Archive for December, 2005
I had the weirdest dream last night.
I was at Sarah and Gerry’s Tattoo Shop because I had decided on the spur of the moment to get a tattoo on my back, just above my left shoulder blade. The design I went with was similar to the one below:
Any dream interpreters in the audience?
The getting-of-the-tattoo hurt like hell and I was doing a lot of screaming. I think it was because instead of using a standard needle, they were actually cutting the image into my skin with a really, really sharp knife.
Sarah, I love your cookbook and all, but can you promise me that if I ever come to Canada and visit your shop that you guys won’t use a knife on me? It really hurt.
Suffering and the capacity to anticipate it
This is a great post from ThinkVegan about the difference between the anticipation of pain in human and non-human animals. There’s an argument that says since animals can’t anticipate forthcoming pain the way that humans can, they don’t suffer the way that humans can. However, the writer argues, the very fact that animals can’t anticipate the pain in the same way may well make it worse. He uses the example of a human knowing he’s about to be tortured and how the suffering occurs in the time leading up the torture because of the anticipation. However, for a cat put into a crate and being taken to the vet, all they know is that they’re being taken away from something familiar and are filled with anxiety about what’s to come, even if it’s just a routine visit to the vet. Thus, with an animal, extra care needs to be taken anytime the animal is taken against their will out of their home.
It’s an interesting observation and theory. Take a gander… he explains it much more eloquently than I just did.
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I’d like to know exactly what led up to this.(tags: video)
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A debate on vegetarianism in a bar. This is funny stuff.
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More Google video, this time, the tale of a vegetarian zombie.
I hope you all had/are having a wonderful holiday.
Christmas weekend went relatively well for us, though this was the first time in a while that “the food thing” has been an issue. This part of the family is about as far from vegan as possible, which made things a little tricky. Not really in terms of what we had to eat–we made our own meals–but in terms of having to deal with the questions and comments we’ve all heard a thousand times before. One family member in particular seemed particularly challenged by my mere presence, annoyed that I wanted to make my own curry because she was using dairy-based margarine and milk. She did buy vegetable broth in anticipation of my arrival, though, which was thoughtful, and made preparing my sauce alongside hers easier.
I also found myself challenged with the “But the cow’s need to be milked! It hurts if they’re not!” line as well as the “Plants feel pain” bit. I wonder sometimes if people really believe these things or are just repeating what they’ve heard. I can only be thankful that the honey issue didn’t come up.
In case you’re wondering how I handle these situations, I don’t let them escalate. Holidays with family are not the time to be spreading The Word. So, to the cows-need-to-be-milked comment my reply was, “Well, we won’t get into that right now” and I ignored the plants feel pain comment altogether. If I feel like the person might actually be receptive to the message or is genuinely interested in talking about it, I’ll add, “I’d be happy to talk with you about that later, when we’re not eating,” but in this case, I think it was more of a challenge than any interest in finding out why dairy’s worth avoiding.
After having not eaten or prepared meat for this long, the sights, smells, and discussion of meat are really starting to make me feel uneasy. Early on, it didn’t bother me too much because I wasn’t that far removed from it, but like they say, once you find out what goes into producing the roast on the platter, you can’t unlearn it. I end up thinking about the animals I see each week at the farm and making that very uncomfortable connection with the slab of flesh sitting out on the table.
Thankfully, to most members of the family, my veganism has stopped becoming a topic of conversation at every meal we share. It’s something they’ve gotten used to and doesn’t need to be discussed too much. As a nice byproduct, many of the family members that were most confused about the idea of avoiding meat have begun to understand the reasons behind it and have even made pleasant comments about how they “admire” the act. It’s a step in the right direction.
If you’ve read this far, the least I can do is tell you about the good food my wife and I had. One night, we joined the rest of the family for a curry dish. Our curry sauce was a makeshift concoction I put together based on the non-vegan version in the pan next to mine. We had plenty of veggies and fried tofu in ours and it was absolutely delicious. I had leftovers for lunch just a few minutes ago.
For Christmas night dinner, I made a veggie pot pie recipe from Robin Robertson’s Vegetarian Meat and Potatoes Cookbook. We used lightly seasoned and fried seitan in place of the tofu, but otherwise followed the recipes for the pot pie and gravy as-is. The end result was spectacular. I have bad luck with crusts-from-scratch, but this one was very easy to make and came out nice and flaky. Just about everyone at dinner tried some of the pot pie and it went over really well. My brother-in-law’s girlfriend even asked for seconds, which is always nice since it’s hard to tell how seitan will sit with meat eaters.
Navigating the holidays can be a little troublesome, but you’ll always feel better afterwards if you stick to your guns while still playing the polite card. Like Bob and Jenna say in Vegan Freak (and I’m paraphrasing here), you’ll be best off if you find that halfway point between timidity and over-assertiveness.
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Guest host: Ryan Seacrest (?!). Guests include Heather Mills McCartney, Alec Baldwin, Dennis Kucinich, and others.
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Cranky vegans my ass. And F Burger King and their crap ass veggie burgers. Hm… I guess I am a little cranky.
Tuesday’s lunch:
A wicked good banh mi chay sandwich from Eden (aka “Little Saigon”) in Falls Church, VA. Thanks to the Buddhists perfecting mock meat over thousands of years, the Vietnamese have some of the best faux meat there is. On this sandwich is some fake pork so real-tasting, my wife and brother-in-law were astounded. They couldn’t tell the difference.
We also bought (and consumed) fake lobster (so, so good) and a number of other to-go lunches from the excellent Four Sisters (Huong Que) bakery.
Banh Mi is a sandwich on french-style bread and when I visited Vietnam was what I ate when I was itching for a taste of home, even though these sandwiches have a distinctly different taste than the standard American sandwich. Usually they have pork or other meat inside, but if you see “chay” tacked on to the end, you can rest assured it’s vegetarian. Really good stuff.
Something I didn’t know that’s worth sharing: old school professional wrestling legend Killer Kowalski has been vegetarian since 1953.
Last year, one of my co-workers started getting me addicted to good chocolate. As part of my training in what’s good and what’s junk, I was introduced to Dagoba’s Xocolatl hot chocolate with chiles and cinnamon. The best way to describe this drinking chocolate is, “Really good hot chocolate that leaves a nice burn in your throat.” It’s not hot going down, but a second after you swallow, the chiles kick in.
Read my (former) co-worker’s take on the same drink, which he articulates much better than I can. While you’re at it, check out the rest of his chocolate blog (not all vegan, but still…).
Also, a simple hot chocolate recipe for the less adventurous.
I love latkes. Or, as we (half-)Poles call them, Plaki. There’s just something so comforting about potato pancakes served with a healthy dallop of applesauce or sour cream. Fellow latke lovers will want to check out the Dec 05/Jan 06 issue of Satya for Joshua Ploeg’s latke recipes. Of course, all of them are vegan.
Ealier this week, Huyen whipped up a batch of the sweet potato latkes. We didn’t make the accompanying sauce, opting for some applesauce on the side, instead. I was a bit skeptical of how sweet potatoes would work, but I was floored. They have more depth than the standard latke and have some different layers of flavors than I’m used to. Very, very good.
I’m looking forward to trying the others in the collection, as well as the sauces.
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UPC’s Karen Davis tears into Temple Grandin’s book and “human slaughter” philosophies. Good stuff.
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