MyThreeDaughters

About a year ago, a friend of of mine told me that when he and his daughter go to a Japanese restaurant, they like to get the edamame.
Pronunciation: Ed-uh-mah-may.
I said, What?
He went on to describe a gastonomic delight.
We had some one time. It was cool. Cooked soy beans in the husk with chunky salt on the outside. Six bucks.
Again, it was good, but I also decided that in Japanese <i>edamame</i> means: “Yankee pays too much for unhusked soy beans.”
So anyway, wife got some frozen at Trader Joe’s and we ate it. (It’s kind of like eating steamed crabs. They taste great, but by the time you pick ’em, you can eat a ton and still be hungry. But anytime you get to eat salt, that’s lots of fun for me.)
Anyway, the other night we were going to eat some more, and wife opened the freezer and the 16-month-old said, “edamame.”
She says “Mommy” and “Daddy” and “up” and “no” and “edamame.”
I never heard of edamame until a year ago, and I never ate a green vegetable until I was 30, but the six-year-old eats hummus and they all eat yogurt and wheat germ and the four-year-old is darned near a vegetarian and sometimes I just wonder what the heck happened to hamburgers and hot dogs and french fries?
Edamame.
Allow me to twist a joke. What’s the difference between soy beans and edamame?
About three dollars a pound.