Saving My Bacon

Sarah attended an after-school cooking class this afternoon.  It was hosted by one of the staff at her school and it was a special event for just a few students.  Sarah loves to cook so she was very excited when her friend invited her to come along.

At pick-up, Sarah carried a big metal bowl and several items wrapped in plastic and aluminum foil.  "I got a lot of the leftovers," she shrugged.  It seemed the other girls were not as enthusiastic as she had been about what they had cooked.

One of the things they made was a Bavarian-style potato salad.  I don't know what Bavarian-style means, but it looked good, so I asked Sarah if she minded if I took a taste.  "I'm stuffed.  Have anything you want."

I unwrapped the bowl, got a fork, scooped a potato and was about to take a bite, when Sarah screamed, "Don't eat that!!!"

I jumped, dropped the fork and smacked my hip against the counter.  "What is wrong with you?"  I yelled back.

"I forgot.  It has bacon in it," she answered sheepishly.

I gave her a hug and told her it would have been okay if I had one bite of bacon by mistake.  Please don't ever scream at me when I am wielding a fork, I reminded her.  Sure, I did not eat the meat, but I am surprised I did not poke my eye out, and which would be worse?

Pigs Are Cute

Recently, my 10-year-old niece announced that she will not longer eat pork or ham because pigs are cute.  My sister (her mother) shared this on Facebook.  Most comments could be categorized as either "oh how cute" or "yum bacon."  There were a few comments, however, that I would put in a third category - it is just a phase, don't let her get away with it.  In other words, not eating pork is really a power play on the child's part and you as a parent must discipline the child when it comes to food.

I am not about to start another round of the mommy wars.  I have no interest in battling it out with other parents about how they choose to raise their children, or trying to get validation for the choices I make raising my daughter.  I just find it interesting that no one, including me, saw my niece's decision as a legitimate or reasonable choice.  I am not sure if it was because of her age or her personality or how my sister had presented the situation.  No one took it seriously.

I remember a night when I was very little, and I was trying to understand where the food on our dinner table came from.  With some help from my older sisters, I made the connection between the chicken in the oven and the chickens I had seen when visiting a farm.  I was crushed.  I cried and cried.   I don't remember why it bothered me so much or what my mother did about it.  I must have stopped crying and my mother continued to feed me chicken, and I continued to eat it.

I guess a part of me is still that little kid crying about the chicken and wondering what is so bad about not eating pigs because they are cute.

This Little Piggy Went to a Party

Last Friday evening, Matt and I attended a fundraising auction for my daughter's school.  The theme was a country hoe-down.  The theme was really raise as much money as possible, but the decorations and food need better direction than that.  On top of the checked table cloths was quite a spread.  Hummus, couscous, and fig & goat cheese sandwiches - because you know all the best cowboys come from the Middle East.  Wine tasting, whiskey tasting, beer tasting - it is thirsty work spending money!  It was really was a lovely evening.

I was doing so well until the passed hors doeuvre's came around.  I skipped the turkey meatballs, said no to the chicken on a stick, even refused the tiny steak sandwiches.  Then, then the man said those magic words, "Mini hot dog?" and held out a tray filled with small dough-wrapped bits of wonder.  Pigs in a blanket!  What kind of evil person says no to pigs in a blanket?  They are pigs, wrapped in a tiny blanket, just for your dining pleasure!  He even offered spicy brown mustard in which to dip these precious bites.

I will not say how many I ate, and whatever my husband says is not true (too low, I ate more when he wasn't looking.)  It seems hot dogs are the meat I cannot live without.  I'm not sure it is even meat.  If you don't know what is in the meat dish, does it count as eating meat?

Boiling Over

We are not Irish.  My sister (the family historian) claims that a couple hundred years ago, someone on the English side mixed with an Irishman, but I am not sure I believer her, and regardless, it left no influence.  St. Patrick's Day has little meaning to me, except a few terrible memories from college involving green vodka.  The green bagels, the green beer, the Irish soda bread - I could skip all of it.  Not out of animosity, just lack of interest.

My husband is also not Irish (unless some Irishman ended up in Southern Italy) but he is from Boston which means he grew up eating New England boiled dinner - corned beef and cabbage with carrots, potatoes, parsnips and onions thrown into the mix for good measure.  Even before I stopped eating meat, I hated this food.  Boiling cabbage smells like a dirty bathroom and the resulting meal resembles salty, colorless wet paper towels.  But, for the sake of marital harmony, once a year, on St. Patrick's Day, I put a clothes pin on my nose and boil away.

I have not cooked meat in over two months, so I did not know how I would feel about cooking the beef this time around.  I have been reading about vegetarians turning green just looking at raw meat, never mind being asked to handle it.  It did not bother me in the least.  Maybe I have not been away from it long enough, or maybe I am just simply not offended by the idea of meat.  I threw everything in a pot and set it to simmer.

Sarah and Matt had a great dinner.  Sarah seems to have inherited her father's love of the food rather than my disdain.  As for me, I'll celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a drink - no, not green vodka, a homemade shamrock shake.

I'm Okay, You're Okay

As I mentioned yesterday, Sarah and I went out to lunch a couple of times this week.  When we were choosing where to eat, Sarah said she really wanted a hamburger.  "Is that okay?" she asked tentatively.  I enthusiastically told her it was fine, if she wanted a hamburger she should have one.  "Will it make you feel bad?"  she asked.  Feel bad?  "Because if I was trying not to eat meat, I would feel bad if someone ate a giant hamburger in front me."

I appreciated her sensitivity and praised her for her thoughtfulness, but I did feel bad.  Not because I wanted the hamburger (which she ordered and thoroughly enjoyed) but because I made my daughter feel guilty about food.  My relationship with food is not good or healthy and that is the last thing I want to pass on to my daughter.  Cutting meat from my diet is an effort to improve that relationship, not make it more difficult and certainly not make it more difficult for Sarah.  Food should be fun and life-sustaining, not painful and guilt-ridden.  Am I making things worse or better?

The Last Supper

If you knew it would be your last meal, what would you eat?  This is my favorite party-game question. Either because I am terribly morbid or because I love food, I have a detailed answer.  My last meal would be a hamburger on a kaiser roll topped with lettuce, tomato and Heinz ketchup, fat steak fries, corn on the cob, all washed down with a vanilla milkshake.  Oh yeah, I don't fool around.

A few things to notice about this meal:

• It hits all the major food groups - salt, sugar, fat and ketchup.
• If you weren't dying, this meal would kill you.
• The centerpiece of it all is meat.

This leads me to my real dilemma; can I imagine the rest of my life without meat?  When I decided to try cutting out meat, I did not think long term.  I thought of it as an experiment which implies a set time duration.  As I continue with this, I will have to really think about why I want to do this and if the changes can be permanent.

And yes, I do care about my brand of ketchup.

It comes out if you hit the "57" on the bottle

If You Give a Vegetarian a Roast Beef Sandwich

I have been reading back issues of Vegetarian Times and each issue includes a "Happy Vegiversary" telling the story of a reader who is motivated enough to apply to appear in the magazine.  See, even vegetarians want their 15 minutes, and they come up with stupid words.  The first question is "What motivated you to go veg?"  All the answers seem to be some variation on "I made friends with a duck and never ate meat again."  Really?  NEVER again?  Well, three weeks in, and I ate half a roast beef sandwich.

Sarah brought it home (as I mentioned before, the family is not giving up meat entirely) and left it in the refrigerator.  I could have thrown it out - but how can you throw out a perfectly good sandwich?  Isn't throwing out meat more wasteful than eating it?  I was so hungry and I could not muster the energy to chop or peel or cook or even think of another thing I could eat.  Thin sliced roast beef on fresh chiabatta bread with just a dusting of kosher salt.

Now I am suppose to say that it tasted terrible, or I felt sick to my stomach, or the guilt overwhelmed me, or I will never ever do such a horrible thing again.  Yeah, no.  It tasted so good.

Regardless, I still believe going vegetarian is worth the effort so I will try again.

Here is a picture of a scary goat to remind me of how angry the animals will be with me.  You are worried about the machines taking over?  Planet of the Apes is way scarier than Terminator.

Run!  Save yourself!