Son is off to school after an evening of studying the capital cities, provinces and territories of Canada. It’s good to remind myself that it’s Edmonton, not Calgary, Victoria, not Vancouver, and that St. John’s is the capital, not Saint John. And that Nunavut has the coolest capital city name: Iqaluit, which means ‘many fish’ in Inuktitut. It’s so much more interesting than what it was called when I was growing up, when my dad used to sail there when he was in the Navy: Frobisher Bay.
Named after Sir Martin Frobisher it means ‘the first of many white Europeans searching unsuccessfully for the Northwest Passage while exploiting the natives and usually freezing to death while trying.’ No so Frobisher; he made three attempts and managed to return home, unlike many of his successors.
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Speaking of unsuccessful pursuits, we had a rather disastrous dinner tonight. Packing while cooking while looking after young child while older child is making ‘breakfast for dinner’ with scrambled eggs, toast, veggie wieners and a sad, not side, salad. Yes, the salad was sad. The romaine needed a three-layer peel and the cucumber, while still firm, showed a strange pale-greenish hue on second look and on first sniff exhibited a subtle olfaction that was less than pleasing. The beefsteak tomatoes turned out not to be as tasty as the ones we bought earlier in the week and the veggie wieners were under-attended, which resulted in a strip on each side remaining attached to the pan like little runways. I gamely flipped the pale insides over hoping the heat wouldn’t make them look so peeled. All the while ABBA was being played loudly in the living room to keep young child dancing so she wouldn’t grab the backs of my thighs with her skinny little claw-like hands, attaching herself like velcro as I ran back and forth between toaster and frying pan. I can’t imagine what that looks like from behind but she’s awfully dangerous while we’re cooking. We’re either stepping on her or cringing as she almost closes the cupboard doors on her fingers while she follows us around, tidying up.
This manic tableau made poor Mia (the dog) whimper and whine, desperate to be noticed so we would open the gate so she could run upstairs and hide with the cats. We sat down to our messy meal with K-man beaming at the awesomeness of his scrambled eggs (and justifiably so – they were light and fluffy but not underdone – how on earth does he manage to pull it off?). Then Little Sprout cried because the sudden, overwhelming sense of calm was too much for her to handle.
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Just goes to show that sometimes it’s okay to get outa-da-house and have a takeaway. While we cherish the tradition of family sit-down meals, sometimes a burger in a good fast food joint is a joyful experience. Last week we stopped in at Hero Burger (guilt!) which was once a staple in our old West Queen West ‘hood but now they’re everywhere and most recently for us, in Liberty Village where we take our darling son to karate twice a week. They have a veggie burger, called the ‘Soul’, and a soulful specimen it is! While their beef burgers are touted as 100% pure Ontario Angus beef, range-fed, hormone- and antibiotic-free and fully-traceable (which begs the question, is there such a thing as a burger pedigree?) , their veggie option is “A delectable medley of Portobello and button mushrooms, veggies, organic brown rice, black olives and veggies [again!]. Tasty, gluten-free and low fat.” Of course, adding cheddar cheese, pickles, mustard, ketchup, Hero certified sauce and jalapenos probably throw it hurtling over the low-cal 140 per burger, but it’s a tastily awesome choice. Never mind that the burger is so filling that any fries or drinks that go with are totally unnecessary. If you haven’t experienced the Hero Soul, you are so missing out on one joyous aspect of life.
It’s the kind of burger that you want to be ALONE with, so it is.
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