"So you're vegan now? Huh. You should try these cupcakes. They're amazing. And free of everything," my friend Dani said via instant message.
"Really? Where?"
"This store Babycakes. They're here in New York. But they ship overnight."
"And they're fat free?"
"Um. No. But gluten free, sugar free, and vegan."
If anyone would like to both foot the bill and split a cupcake here is the website of Babycakes: www.babycakesnyc.com
I would like a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting, with Cupcake Insurance. Yes. Cupcake insurance. So what if I don't have health or dental, my vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free dessert will get to me, air travel be damned! Actually, cupcake insurance is just a cool way of saying that they have little plastic boxes to preserve your cupcake and prevent it from getting more busted up than a high-school house party. As much as I've shit-talked veganism in the past I must say that right now I could totally go for a slice of vegan banana chocolate chip loaf. I have yet to get the funding (see previous post about sudden loss of job leading to sudden loss of income) for a cupcake costing no less than $33.01 or a $62.39 loaf. Shipping, unfortunately, is the pimp to the cupcake ho. But maybe there's a sugar mama or sugar daddy out there who wants to foot the bill for some sweets? And by sugar I of course mean agave sweetened.
*
Again I perused the bookstore for veganlightenment, this time I was hoping to pilfer some all-plant recipes from a cookbook or something that would both jive with my new diet and new skinny wallet. Instead I saw a book entitled Why Vegan. Yes, this is what I was looking for all along, an answer to just that question.
Well. I didn't find it. Instead I found some really dodgy British vegan rhetoric, some of which I could almost subscribe to, and a recipe for something called "Mince With Bubble And Squeak," which sounds both like a command and a live sex show containing acts even my perverted, no longer carnivorous mind can't even imagine. All in all, it was worth reading. I did laugh out loud and nearly wet myself as I sat hunched over my tiny notebook and Kath Clements' compendium of creature-free consumption. I must have looked like a crazy homeless girl. A vegan, crazy homeless girl.
Here are some of Clements' greatest hits:
In regard to a vegan entree:
"Serve with chips, tomatoes and white bread rolls to visiting teenagers."
Fresh Fruit Sorbet
"A nice dessert if the meal did not include a large salad."
Pancakes
"Serve with sugar, syrup, oranges, lemons. Other ideas for toppings will emerge with greater family involvement in pancake technology."
Cupcake technology apparently has adapted at a quicker rate. Don't know if this is due to greater family involvement or just the fact that New York City is the most progressive place on Earth. Yes, that's a pretty heavy statement, but so is calling vegans "pioneers." Pioneers killed tons of things and exploited, you know, the original inhabitants of this country. Perhaps I was just paying too much attention to the definition of vegans as the anti-killers. Unless you're a plant. Then you are totally fucked and vegans are some raccoon cap wearing, musket bearing, broccoli slaying motherfuckers.
Now although I don't necessarily agree with statements such as going vegan will make me regard meat and milk as "horrifying and pathetic substances," I can support ending "the cycle of exploitation" and an education of what I put into my body that will lead me to keep the "moral integrity" of my food choices "untainted." Basically it's a highfalutin way of saying that it's an atrocity to kill masses of animals for food in a country where so much is based on both consumerism and waste hidden under a heavy layer of ignorance. Fair enough. Now pass the cupcakes.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Premature Evisceration
By 6PM last evening my stomach had entered a state of pain somewhere between death and North Dakota. The gas that followed was enough to startle our three legged dog, and probably increased my rent by at least a few Jacksons. My roommates no longer regard me as a female, I think I have been accepted to several local frat houses, and an entirely new, industrial strength model of a nose plug had to be crafted for the 97214 area code.
This kind of intestinal distress is new to me. I am the girl who grew up thinking that the seven second rule was the seven minute rule, that mold only meant that whatever it covered was just evidently jealous of peaches and kiwis, and that "refrigerate after opening" was optional at best. I could drink one third of my body weight in distilled spirits and not feel so much as a tickle in my gut unless it was coming from someone else's body part touching it. Vomiting, shitting, farting are all gerunds that, luckily, I don't use very often unless sarcastically critiquing a film starring Jessica Alba. There had to be a reason why my intestines felt like they were being used by some knitting hipster as yarn.
Then it dawned on me. I have already gone vegan. Early.
The last time I consumed anything that barked, breathed, spit, or pissed was...search me. Part of the benefit of being fired has been a sudden refusal to eat anything that I don't have in my pantry, meaning that the only possibly non-vegan item of consumption would have been whole-wheat bread. Other than that it's been all dried fruit, apple butter, cereal gruel made with water, Amy's brand (vegan) soup and Diet Pepsi. Basically I'm learning that if there were an apocalypse I would be a PETA poster child as the world burned. Think I Am Legend only with more soy and fewer CGI zombies.
Still, this conclusion didn't solve the fiery sharp subtraction problem taking place behind my bellybutton. But at least I knew why. Next question, is Pepto-Bismol vegan?
And why the hell am I doing this again?
While cramping I came to believe that I have to delve deeper into the reasoning as to why a human being would willingly volunteer for this variety of torture that vacillates between explosive, painful flatulence and dramatic drops in blood-sugar that create a nearly homicidal need to tear through Fred Meyer, mouth stretched wide. For assistance I have begun asking my vegan chums to answer a few burning questions. Pun fucking intended. Stay tuned.
This kind of intestinal distress is new to me. I am the girl who grew up thinking that the seven second rule was the seven minute rule, that mold only meant that whatever it covered was just evidently jealous of peaches and kiwis, and that "refrigerate after opening" was optional at best. I could drink one third of my body weight in distilled spirits and not feel so much as a tickle in my gut unless it was coming from someone else's body part touching it. Vomiting, shitting, farting are all gerunds that, luckily, I don't use very often unless sarcastically critiquing a film starring Jessica Alba. There had to be a reason why my intestines felt like they were being used by some knitting hipster as yarn.
Then it dawned on me. I have already gone vegan. Early.
The last time I consumed anything that barked, breathed, spit, or pissed was...search me. Part of the benefit of being fired has been a sudden refusal to eat anything that I don't have in my pantry, meaning that the only possibly non-vegan item of consumption would have been whole-wheat bread. Other than that it's been all dried fruit, apple butter, cereal gruel made with water, Amy's brand (vegan) soup and Diet Pepsi. Basically I'm learning that if there were an apocalypse I would be a PETA poster child as the world burned. Think I Am Legend only with more soy and fewer CGI zombies.
Still, this conclusion didn't solve the fiery sharp subtraction problem taking place behind my bellybutton. But at least I knew why. Next question, is Pepto-Bismol vegan?
And why the hell am I doing this again?
While cramping I came to believe that I have to delve deeper into the reasoning as to why a human being would willingly volunteer for this variety of torture that vacillates between explosive, painful flatulence and dramatic drops in blood-sugar that create a nearly homicidal need to tear through Fred Meyer, mouth stretched wide. For assistance I have begun asking my vegan chums to answer a few burning questions. Pun fucking intended. Stay tuned.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
"There's a hunger inside me..."
After a brief absence due to an unplanned vacation from work known as sudden unemployment on account of being fired, I return to my foray into being a vegan. This is a little bit more dire and uncomfortable now being that I have no fucking clue if I will be able to eat - anything - by the end of April. Allow me to take a moment to whore myself and say, if you are looking for someone to write or edit anything for you for a nominal fee I’m your girl. Give me work, which will in turn pay for vegan food, which will in turn allow me to continue blogging. Jesus Christ, that is the most pathetic sentence I think I’ve ever written.
In the past few feverish days a dialog has followed me. It has gone as follows:
“Whatchya eating?” (Usually this is said to someone eating something that I’m hoping they will share with me because, as previously noted, I am now out of work and poor.)
Cute girl at coffee shop with labret piercing: “Cosmic sandwich. Meat free. Not so good.” She pushes away her plate in disgust.
Kid with bike: “Dunno. But it’s vegan.” He opens his mouth, showing me a pasty mass of brown goop on his tongue. Delightful.
Roommate: “Vegan muffin. Tastes like shit.” (He proceeded to throw it in the trash where I had to restrain myself from diving after it. It landed in a pile of old coffee grinds, over a banana peel, next to a drained six pack of PBR. We‘re not at that level of hunger. Yet.)
I would like to point out, as my mother did when I was little, that there are people starving...The rest of her sentence went “in Africa,” while mine goes something like, “on Yamhill Street, grey house, the one with the organ on the lawn.” I can imagine at the homeless shelter across the street from where I was fired, they’re handing out sandwiches and one unshowered, impoverished straggler asks, “Is it vegan?”
If you’d like to see my struggle to get work in addition to my struggle to go vegan check out Jerk Ethic. It’s like watching the baby seals, pandas, and whales win. http://jerkethic.tumblr.com/
I’m off to eat a can of meat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free soup. It’s organic, too.
In the past few feverish days a dialog has followed me. It has gone as follows:
“Whatchya eating?” (Usually this is said to someone eating something that I’m hoping they will share with me because, as previously noted, I am now out of work and poor.)
Cute girl at coffee shop with labret piercing: “Cosmic sandwich. Meat free. Not so good.” She pushes away her plate in disgust.
Kid with bike: “Dunno. But it’s vegan.” He opens his mouth, showing me a pasty mass of brown goop on his tongue. Delightful.
Roommate: “Vegan muffin. Tastes like shit.” (He proceeded to throw it in the trash where I had to restrain myself from diving after it. It landed in a pile of old coffee grinds, over a banana peel, next to a drained six pack of PBR. We‘re not at that level of hunger. Yet.)
I would like to point out, as my mother did when I was little, that there are people starving...The rest of her sentence went “in Africa,” while mine goes something like, “on Yamhill Street, grey house, the one with the organ on the lawn.” I can imagine at the homeless shelter across the street from where I was fired, they’re handing out sandwiches and one unshowered, impoverished straggler asks, “Is it vegan?”
If you’d like to see my struggle to get work in addition to my struggle to go vegan check out Jerk Ethic. It’s like watching the baby seals, pandas, and whales win. http://jerkethic.tumblr.com/
I’m off to eat a can of meat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free soup. It’s organic, too.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Half-Girl, Half-Jerk, All-Plant!
In Powells' on Hawthorne I go to the Diet and Nutrition section to find a book to help me along my pre-quest. I immediately search the shelf that's at my sight-line. This is because the vast majority of vegans I've encountered have been pocket-sized men and women who resemble unshowered Keebler elves and also 'cause, hey, anything above my head doesn't really matter.
Within a few minutes I'm craning my neck so far back I could be trying out for a Fire in the Sky sequel. There are no books on becoming a vegan. I see more frightening alternatives such as The Detox Diet (if this is a whole tome pertaining to that time I ate nothing but Ritz crackers for a week and refused to leave my Brooklyn apartment due to "the fucking shaking" I will buy it simply out of principle) and the Great Food, Great Sex: The Three Food Factors for Sexual Fitness (insert protein shake joke here) but not a single book on the wonders of veganism. I at least expected a ratty chapbook printed with beet juice ink on recycled toilet paper.
To be fair, I was looking for the very 'Merican just-gimme-an-answer series known as "for Dummies" and found only Dieting for Dummies, Carb Consciousness for Dummies, and the ever tempting Atkins Diet for Dummies but nothing on planning your meals in accordance with photosynthesis and crop rotation. Either there is a whole section I overlooked in the stacks or this shit is so difficult that books just fly off of the shelves. I suddenly imagine that those who subscribe to a plant-based diet actually rival the intellect of aerospace engineers. This, of course, is a shocking consideration, namely because it would mean that I would be wrong.
Finally I found one, lone paperback. VEGAN - The New Ethics of Eating by Erik Marcus (1998 - McBooks Press). A yellow icon labeled "URGENT" is on the cover. It reads "What we eat has devastating effects. Heal our planet and your body" Okay. The planet coming first on that list sort of irks me but whatevs, Marcus has given me at least part of what I'm looking for by providing a handy definition inside of the front cover: "Vegan (most commonly pronounced "VEE-gun") A person who does not eat animal products, including meat, fish, seafood, eggs and dairy products; All-plant."
All-plant.
To be fair - I didn't actually read the book, though it has pictures, which is always a plus. And I didn't buy the book. It was $11.50. That's far more expensive than the latest copy of Bust magazine and a biscuit. But I did sit and leaf through it in the hope of figuring some stuff out.
In V-NEE the author names the animals that were en route to becoming breakfast links or burgers and he tells their horror stories, much like I do with the bugs crawling on my ceiling that are just too terrifying to kill. Chester the pig and Agnes the calf are no longer sleeping on concrete floors, in cells smaller than Emmanuel Lewis' left Reebok. They have passed on and passed through and now are resting peacefully in a sewer system somewhere. It's cloying, it's manipulative, and for a reader with a heart, unlike me, it works to make them identify with their food on a level that perhaps they weren't prepared to before. It's hard to chow down on your chicken parm when you're thinking about Daisy the hen and how she was "always intuitively affectionate towards humans."
There are chapters titled "The Killing Business" and "The Perfect Food Isn't." Obviously Erik hasn't gone out for ribs recently. Perfection exists, friend. Like many things worth devouring it requires patience and many, many napkins.
Now as much as I try to maintain my arrogant air of cynicism and incorrigibility I can't deny that the animal tales and statistics, such as the fact that the Federal Government killed 124,292 prairie dogs in 1988 and that cheddar cheese gets 73 percent of its calories from fat, are upsetting and make me give pause. However, I am not a big fan of cheese nor do I eat prairie dog. In short, I wanted Marcus or somebody, preferably the cartoon gentleman on the cover of the "for Dummies" series or the enlightened authors of the Idiot's Guides, to break it down for me. What do I have to do, where do I have to go, and will I die are some of my most (incense) burning questions.
Yesterday I ate two (2) sandwiches consisting of roast turkey flavored soy "meat" I found in the food substitute aisle and they produced the sort of searing pain that made me believe that this years running of the bulls was taking place down my large intestine or that Jerry Garcia was posthumously sparking up using my duodenum as a lighter.
This morning I ate Gorilla Munch (also found in the food substitute aisle at Fred Meyer) with vanilla soymilk. Soymilk - at least the vanilla flavored variety - is like that girl in high-school who was slightly overweight and may have had acne or an overbite or a body odor issue but she was, by far, the girl with the best sense of humor and a jewel of a personality. I finished my 'Munch and was left with a half a cup of grey, watery liquid that I would have thought was dirty dishwater if I hadn't poured it out of its environmentally friendly spout. It looked like some tween puked up a White Russian but it tasted like a little bit of heaven. Go figure. Some of this pregame is far easier than I imagined, the rest requires Alka-Seltzer and an immutable will.
Within a few minutes I'm craning my neck so far back I could be trying out for a Fire in the Sky sequel. There are no books on becoming a vegan. I see more frightening alternatives such as The Detox Diet (if this is a whole tome pertaining to that time I ate nothing but Ritz crackers for a week and refused to leave my Brooklyn apartment due to "the fucking shaking" I will buy it simply out of principle) and the Great Food, Great Sex: The Three Food Factors for Sexual Fitness (insert protein shake joke here) but not a single book on the wonders of veganism. I at least expected a ratty chapbook printed with beet juice ink on recycled toilet paper.
To be fair, I was looking for the very 'Merican just-gimme-an-answer series known as "for Dummies" and found only Dieting for Dummies, Carb Consciousness for Dummies, and the ever tempting Atkins Diet for Dummies but nothing on planning your meals in accordance with photosynthesis and crop rotation. Either there is a whole section I overlooked in the stacks or this shit is so difficult that books just fly off of the shelves. I suddenly imagine that those who subscribe to a plant-based diet actually rival the intellect of aerospace engineers. This, of course, is a shocking consideration, namely because it would mean that I would be wrong.
Finally I found one, lone paperback. VEGAN - The New Ethics of Eating by Erik Marcus (1998 - McBooks Press). A yellow icon labeled "URGENT" is on the cover. It reads "What we eat has devastating effects. Heal our planet and your body" Okay. The planet coming first on that list sort of irks me but whatevs, Marcus has given me at least part of what I'm looking for by providing a handy definition inside of the front cover: "Vegan (most commonly pronounced "VEE-gun") A person who does not eat animal products, including meat, fish, seafood, eggs and dairy products; All-plant."
All-plant.
To be fair - I didn't actually read the book, though it has pictures, which is always a plus. And I didn't buy the book. It was $11.50. That's far more expensive than the latest copy of Bust magazine and a biscuit. But I did sit and leaf through it in the hope of figuring some stuff out.
In V-NEE the author names the animals that were en route to becoming breakfast links or burgers and he tells their horror stories, much like I do with the bugs crawling on my ceiling that are just too terrifying to kill. Chester the pig and Agnes the calf are no longer sleeping on concrete floors, in cells smaller than Emmanuel Lewis' left Reebok. They have passed on and passed through and now are resting peacefully in a sewer system somewhere. It's cloying, it's manipulative, and for a reader with a heart, unlike me, it works to make them identify with their food on a level that perhaps they weren't prepared to before. It's hard to chow down on your chicken parm when you're thinking about Daisy the hen and how she was "always intuitively affectionate towards humans."
There are chapters titled "The Killing Business" and "The Perfect Food Isn't." Obviously Erik hasn't gone out for ribs recently. Perfection exists, friend. Like many things worth devouring it requires patience and many, many napkins.
Now as much as I try to maintain my arrogant air of cynicism and incorrigibility I can't deny that the animal tales and statistics, such as the fact that the Federal Government killed 124,292 prairie dogs in 1988 and that cheddar cheese gets 73 percent of its calories from fat, are upsetting and make me give pause. However, I am not a big fan of cheese nor do I eat prairie dog. In short, I wanted Marcus or somebody, preferably the cartoon gentleman on the cover of the "for Dummies" series or the enlightened authors of the Idiot's Guides, to break it down for me. What do I have to do, where do I have to go, and will I die are some of my most (incense) burning questions.
Yesterday I ate two (2) sandwiches consisting of roast turkey flavored soy "meat" I found in the food substitute aisle and they produced the sort of searing pain that made me believe that this years running of the bulls was taking place down my large intestine or that Jerry Garcia was posthumously sparking up using my duodenum as a lighter.
This morning I ate Gorilla Munch (also found in the food substitute aisle at Fred Meyer) with vanilla soymilk. Soymilk - at least the vanilla flavored variety - is like that girl in high-school who was slightly overweight and may have had acne or an overbite or a body odor issue but she was, by far, the girl with the best sense of humor and a jewel of a personality. I finished my 'Munch and was left with a half a cup of grey, watery liquid that I would have thought was dirty dishwater if I hadn't poured it out of its environmentally friendly spout. It looked like some tween puked up a White Russian but it tasted like a little bit of heaven. Go figure. Some of this pregame is far easier than I imagined, the rest requires Alka-Seltzer and an immutable will.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
¿Dónde están los huevos?
I’ve cut out dairy, start the ticker-tape and scream, “More cow…bell!”
I know, I know. It’s dairy. It has enough hormones to make me unwillingly transgender. Cows are kept in shoeboxes and have their nipples tweaked all day long. Human beings are not meant to digest dairy products. (Yet a snack such as Cheetohs, which stain our epidermis, is not looked at twice by the same fucktards who tell me this.) Also, I have my nipples pierced. I will not cry a river of melted vegan soft serve over a cow getting to rest at second base as a job. Please.
But, yeah, shock to the system, I finally phased out my Kraft singles yesterday. This after cutting out milk with my cereal (I’m now eating Cream of Wheat, another misnomer so therefore it must be vegan) and yogurt. Other than feeling like my bones might at any moment turn to dust and the pH of my girlbits could at any moment go from fresh-as-a-daisy to more-toxic-than-Fresh-Kills everything is kosher. Or, rather, parev.
Earlier in the week, when I saw myself just steps away from crossing into lactose liberation, I was feeling kind of proud. Really, whenever I successfully do anything slightly more advanced than, say, slipping on my Converse and strolling to the toilet, I give myself a great big internal chest-bump. So to celebrate I went out to a diner in order to have my favorite meal, breakfast for dinner. This month would go off without a hitch, I thought. Fuck it, maybe I’ll stay vegan after the month that hasn’t even started yet is over, just out of spite! Haha! Take that, stupid dietary restrictions that everyone pretends are sooo hard! You probably think that Scrabble is hard too! Go listen to the new Iron and Whiiiine album and silkscreen some fliers for your next bike protest rally potluck knitting coop thing.
I was so smug in my pleather booth that I barely notice when the cute waitress with the labret piercing sauntered over find out what I wanted. Well. What did I order?
Eggs.
One can argue that Easter is this weekend, that April hasn’t started, that there are a hundred other options for breakfast/dinner that are just as tasty and versatile and cheap as a chicken’s blank shot. The white-n-orange are just as delicious as pancakes (made without butter, milk, or, um, eggs…which leaves…a plate and some flour) or potatoes!
Basically it took one single swipe at revving my egg-fueled engine to get albumen on my face.
“Ains, I’m a little bit worried about this whole “going vegan for a month” thing,” my best-friend said from across the table. “I mean, I think it’s just going to be you eating, like, crackers and air.”
And so long as the crackers are matzoh I’m not only going vegan but also keeping kosher.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Prep School, v. 2 (take out menu edition)
I have a menu mixed in with the countless papers in the fairly cumbersome Ikea catchall that clutters my work desk. The menu is for anonymous vegan eatery in lovely downtown Portland.
Now, before I go any further, in the interest of full disclosure, one of my roommates works for said eatery and he has a tendency to whistle while in the kitchen below my bedroom. He also complains when I take long (read: regular female length) showers. He is the chef when one speaks of this establishment's Chef's Special. Last night he urinated with the door open. The sheer force of his stream woke me up at both 2AM and 3:30AM. He is a vegan. Draw your own conclusions.
Using this cafe and catering menu as a map key to veganism I have struggled to answer some pertinent questions that have arisen as I start to train myself for my month long course in sustainable cuisine...
Question 1. - Is CoffeeMate vegan?
Anyone who has ever had the unique pleasure of working in an office with me quickly learns two things: one, I am not a "team player" like my resume claims and, two, I drink my body weight in fat free french vanilla flavored CoffeeMate daily. Yesterday in Fred Meyer it dawned on me that perhaps this delectable concoction of artificially flavored pseudo-milk solids and potassium benzoate might not be free of animal products. I consult my menu of "organic, vegan, and lovingly sustainable" vittles and find that hemp milk, kombucha, and genmaicha are available to imbibe or enhance a beverage but CoffeeMate is not. Nestle should know better. They have a bird as their logo. Just put a little Helvetica "vegan" on the label and sales would increase by, oh, .08%. At least here in Portland. Moreover, how in the hell will I not pull an Incredible Hulk and toss my computer out of the window without at least an eensy-weensy bit of coffee's favorite mate? Vegan non-dairy creamer: Fail.
Question 2. - Are vegans funny.
Note the lack of inquisitive punctuation. It's 'cause I already know the answer. "Veggie Pasta" is not pasta, but is zucchini. No pasta is present in the dish labeled as such. "Pizza" has something called "cashew cheese," "fajitas" have cashew crème , I'm not even going to get into the BBQ and taco options. Now, part of me is torn. I loathe traditional American cuisine and full-fat dairy products leave me wishing for that scene from Alien to just hurry up and finish reenacting itself in my lower colon. However, I'm not an idiot. If I order a piece of chocolate cake and wind up with an eggplant cut into a wedge I will know the difference. Moreover, what the fuck is cacao, maca , or wellness tincture? I am afraid that this quest to explore the dark side of so-called healthy eating will lead to internal acupuncture and my anus being shriveled into the shape of an 'om,' my apologies to those of you who were eating. And by eating I mean consuming something with corn syrup or a high level of sodium.
Question 3. - What the hell do you mean by "live" food?
"The *icon that would reveal exactly which restaurant this is* denotes our live (raw) offerings." Is this one of those hipster ironic things? Like, we're vegan, we eat plants, ha ha, live food. As though vegan cavemen (stretch your imaginations for just one second) would hunt and gather live roots and weeds and drag their dirt covered carcasses back to the fire where vegan cavewomen knit Grateful Dead tapestries out of vines. Live food, to me, is when you go out and kill something, thereby taking something live and making it, well, a meal. I will say that as a consumer I fully recognize the ignorant and slightly myopic nature of packaged food, as though taking a slab of flesh and wrapping it in plastic somehow makes it sterile and acceptable. I truly don't subscribe to the idea that separating a section of offal or muscle to be consumed from an animal makes it somehow more humane or compassionate on a subconscious level. Fuck that, you're eating an animal, that's what incisors are for. Accept it, embrace it. Or revile it and stop eating meat. I think that hunting is cruel but if you eat what you hunt then, really, you're at least being sincere about the whole consumption process, no? So "live" vegan food? Blow my mind or bore me. I'm confused. Entirely.
All of this reading about mock food and what it's supposed to represent made me gorge myself on Saltine crackers and water. Of course, those are two of my major sources of sustenance in preparation for vegan month, but the pasty, pasty crackers expand in my stomach like, well, like the urban legend about what happens when you feed a cat antacids. Fortunately nature (and by "nature" I mean industry) created its own form of Alka Seltzer known as the hot shower. I'm about to take one once I get home. And I'll shave my legs for a really, really long time.
(To all of my other friends who work at the joint, I apologize. You are really good people with a mission that's completely foreign to me and you are all unfairly cute so please don't hate me. And, dear rooommate, if you're reading this, there's an almond vanilla soymilk in the fridge with your name written all over it...in rabbit's blood.)
Perhaps I should just save a universal apology for the first of May.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Prep School, v.1
My knowledge of being vegan is limited to this: a vegan is a man or woman, usually between the ages of seventeen and twenty-nine, who has good hair. They often go out to eat in a group and are stared at because of their fantastically well-coordinated thrift store outfit and/or their body modification. Their menu choices are limited to water, olive oil, and questions. They cannot eat cheese. Often this is the main complaint about being a vegan. Occasionally vegans are women with long, grey hair kept in a single plait and they were many layers of skirts. Their name may incorporate a herb or a lunar phase and they are the sole purchasers of reusable maxi pads.
Reasons for becoming a vegan can vary but in my snap judgement and ignorance I have selected three categories under which they may fall:
1. Animal/Environmental Activists -- Although peppered with a bunch of jam band following, hemp necklace wearing, unshowered hackeysack enthusiasts, I think this group is perhaps the most sensible. Love an animal, save an animal, all that mushy stuff that makes for a productive summer protest. I, however, have learned that I am not an "animal lover." My ex-girlfriend's black lab mix ate my turkey sandwich one afternoon back in '99 and ever since then I've known that I am capable of truly hating something that doesn't even have prehensile thumbs or the ability to fully appreciate the brutal impact of being called a "vile ball wart."
2. The Health Nut -- Often believers of body parts called chakras* this group annoys me but also makes sense. They usually have some sound reasoning for what brought them to plant based meals, and they will often be generous enough to offer you a sample of bee cartilage or digestive yeast. My connection to these folks would be limited, simply because my eyes glaze automatically when I hear the word "yogi."
3. Hipsters -- Parents didn't love them enough, therefore they quest to be different and ironic. Fancy anorexia apparently does the trick. Along with the new Decemberists' album. Maybe I could fit into this category when I'm done making fun of mustaches and the resurgence of Ray-Bans. (Still ugly, kids.)
So there's my limited knowledge wrapped up with a lovely, sarcastic bow. The truth is, similar to some of those wild and tasty creatures I'm suddenly going to stop consuming, my claws come out when I feel fear. Voluntary starvation - like the army, training for a triathlon, and childbirth - is an activity I fear and basically believe should be avoided at all costs. But maybe this will teach me the true depths of my inability to commit to an activity, even over the course of a mere month. That will save me many graduate school application fees for sure. It might also teach me not to judge others so harshly without any verifiable information to back up my cruel, carnivorous cynicism.
* I'm not sure if these are body parts. I am sure they are not a female musician from the eighties.
Friday, March 14, 2008
No, Really, I'm Not Eating That
It started in New Seasons grocery store off of Division in Portland, Oregon. I was staring at a book titled “Becoming Vegan” which, to me, sounded like an indoctrination or a compliment. I looked around at the toothbrushes made from 100% renewable resources, the soy based faux meat products molded into the shapes of body parts, the Nag Champa incense...what was a cynical girl like me doing in a town like this? I say the word environment with the emphasis on the "ire." I think that saving the whales would be great, once I'm finished reading Perez Hilton. Green is my least favorite color unless you're adding the word "back" to it and shoving some into my pocket.
I’m also not big into things that require work. For example, work. I’m not very good at sticking to a task or one single focal point for too long of a period of time which leads me to be a scatterbrained employee and a fair-weather friend in a city where it's usually raining. Things I’ve had any sort of commitment to include, and are limited to, drinking, writing, and my best-friend
I want to find something to follow-through on, something to really sink my teeth into and clamp my jaw down on for dear life, something I can immerse myself in that is foreign to me. Extra points if this something is dangerous to my health and well-being, if it alters my general approach to life. I've decided that altering my diet is a tangible, albeit ridiculous, way of making a drastic change in lifestyle. Not since my very brief stint in high-school cheerleading has dietary restriction been looked upon as acceptable social behavior, but here in
Now, I must warn all of you, especially those who consume only plant based food products, once I express interest in a fad it is usually on its last, weary legs. (Cases-in-point: my subscription to YM, my first pair of Jnco jeans, the straightedge movement circa 1997, my star tattoos.) So expect veganism to go the way of the dinosaurs and perhaps in five years I’ll be clutching at the door handle of the barbaric carnivores band-wagon. Until then, welcome to my month-long stint in veganism, scheduled to commence April 1st, 2008. April Fools, no, really, I’m not eating that.
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