Let’s face it. If you like snow this winter was a total bust. And there’s not much sympathy around for those of us who are sadly and slowly letting go of our hope that’ll change in the next few weeks. Remember the great March snowstorm of 2012? Yeah, it’s a pipedream. Fortunately, after work last Friday, I loaded skis, nephews, and sister in law into the Subaru to head to Ironwood, Michigan. Ironwood is four hours away in the U.P. and has tons of lake effect snow. Traveling with a four year old, a nine year old and two adults with equally small bladders, I guessed we’d get there about 11pm.
Less than an hour out of town the boys, who had been plied with snacks but hadn’t had dinner, were already stir crazy and starting to demolish each other. At Rush City we pulled into the gas station/ Burger King combo stop. I was hungry, too, and Burger King is the only major fast food chain to my knowledge that has made any effort beyond salad in a plastic cup to feed a vegetarian. Years ago when traveling in Athens, I was absolutely ecstatic to order a veggie burger at a McDonalds. Somewhere in a box under the bed there’s a picture of me holding said burger and smiling broadly- it’s golden bun and yellow Styrofoam container gleaming in the Grecian sunshine. I thought for sure by the time I got back to the States in the late ‘90s that McDonalds would sell veggie burgers. But, no.
The BK Veggie ® is a standard veggie patty on a standard hamburger bun with a splotch each of ketchup, mustard, mayo, two pickle slices, a commercial tomato slice and a few slippery squares of iceberg lettuce. One reoccurring issue is that it’s often undercooked. The patty is heated in the microwave and I suspect they are ordered infrequently enough that the employees have forgotten that section of the training manual. Hmm, since I’m not so strict, next time I think I’ll ask them to plop it on the grill after the microwave (didn’t they say I get to have it my way?)
The veggie burgers at Burger King aren’t great, but they are decent. And really, none of the food at Burger King is great. It is food that serves a purpose, not a palate. It is food you can eat with one hand on the steering wheel while passing small handfuls of fries to the backseat with the other. It’s food that’s ready in the amount of time it takes a 4 year old to write his name on a paper shamrock purchased for $1 to benefit MS , which will proudly be displayed behind the counter of the Burger King in Rush City or Ashland, Wisconsin. And not only have the kids found something to do besides plotting each other’s destruction, they tend to fall asleep right after eating it. I don’t even want to speculate why that is. But, in the end, who cares? We made it to Ironwood a little after 10 and got a full day of skiing six inches of new snow at Big Powderhorn on Saturday. Perfect.
Morchella’s interest in food is an unintended consequence of her hardworking mother having raised three children on the food of the ‘70s and ‘80s: Banquet Fried Chicken, Tuna Helper, and Creamettes with Ragu. To this day neither Morchella nor her brothers eat spaghetti. Morchella likes to start her day counting breaths in salamba sirsasana and finish it biking home in the dark.