Serena the Wanna-Be Vegetarian – What? They’re Fake?

Boca Burgers

That’s what I see in the grocery store. I’m a regular woman who shops at regular stores and Farmer’s Markets. The Farmer’s Market because the fruit looks like what I used to pick off my grandmother’s tree, or from the neighbor’s tree when they let us. Lemons, plums, limes, kumquats and loquats, tart granny apples, we’d dust the spider web and bugs off and sit on the ground, spitting seeds everywhere, plumped up with fruit as if we were kings and queens.

Boca was the first brand I tried. It had an okay mouth feel, chewy enough. My family likes the Masala burger from Trader Joe’s. Which really isn’t a burger, but a potato/vegetable patty that we slather with spicy hummus and put between leaves of Romaine lettuce. Little Peta, that’s what I’ll call my darling daughter, loves them. As she loves to announce, “No animals were killed in the making of this sandwich!” Where is the off switch?

Boca burgers are what we took to our cousin’s Labor Day BBQ.

“I’m not cleaning the grill off. If you want me to grill ‘em you have to just put them on the grill where every thing else has been.”

My cousin takes his grill seriously.

“No big deal,” I said and opened the packets and placed them on the grill.

“If that’s what you wanna eat.” He touched the corner of the spatula to the edge of the patty. “It looks fake to me.” His mouth is turned down as he touches the other sizzling patties with the same spatula.

“That’s the point,” I said. “I’m cutting back on red meat.”

“It’s just one day, it won’t kill you to eat a real burger one day.”

“That’s not the point, and this is a real burger.”

I should’ve picked up the fake ribs.

- Serena