Sequestration Meal #198

 

Before I was vegan, I had a weekly ritual of stopping by Wendy's for their junior cheeseburger meal after work. If I remember this right, it had a little burger, four chicken nuggets, a small order of fries, and a soda. It was my treat for getting through another week, and it was cheap (relatively speaking) and much more like a kid's meal than an adult's, and thus I rationalized it wasn't going to make me gain weight. (In fact, that season of my life had me losing rather a lot of weight, as I was transitioning from graduate school to being a regular employed person in a library where snacks were prohibited.)

Part of my vegan transition involved preserving this ritual in a way, with me having a weekly veggie burger. It was nowhere near as easy as just grabbing something from Wendy's (although I think it was probably the same investment in time), and gradually I stopped having the veggie burger ritual. After a while I just didn't need it. This meal, though, made me think of it.

This was on the simpler side: A toasted bun with Vegenaise, lettuce, tomato, a slice of red onion, and a Pure Farmland Plant-Based patty. On the side, a dill pickle and some Dipsy Doodles corn chips. But it carried with it that soothing familiarity of memory I don't get a whole lot of these days, as winter settles in around me again and it feels nothing like December except for it being dark and snowy. Funny what a burger can do, isn't it?