In the Middle of the Road, You See the Darndest Things

This is a delicious black bean burger and the secret to making it taste like meat is a little pat of butter on a hot grill pan.  That allows the bean to sort of blacken and somehow magically transforms the taste.  I've made a boatload of veggie burgers but this is my favorite highly seasoned with cumin and a smoky chili powder.  Can of black beans drained but not rinsed, smashed up, add 1/4 cup oatmeal, grated onion, any leftover vegetables, flax seed, an egg white. Went so well with this jazzed up corn and tomato salad with Feta.

So out with my confession. On my recent Midwest Family tour we hit a beaver with our rental car.  The beaver was just there suddenly on the busy highway.  At first a fuzzy blob and then he came into full view.  Right out in the middle of the lane, and as if to sense us coming too, he stood up.  Right before we hit, I felt us all locked in a moment that seemed to run in slow motion yet happen super quickly.  My eyes grew to twice their size.  I would swear he was looking right at me.  I turned and screamed something to Patrick. Was it 'Beaverrrrrr!!!?'.  I caught P turning from looking at me to us now both facing forward and yelling.  Then thump.  Then silence.  I immediately contorted my body to see him out of my back window, a dark lump in the road but only for a second and then it was too far to make anything out.  P said he ducked down in time and was 'probably alright' but he says stuff like that when he thinks I'm gonna make a big deal out of something that he doesn't want to have to listen to.  I just sat quietly for a moment wondering if there was any way that could be true.  We didn't stop.  It wasn't the sort of shoulder you could safely pull over onto.

But even further I had commented the whole week on just how much road kill was along the highway.  We passed maybe 25-30 dead animals. Deer, possum, skunk, assorted non identifiables.  And now a dead beaver.  A morose thought but when I flattened that black bean burger on the grill pan with my spatula....and no, that beaver was not 'alright'.