I am so not cut out to be a vegetarian. I spent this whole week eating super-delicious leftovers from last weekend’s all-veggie Indian feast. When I got tired of that, I had an awesome salad with hot boiled potatoes, grape tomatoes and tuna. I made myself a very satisfying lunch one day of leftover salad, some buttery carrots, hummus, wasa bread and olives.

I’m saying all this to emphasize that I was truly enjoying my almost entirely vegetarian food this whole week.

But last night as I was biking home, I started thinking about hamburgers. And I remembered Aces, on 36th Avenue, which serves a good one. I also toyed with getting manti at Mundo, rounded out with veggie sides, but once I gave myself over to the burger idea (Tamara by that time had agreed to meet me for dinner, selecting Aces from among three options), I was really in a rut.

Once at Aces, Tamara and I were completely spooked by the fact that this place clearly does not cater to a normal dinner crowd anymore–we were the only people there on a Friday. All signs pointed to major dinner failure, but I still would not give up the burger dream.

“Uh, I can’t hack this,” Tamara hissed at me while we sipped our mojitos and looked nervously at the kitchen–we hadn’t eaten here for many months, and the place had gotten substantially more marginal-feeling. “After last weekend, I can’t take this risk.”

Last weekend, Tamara had a hideous allergic reaction to something she’d eaten–but she’s not sure what. She’s understandably a little jumpy.

I think she even went so far as to say, “Please don’t make me eat here.”

But the more of my mojito I drank, the more I realized manti at Mundo were not going to cut it. I had to have the burger. I twisted Tamara’s arm. We ordered the meat, and extra drinks, for sterilization. The meat was delicious–big, crusty burgers on quickly grease-laden English muffins, nice medium fries. We did not become ill.

But even though I ate every little bite of this enormous thing, it still didn’t quite satisfy me. This morning, I was salivating over the idea of chicken-fried steak brunch at Hill Country (thanks for the tip, Homesick Texan!), and I just now I caught myself ogling burger porn online, and calculating my next trip to the Corner Bistro.

Maybe I have a meat debt to pay off–like a sleep debt, but more delicious?