The Burger Burden

So, I have been really trying to get my body back post-baby. By “post-baby,” I mean “post-that whole party sized bag of Tostitos with a Hint of Lime that I ate single-handedly on the 4th of July.” And by “body,” I mean “fitting into anything at all.” But I find people are more sympathetic to your treadmill struggles if they don’t know that chips were involved.

Because the truth is that all of this went down last week, the week of July 4th:

First of all, it has been Do The Right Thing hot in Los Angeles. There simply is no cooler side of the pillow. My contacts fogged up. I slept every night stretched out like a starfish, in a perfect “X” on my bed, fingers and toes spread spasmodically, trying desperately to not let anything touch anything else. When choosing an outfit, I literally thought: “What can I wear that will in no way actually touch my body."

Secondly, I made a pan of S’mores brownies from one of my new favorite blogs, http://www.joythebaker.com/. They were wonderful, except a bit overcooked. Why? Because since it was a million degrees outside, even after removing them from the oven, THEY NEVER STOPPED BAKING. I still ate a full third of the pan. It was a maternal thing. I made them, I was taking responsibility the only way I knew how.

Thirdly, I had some strawberries and sour cream in the fridge. Yada Yada Yada, I made and ate almost an entire batch of strawberry sour cream ice cream. Thank yooo, David Lebovitz. You really shouldn’t publish ice cream recipes like that until you have also invented Face Spanx. Because these cheeks aren’t really baby fat. The jig is up, I’m in my twenties.

And so, strawberry sour cream ice cream became my substitute for climate control, and S’mores brownies became my substitute for going to the gym (Too hot. Safety first, people.) And THEN I went to a fun and lovely Independence Day BBQ/pool party, where I had a spaghetti-western style showdown with the aforementioned bag of Tostitos with a Hint of Lime. I drew first, while making that “wee-oooo-wee-oooo, waah waah waah” sound that only I think is cool when I do it. In the end, it was the Tostitos with a Hint of Lime that fell first.

Just. Like. Last 4th of July.

I continue to include the entire name Tostitos with a Hint of Lime, not as a way to be flashy with my (hard-won) capital letter skills, but because anyone who has had this product knows that it is a magnificent accomplishment of modern food chemistry. Crunchy Tostitos tasting of sparkly, tingly Lime. But juuuuuuust a Hint.

And so I spent the week like Templeton, the rat from Charlotte’s Web-feasting on pretty much anything I could get my hands on, rolling around the carnival grounds after dark. Sure I would rather be Fern, the pony-tailed and overalled adorable farmer’s daughter. But that’s just not the reality of the situation. I’m Paul Lynde, the rat who eats everything, singing shakily as I go.

I decided to atone with some serious caloric monitering, and several hot yoga classes. It wasn’t pretty, let me assure you. I am not an elegant yoga-doing girl. They make it look easy. I make it look slightly harder than it actually is. Also, every pore in my body turns into a running faucet-and so I end up taking an hour-long self-produced shower. Ladylike, I know.

But you really do feel oddly great when it’s over, as I did on the day when I decided to repair the damage done by the 4th of July Massacre. Vegetables. Salad. Water. Fruit. A solid plan. I put out some feelers (checked my phone) and found that all this could be mine. The Atonement Package, in the form of the Greenz on Wheelz truck, a truck specializing in made-to order salads. Perfect. JUST what I needed.

But here’s what I pulled up to, you guys.

Right.

So, the “Salad Will Fix Everything and It Will Be Like Tostitos with a Hint of Lime Never Happened” truck was next to (I will go as far as to say OBSTRUCTED by) the Baby’s Badass Burgers truck. But I had a mission: Be healthy. Be a grown-up. Be responsible, and make all that hot yoga-ing worth something. I had come here for one reason: SALAD.

So I got sliders with cheese and avocado. Naturally.

Now, the irony of being served a nice sloppy, luscious burger by an extremely fit girl in short-shorts is not lost on me. The signature “Burger Babes” of Baby’s Badass Burgers are lovely and well-tressed, literally the complete opposite of my post-yoga self, melted like soft-serve in the sun. But I will leave the hot rollers and short-shorts to them, they do it well. And they can leave the burger eating to me, I gladly take on that burden. I will call it the Burger Burden, and it will be like my X-Men special power thing, and I will use it for the safety of others. Deal.

Beef sliders on a King’s Hawaiian roll, with swiss cheese, grilled onions, sautéed mushrooms, and BBB’s “special sauce.” After several hours of interrogation, Burger Babe Erin finally broke, and revealed that it is in fact a chipotle aioli. Actually, I asked her nicely once, and she told me. It’s not really a secret, she explained. Which made me feel weird about the five dollar bill I had palmed, Sinatra-style.

So far, the King’s Hawaiian roll is the best bun option I have tried from a food-truck. It’s sweet and soft and loving, the red-ribboned Christmas puppy of hamburger buns. I’m not a big onion girl but these were grilled into submission, more of a jammy, earthy layer of flavor than the spikey onion flavor I normally avoid. I added avocado. You know, for something green.

The spiciness of the chipotle aioli cut through all the creaminess going on rather well, making the sautéed mushrooms and swiss much more exciting than usual. Kind of like when you accidentally get the toothpaste with little bursting things in it, and it adds a welcome zip to your morning.

To those who are disappointed in my less-than-healthy, but unregrettable choice, I draw your attention to the fact that I did not in fact get “The Maneater,” which is sandwiched between two bacon grilled cheese melts. However, I was informed by Lance that two people had already ordered one that day. Obviously, they don’t have a Tostitos with a Hint of Lime fetish. Obviously, they ate fruit and brown rice on the 4th of July. Obviously, I will go back and get one of those the next time this truck is in my general proximity.

Which I define as a one hundred mile radius.

I will NEVER take a good picture of myself with an iPhone. I don't have the rotator cuffs for it.