battle of the burger

The Hater, Baby and I adventured to Norman for the Battle of the Burger. We'd heard about it and decided that it would be a fun, different thing to do since it wasn't raining. We learned quickly that I need to sit in the back seat with Baby if the car ride is going to take more than 10-15 minutes.

I love driving through town and seeing signs to support our team. As Baby would say, "Go Boys!" I've never really lived in a town that totally embraced a team like OKC has embraced the Thunder. We're watching game #3 now. The Hater is frustrated that they've not played better in the first quarter, but points out that they never play well at the beginning of a game. I say Thunder Up.

So we went to the burger battle which was actually held at a huge car lot. They had between 20-30 people out grilling burgers, live music, blow-up jumping things, a playground, and yummy burgers. It was all for a Toby Keith charity that raises money to help families who have children with cancer, so we didn't feel bad at all participating in the festivities.

The best burger I had was seriously THE BEST burger I've ever had. They mixed frozen hash browns and cheese and bacon with the meat to make a "baked potato" burger. It seriously tasted like a loaded baked potato made sweet love to a hamburger to produce the most divine concoction I've ever had. We may have to try to recreate it this summer. I asked for more specifics and the lady (cooking for the On Point construction team) said she used frozen has browns, cooked them like regular hash browns, but not completely through, then added it to the burger mix. Mmmm. Just thinking about it makes this Pavlov salivate.

The only thing better than the burger was the music! We'd heard about Spaghetti Eddie and had very good intentions to get a cd and add it to the other music we play for Baby, but until today we've not been able to do that. We bought a cd AND saw them play. They were a lot of fun. I look forward to playing their cd until we all know the words and can sing along with it (then we'll go find another live performance and sing along like real rock star fans!). They were apparently on Good Morning America not too long ago. It's fun music for kids, too. If you have kids you should seriously look into it. (Yes, that was a shameless plug for a local band, and I admit it. But it's great music, so you'll be glad you took this bait.)

Aside: Baby is really into "rock and roll" and likes to pretend like she's singing into a microphone. Usually it's just la-la-la or itsy-bitsy-spider. My favorite is when she wants to sing into the bathtub faucet.

We ate just right and played very hard. The actual car lot was fancier than any car lot I've ever seen. They had the huge playground outside. Inside they had huge waterfall and fish tank that wasn't quite as big as the one at Bass Pro Shop, but very close. They had an indoor play room for little ones (Baby had to check it out), another room with video games for older kids, and yet another connected outdoor playground. These people seriously knew how to make their family consumers happy while shopping.

Needless to say Baby fell asleep about 5 minutes from the house. Then proceeded to sleep for a wonderful nap.

After she woke up we continued to play hard. The Hater made an excellent rosemary chicken with cherry tomato sauce for supper (a Weight Watcher's recipe that was a total and complete home run). Baby and I read about 30 stories between nap time and bed time. This girl seriously loves to read and I couldn't be happier with that.

It's been a great week, and to top it off....

LLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRR

(drumroll)

I've never actually been to this restaurant, but I've begged The Hater to stop so I could take a picture of it just about every time we've passed it for the last almost eight years that we've lived here. And today we thought of it enough ahead of time to get off the interstate and get this great shot.

Do you think they serve turnip greens and cornbread?

How about lemon ice box pie?

How about poke salet?

How about sweet tea?

Do you think they have to wiggle the dish washer around to hook up to the sink to run?

Do they have homemade grape juice canned under the sink?

Even if they do, they can't be nearly as fancy as my Mama Lou's kitchen!