Food Friday - The meal of a lifetime

I've been eating this exact same meal for a very, very long time - a time that can be measured in decades, not years.

My first job - I was 14 or 15 (the authorities let us work much younger then) when I went to work at the A&W drive-in on King George Highway in Surrey.

I hated the smell of the kitchen, and the ugly white uniform and shoes and the hairnet, but I loved the idea of working. It gave me money at a time when there wasn't much spare money in our household so I could buy books, pens, a few pieces of clothing, earrings, things I wouldn't be able to afford otherwise.

And it also afforded me the opportunity to practice my Mama Burger preferences. It took me a while before I made the perfect Mama Burger for me - no onions, extra pickles, ketchup and mustard. Simple but yummy. And I still eat my Mama Burgers - once or twice a year - exactly the same way.

I could make these same burgers at home, but there's something about the hamburger A&W uses that I can't replicate - so I crave one occasionally and when I do, I treat myself to the whole nine yards. Burger, fries and an icy cold drink.

Takes me back to the hot, sweaty, smelly kitchen and those traumatic and exciting months I worked at the A&W.

Kate