Food thoughts
Of course when I heard the topic of Tuesday’s Oprah episode, I immediately set up the DVR to record. “Oprah & 378 Staffers Go Vegan”
I’d barely hit play when the show was interrupted by an NBC Special Report. It didn’t matter though- the ideas were already concocting…
The poor, unsuspecting husband chose that moment to walk into the room. I’m sure he regrets it.
Me: “Hey. Oprah’sgoingveganforaweekyoushouldtoo.”
Husband: “Oprah’s doing it? Oh I can totally do that. Sign me up.”
Ok…that’s not exactly how it went. More like:
Me: “Hey…. I’ve got an idea.”
Husband: “What…?” {He knew it’d be painful for him as soon as I said “idea”…..}
Me: “You should go vegan for a week.”
Husband: “Ha. NO. Why would I want to do that?”
Me: “It’d be interesting to see what you thought about it.”
Husband: “No way.”
Me: “It’s just a week.”
[Enter more protests here. Lots.]*
I’ll summarize. Eventually I got him to agree to go vegan for 5 days, with several stipulations:
– He can quit whenever he wants
– I have to prepare all the food
– He gets served steak, black-eyed peas, and cornbread when it’s over. {I don’t know why the black-eyed peas & cornbread….}
And no tofu.
Challenge accepted. He starts Monday.
* Some of the intermediary protests included:
“That’s for treehuggers.”
“But what if I want to eat out? You can’t eat out vegan.”
“It’s tree-hugging, hippie, granola crap.”
“It’s gross.”
“It’s grainy & disgusting. No texture.”
“No sweets.”
“I like meat.”
“I’m not eating tofu. NO TOFU.”
“Most super hippie-ish thing ever.”
“Tater tots are vegan? Let’s eat tater tots. And pizza. Pizza’s vegan.”
Keep in mind all of this is coming from a guy who’s wife eats vegan 85% of the time and therefore feeds him vegan meals regularly. Read: he should know better!!
If he’s clueless, I can only imagine what other people think. So of course I’ll be documenting how his week goes. He’s thrilled. 
So…send over your favorite vegan –but not hippie, gross, grainy, granola-y, or tofu-y—recipes to add to my arsenal. This meat-eater’s going down! {Ok, not really. I just want him to stop saying it’s gross.}
What vegan or vegetarian stereotypes or kinds of resistance have you heard?
books, Breakfast
Mm there’s something so comforting about MY version of oats 🙂 Even though I had oatmeal while I was gone, it just wasn’t the same 🙂 Today I enjoyed oatmeal and cottage cheese with cinnamon, nutmeg, walnuts, wheat germ, flaxseed, and creamy yummy PB.
Since my breakfast is nothing new I thought I’d give you a book review with your morning coffee (or tea, or milk, or juice…..)
As I told you, I took Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert on the plane with me. Even though I also had lots of magazines, I decided at the last minute to throw in In Defense of Food as well. (Good thing…I finished Eat, Pray, Love before I was half way through the 2nd flight!) First my thoughts on Eat, Pray, Love…I’ll save In Defense of Food for later because that’s just too much book for one post.
If you’re not familiar with it, Eat, Pray, Love is a personal account of one woman’s quest for happiness while traveling through Italy, India, and Indonesia. The book is divided into 3 sections, one for each country. I really enjoyed the section on Italy—I loved hearing about the different cities and all the vivid descriptions of her experiences with food. It kind of went downhill for me after that. I lost interest in the India section, mostly because it was all about meditation and sitting quietly for hours. The only thing more boring than sitting quietly for hours is reading about sitting quietly for hours. I don’t think I related well because I’m not into meditating- I’m just not good at it. If you have more patience for it than I do, you might enjoy this section, as she writes just beautifully. The last section on Indonesia was better than the previous section, but not quite as good as Italy. I could take it or leave it. I think I enjoyed how she said things rather than what she said. (I do have to admit here that I didn’t know Bali was in Indonesia—smack forehead here—good thing I figured it out though because later that weekend I met somebody going to Indonesia and I was actually able to have a decently intellectual conversation about it.)
The irony that I liked the “eat” chapter best does not escape me.
You could tell just from reading that the author has a very astute self-awareness. I loved where she was describing the differences between herself and her sister. She says all she ever wants to learn about something is the story, whereas her sister notices precise details. It reminded me that understanding how people “see” things can help you understand them all together- people pick up on different things because they have a different importance to them.
So I did appreciate the honesty in which the author shared her journey, the language she used to share it, and somewhat enjoyed following her on her path of self-revelation, but if I were Oprah I probably wouldn’t have thought about calling her.
One of my favorite pieces of advice from the book: “You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be.”
