She Comes in Colors

This is a not quite vegetarian burger, but it is a ground chicken burger with lots of vegetables...and over a salad... so...and with a fresh pico on top...so...

Did you watch Don Jon the movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt?  Pretty entertaining and I really loved his characters, both his own and his girlfriend.  Working in retail in Brooklyn I definitely understand at least the Latin versions of these two very well.  Once in a while their Italian, Polish or Russian, Jersey or Bayridge equivalents will surface too.  Uncanny.  These caricatures truly exist and what I'll remember most fondly about Brooklyn and New York when I'm miles from here in my small but cute as a button house.  Yeah the history and bars, the music and great times for sure but what I really most wanted to experience here from childhood were these real people who I knew from roles in movies.  I wanted desperately to witness them in real time.  Interact, see into their world.
I knew the Susan's and the Marges and the Betty's from the midwest with the white turtleneck under bad sweaters and sandy colored indistinct hair with their accents that were evident of Northern Indiana, slightly nasal, slightly hickish.  I know the voice well because I have it.  Or their less appealing more sophisticated counterparts in styled sandy blonde hair with conservative suit jackets.

I like these women actually, not so much their male partners but the ladies are resilient and are not weak or simple like some would have you believe.  Maybe, like all of us, they were a victim of their tiny enclosed circles with regards to their world views.
I wanted to know of this other group of people that seemed so raw, more passionate, quick tempered and not as reserved, loud and not apologetic.  People that were different and certainly not lying down to the norm. Minorities in Fort Wayne didn't make waves, the way to thrive was to conform. But by 21 I was up to my neck with one dominant group running the show.  I wanted to be me!...whatever a midwestern Mexican American third generation girl is, that is.  The thought of a world where Jewish people lived next to Columbians, next to Puerto Ricans, next to Romanians, etc, etc was a dream.  And yeah, they do but that doesn't mean it's preferred or even peaceful - it's just the space restrictions that bring people together.
So, well now, I've seen and met and argued and laughed with so many people of every persuasion that you'd swear were out of central casting that I'm about just as full of all their bullshit too.  So....

Chicken Almost Vegetarian Burger
Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground chicken
• 1 egg
• black beans
• corn
• shredded zucchini
• grated onion
• garlic
• grated carrots
• oatmeal
• chopped jalapeno
• your favorite seasonings