In my biggest Oprah Winfrey guest announcement voice "EDAMAME!!!!"

I'm having a love affair. Please don't tell my husband. Yes, it's true. I'm in love with Edamame! This wonderful little bean pod of pure scrumptiousness found it's way into my heart by accident. We had placed our regular once a week dinner order from our favorite little Sushi bar right around the corner. When we dug through the bag salivating with anticipation for our Miso soup and California rolls with extra ginger. I like a little sushi with my ginger. There was a little box with these green pods inside. I had never seen this stuff let alone ever heard the name. My husband told me he had had them and to suck on them (for the salt. oh my...) and then bite them open and eat the beans inside. You never eat the pods. Ok, here I go. Two minutes later there were no more Edamame and my husband had only managed to eat one or two without losing his fingers. I was spell bound by the salty flavor of these little packages of pure yumminess. Needless to say they were part of our weekly order from then on.
On our last trip to Costco (yay!! for Costco) I'm walking through the frozen food section and there before my eyes is a HUGE box of Edamame! How could I say "no"? So like a moth is drawn to a flame I made my way over and grabbed a box. Visions of a dark room and secluded Edamame eating going through my head. Wooh, I was getting light headed with the exhilaration of it all.
Fast forward to today. After dropping off all my big boys at college and husband has gotten on his beloved motorcycle and headed off to work. I'm putting a few groceries away and I open the freezer and there is that box of Edamame. OH MY GOSH! I had forgot about them. I grabbed the box and ripped it open and out fell one of the  little bags of Edamame. I turned the box over read the microwave directions, and off I went. Forgetting all about the protein smoothie I had intended to have.
So here I sit in my quiet house typing away to you about my love affair with Edamame. My bowl sitting close by as I suck the salt and eat those wonderful little beans inside this little pod. Life is really good right now. Gosh, If I smoked I would go have an after Edamame cigarette. But I don't smoke. So I will just have to make those "aaawwwww" sounds of pure culinary satisfaction. Who knew something so simple could be so pleasing.
Here is a little run down on Edamame from Wikipedia

Edamame (枝豆^?) (English pronunciation: /ˌɛdəˈmɑːmeɪ/) is a preparation of immature soybeans in the pod commonly found in Japan, China, and Hawaii. The pods are boiled in water together with condiments such as salt, and served whole.

Outside East Asia, the dish is most often found in Japanese restaurants and some Chinese restaurants, but it has also found popularity elsewhere as a healthy food item.

The Japanese name edamame (枝豆^?) is commonly used to refer to the dish. The Japanese name literally means "twig bean" (eda = "twig" + mame = "bean") and refers to young soybeans cropped with its twig. Edamame refers also to the salt-boiled dish because of its prevalence. Edamame is a popular side dish at Japanese izakaya restaurants with local varieties being in demand, depending on the season. The salt is also important for edamame. In Japan, arajio is the preferred salt, because it is a natural sea salt. This coarse salt is wet with brine, thus loaded with ocean and mineral flavors.

In Chinese, young soybeans are known as maodou (Chinese: 毛豆; pinyin: máodòu; literally "hairy bean"). Young soybeans in the pod are known as maodoujia (Chinese: 毛豆荚; pinyin: máodòujiá; literally "hairy bean pod"). Because boiling in the pod is the usual preparation for young soybeans, the dish is usually identified via a descriptive name, such as "boiled maodou", or "salt-boiled maodou", depending on the condiments added. Simply saying the name of the bean, maodou, in a Chinese restaurant will produce salt-flavored, boiled maodou.