I was born to be a lot of things... a writer, maybe... an inventor, probably... but mostly, normal. My parents and grandparents did a fine job of indocrinating me in a lifestyle and religion that would steer me toward right for the rest of my days.
Part of this legacy was to be modest in my appearance. Beautiful women stun the world with their intellect and insight, not their tan and cleavage. Beautiful women were strong and honest, not faint or bold, like 40's actresses.
So it makes sense that I would eventually meet some conflict with the inner beauty and the incogruence outside. Most women, in fact, endure this body image struggle... where the inside looks nothing like the outside and you can't understand how the two are related. Sometimes this ends up in painful experiences like anorexia and bulemia. As heartbreaking as these conditions are, I can understand the underlying problem. You look in the mirror and don't feel like the image looking back could possibly be you... well, unfortunately it has to be. So then what?
What happens to the part of womankind who looks in that mirror and disagrees? I think the majority of them just agree anyway... and accept what stares back at them as an uncomfortable reality, afforded by a perspective they can't get to from their current perch. Another portion runs screaming into destructive behaviour, trying to change what they see with eating disorders, drugs and alcohol. Another few try a new hobby or wardrobe, hoping they can try on another style to feel more at home in their skin.
And then there are those like me...
I have known since I was a skinny little kid that I wanted a different body. I dreamed of looking like everyone else. Blending in, making no impression at all. Instead, I was too thin, compounded by smoking, so much that my friends still tell me they wanted me to eat a cheeseburger 10 years ago. I look back on those days fondly, but not because I was younger or thinner, but because I was oblivious to the discord between by body and my body image. After I quit smoking cigarettes and got married (two blissful experiences in my life), I put on weight. And grew further from whatever I thought was normal before.
I don't think I'm fat, I don't think I'm out of the ordinary, in fact.. I have attained my goal.. average height, average weight and better than average personal life. But I can't go to the store and buy a size 8. All the changing I did to get there, and all I get is a well-fitting behind and too-big top.
I wanted a 'boob job' since the day I thought I had boobs... I can remember thinking that I was different then and wanting so badly to belong. Now, as a full-fledged woman, complete with uncomfortable jeans and slimming undergarments, I still want to have proportional problems, big boobs and big hips, curves, something besides a skinny girl with some extra weight.
It goes deeper, I'm sure... I was raised in a religious household, and have restrained myself - always - when it comes to my appearance. I have always wanted very badly to have nice breasts through breast augmentation. I have a genetic disorder called pectus carinatum, which almost always affects men, one in 300,000 live births are female and afflicted. Despite having it 'repaired' using drastic invasive surgery 6 years ago, my breasts are very uneven and disproportionately small for my frame.
Bart and I have talked about a breast augmentation, what it would cost, what it would mean in terms of healing and consequences, but this whole time, I have kept back from him the reason I haven't done it yet.
It's not financial, there are plenty of financing options, and it can't be social, no one in my circle judges plastic surgery with a negative eye. The reason I haven't done it, is because having a perfect chest will require a certain confidence to accompany my new body, and I am sure I don't have it just yet.
Perhaps I'm holding myself to a ridiculous standard, that I have to be able to defend plastic surgery at this phase in my life. That it means something, I'm promiscuous, or desperate.. unhappy or having a control moment... When the reality is, if it happens, it is entirely to make me feel better about myself. It should be perfect reason, everyone deserves to buy a bra at a department store or wear it comfortably, but for some reason, it's still not good enough for me. The vanity that is associated with wanting to be beautiful outside, is something few women admit to. And I do admit it... I want to be Marilyn Monroe, or Katy Perry, especially Helena Bonham Carter. And they all are beautiful because they exude confidence. They wear their confidence outside.
I've struggled with body image for a long time, in the opposite of most struggles... and what I realize is that it doesn't matter if you're too fat or too thin, too top-heavy or too bottom-heavy. Our pain is a suit we put on each day. We carry our differences like they are a burden. If I were to counsel a young woman with body image issues now, I would tell her to love her unique self and worry about what she can change later...
And for that reason, I wait. I wait to buy my boobs, and the resulting confidence and new set of problems. What if there is no solution to looking in the mirror and not recognizing the face that looks back? Isn't there a bigger problem that I should solve before I drop $5000 on a perfect rack? Or am I being too hard on something that is perfectly normal to want.. equal boobs in proportion to my curves. I just can't help but think I'm too old for this...
I wait. For the later that all little girls are promised. Someday soon, dear, you will be a beautiful swan... you'll be desired and successful and all your dreams will come true. Reality, evidently, looks more like me. A troupe of women told to value modesty from people they trust, and told to covet beautiful bodies by everyone else. Who to believe?
Well, life is all about choices. I either distance myself from pain with new boobs, or wear it around everyday as a reminder that I'm "unique". Taking my own advice is hard.
I feel like I wear body image issues pinned to every piece of clothing I own, don't even have a mirror in my makeup bag and avoid talking about this to anyone, and I'm not alone. I want to try harder, to appreciate many different shades of perfect and find myself in one of them, but eventually, I'm pretty sure I'll pull the trigger and buy some boobs. They might help, but I promise to never tell my niece about them so she can grow up thinking there isn't a way to buy self-acceptance.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Wasting time in the kitchen
I'm becoming very practiced at failure in the kitchen. I take a lot of risks in there, and you're bound to flub things when you're cooking with passion.
Well yesterday was no exception. I tried, for the very first time, making risotto. Cooking shows make it look so easy and fast, even. I just had to do it and watch the magic unfold before my eyes.
Magic, huh... well there was at least some physics and chemistry afoot, probably no magic, though.
I think my first mistake was trying to make it healthy by using brown arborio rice. I didn't think about the fact that brown rice takes twice as long to cook as white and as a result, my stirring arm is quite rubbery today. Also, I underestimated the amount of stock it would take to cook said rice. I started with a quart, as the basic risotto recipe instructed, but ended up needing about 2-1/2 quarts of liquid to soften the hull of the inpenetrable brown arborio grain. The final oversight was one of flavor. I decided to write my own recipe for this risotto, based on Indian biriyani. This meant using rich spices like coriander and cumin and as the rice toasted, so did the spices, developing into a super-rich concoction which I only compounded by adding butter and cheese at the end.
All told, it took an hour and 45 minutes to cook down the rice, all the while stirring and carefully adding stock. I did feel a scientific connection to the dish, however, as I watched the little stubborn grains of rice give up their starchy goodness into the surrounding gravy. The development was quite spectacular, even if it was painfully slow. The end result was rich and tasty, having absorbed all the stock and flavor and released enough starch to glue my cabinets back together.
I ate a little of it, but it proved too rich for me to finish. The moral of the story? Sometimes taking a risk in the kitchen means missing all of your tv shows while standing over a hot stove being blasted by aromatics for too long, only to leave you too baked to eat what you've made. Buy risotto in restaurants, don't make it.
Well yesterday was no exception. I tried, for the very first time, making risotto. Cooking shows make it look so easy and fast, even. I just had to do it and watch the magic unfold before my eyes.
Magic, huh... well there was at least some physics and chemistry afoot, probably no magic, though.
I think my first mistake was trying to make it healthy by using brown arborio rice. I didn't think about the fact that brown rice takes twice as long to cook as white and as a result, my stirring arm is quite rubbery today. Also, I underestimated the amount of stock it would take to cook said rice. I started with a quart, as the basic risotto recipe instructed, but ended up needing about 2-1/2 quarts of liquid to soften the hull of the inpenetrable brown arborio grain. The final oversight was one of flavor. I decided to write my own recipe for this risotto, based on Indian biriyani. This meant using rich spices like coriander and cumin and as the rice toasted, so did the spices, developing into a super-rich concoction which I only compounded by adding butter and cheese at the end.
All told, it took an hour and 45 minutes to cook down the rice, all the while stirring and carefully adding stock. I did feel a scientific connection to the dish, however, as I watched the little stubborn grains of rice give up their starchy goodness into the surrounding gravy. The development was quite spectacular, even if it was painfully slow. The end result was rich and tasty, having absorbed all the stock and flavor and released enough starch to glue my cabinets back together.
I ate a little of it, but it proved too rich for me to finish. The moral of the story? Sometimes taking a risk in the kitchen means missing all of your tv shows while standing over a hot stove being blasted by aromatics for too long, only to leave you too baked to eat what you've made. Buy risotto in restaurants, don't make it.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Smells Like Folk Music
Hello again.
In the belly of my being, I just experienced something remarkable. It could be that I'm just listening especially hard to the right channel, or perhaps we carry our ancestors memories in our genes. Or I'm crazy, you pick.
I was sitting here killing time, when I smelled a familiar smell in my hotel room. Smell is a funny thing... sometimes it teases you, just tickling your senses and trying to elicit a response, like the lady who passes you at the mall and smells vaguely familiar.
Sometimes, there is nothing vague about the memory and the smell directs you back to a specific time in your life, an event, a feeling, an action. The smell of Giorgio perfume makes me think of the placemats they used to use on Eastern Airlines flights. During the late 80's, Disney World sponsored them so they featured a rainbow originating from Cinderella's castle, and my mother - a flight attendant - brought them home for me to color. She wore the perfume, but the smell meant she was home... and the memory it conjured was of her humble gifts for me. They were always a little gift, and always made me so glad she was home. A placemat to color, my favorite pretzels, the rare succulent processed cheese snack. I still love processed cheese.
Just now, I had a transformative experience. I sat reading internet news with my noisy hotel neighbors, and suddenly, my left hand smelled like steel and silver. Probably a vague smell for anyone else, but for me... just now, I was on the floor of my parents' bedroom with wrapped violin strings. When I was a small child, my dad and grandpa both played the fiddle and spontaneous jam sessions allowed me into the world of the violin case.
This smell - right now, in Philadelphia, PA - 1500 miles from their house, just transported me back to a space (inside the blue/green velvet interior of a violin case) and a set of surroundings (a frayed horsehair bow, lead weights, and spent rosin cartridges). But the most spectactular association to this cold, metal smell is to a specific piece of music the men in my life played.
Were I to smell rosin now, I'm sure it would be offensive and toxic, but back then I was a small child who loved music. It could never offend me.
The piece of music that now resurrects my childhood innocence and passion was an old fiddle tune called the '8th of January'. It was written to celebrate the historic Battle of New Orleans, January 8th, 1812. Exactly 170 years after the battle I was born to the grandson of a migrant pianist who - at best guess - was from the very same city. Obviously it wasn't written to commemorate me, but it was a way my musician family loved me, they played me songs that reminded them of us. The collective us - which was sometimes one of very few possesions we had.
The tune plucks my inner strings of family, folk, origin, and history. That side of the family can't be traced past this single member, the genesis of my clan and the first teacher I can credit with my love of music. He bore this love through his children and it reached me as a legacy, handed down with personal tunes and real, raw expressions of song.
The fiddle tune is just like many others I heard growing up. A celebration of the 'folk' in music - squeaky and raw - played for people who appreciate the story it tells. This story, like so many southern families in the dust bowl, moved from job site to job site. It was full of hope and celebration, tinged with longing and hunger.
This singular song, and the smell that brought the past with it, give me hope. I'm hopeful that a new generation is making this bond with their story. It may be word, or song, or taste, or smell... but telling the story is the most important part.
We are stewards of a rich legacy, even those born from traveling musicians have vivid histories to share. No matter how rich or poor you are, your power lies in your potential being, your story, your adventure.
Enjoy the Eigth of January as I heard it then... no banjo, no fanfare. Imagine you're Alice exploring the inside of the violin case with me, but no cupcakes or magic elixirs, only smell and imagination. This can be your adventure's soundtrack.
Share memories and imagination with others.
Rinse and repeat.
In the belly of my being, I just experienced something remarkable. It could be that I'm just listening especially hard to the right channel, or perhaps we carry our ancestors memories in our genes. Or I'm crazy, you pick.
I was sitting here killing time, when I smelled a familiar smell in my hotel room. Smell is a funny thing... sometimes it teases you, just tickling your senses and trying to elicit a response, like the lady who passes you at the mall and smells vaguely familiar.
Sometimes, there is nothing vague about the memory and the smell directs you back to a specific time in your life, an event, a feeling, an action. The smell of Giorgio perfume makes me think of the placemats they used to use on Eastern Airlines flights. During the late 80's, Disney World sponsored them so they featured a rainbow originating from Cinderella's castle, and my mother - a flight attendant - brought them home for me to color. She wore the perfume, but the smell meant she was home... and the memory it conjured was of her humble gifts for me. They were always a little gift, and always made me so glad she was home. A placemat to color, my favorite pretzels, the rare succulent processed cheese snack. I still love processed cheese.
Just now, I had a transformative experience. I sat reading internet news with my noisy hotel neighbors, and suddenly, my left hand smelled like steel and silver. Probably a vague smell for anyone else, but for me... just now, I was on the floor of my parents' bedroom with wrapped violin strings. When I was a small child, my dad and grandpa both played the fiddle and spontaneous jam sessions allowed me into the world of the violin case.
This smell - right now, in Philadelphia, PA - 1500 miles from their house, just transported me back to a space (inside the blue/green velvet interior of a violin case) and a set of surroundings (a frayed horsehair bow, lead weights, and spent rosin cartridges). But the most spectactular association to this cold, metal smell is to a specific piece of music the men in my life played.
Were I to smell rosin now, I'm sure it would be offensive and toxic, but back then I was a small child who loved music. It could never offend me.
The piece of music that now resurrects my childhood innocence and passion was an old fiddle tune called the '8th of January'. It was written to celebrate the historic Battle of New Orleans, January 8th, 1812. Exactly 170 years after the battle I was born to the grandson of a migrant pianist who - at best guess - was from the very same city. Obviously it wasn't written to commemorate me, but it was a way my musician family loved me, they played me songs that reminded them of us. The collective us - which was sometimes one of very few possesions we had.
The tune plucks my inner strings of family, folk, origin, and history. That side of the family can't be traced past this single member, the genesis of my clan and the first teacher I can credit with my love of music. He bore this love through his children and it reached me as a legacy, handed down with personal tunes and real, raw expressions of song.
The fiddle tune is just like many others I heard growing up. A celebration of the 'folk' in music - squeaky and raw - played for people who appreciate the story it tells. This story, like so many southern families in the dust bowl, moved from job site to job site. It was full of hope and celebration, tinged with longing and hunger.
This singular song, and the smell that brought the past with it, give me hope. I'm hopeful that a new generation is making this bond with their story. It may be word, or song, or taste, or smell... but telling the story is the most important part.
We are stewards of a rich legacy, even those born from traveling musicians have vivid histories to share. No matter how rich or poor you are, your power lies in your potential being, your story, your adventure.
Enjoy the Eigth of January as I heard it then... no banjo, no fanfare. Imagine you're Alice exploring the inside of the violin case with me, but no cupcakes or magic elixirs, only smell and imagination. This can be your adventure's soundtrack.
Share memories and imagination with others.
Rinse and repeat.
Friday, October 22, 2010
A Haiku for Dallas Sanitation
City of Dallas,
you are officially on
one sweet girl's bad side
Thanks for not picking up my recycling. And apparently not picking up my neighbor's, which they were kind enough to heap on top of my full cart.
Thank you for having a shitty phone system that hung up on me twice while I tried to complain.
Thank you for ignoring my husband's call 3 weeks ago, he's going to love coming home from a long day at work to find the side of the house covered in refuse.
I feel like a second class citizen, and this better not have anything to do with my neighborhood. Just because the neighbors don't have a recycling cart and don't seem to care about recycling doesn't mean you don't have to drive down my street with your truck and empty my cart. So help me Google, I will bury you in emails.
I hope something smelly gets all over you when you finally do return my calls and emails and pick up my stuff.
you are officially on
one sweet girl's bad side
Thanks for not picking up my recycling. And apparently not picking up my neighbor's, which they were kind enough to heap on top of my full cart.
Thank you for having a shitty phone system that hung up on me twice while I tried to complain.
Thank you for ignoring my husband's call 3 weeks ago, he's going to love coming home from a long day at work to find the side of the house covered in refuse.
I feel like a second class citizen, and this better not have anything to do with my neighborhood. Just because the neighbors don't have a recycling cart and don't seem to care about recycling doesn't mean you don't have to drive down my street with your truck and empty my cart. So help me Google, I will bury you in emails.
I hope something smelly gets all over you when you finally do return my calls and emails and pick up my stuff.
Monday, September 13, 2010
I'm sorry my crazy fell on your roof. Nice to meet you.
So I'll be the first to admit that from time to time, when I experience periods of stress, I get a little extra neurotic. It's hard to hold the OCD down when I'm tired.
I'm at the kitchen sink several times every day getting water, and for a week it seems, it had been raining out my kitchen window. There's an overgrown Cedar Elm over the neighbor's house that dapples the light in the late afternoon, and while the neighbor's house is not very pleasant to look at, I still like to look out when I'm there.
Saturday afternoon, on the way out of the house, I was enjoying my window when I noticed something hanging out of the neighbor's gutter. A squirrel tail and two little back paws. It was terrible that a squirrel had died up there, but now it was all I could think about when looking out my kitchen window. I started to think about ways to get the remains down from the eave of the house since I certainly couldn't watch the poor thing decay, but finding the neighbor lady scaling your house to get dead rodents off the roof is certainly no way to meet those neighbors for the first time.
Bart was already in the car waiting for me to leave, so I went out to run errands and see if he had a better idea for getting the squirrel down. We came home really late and had to be at his sister's house early on Sunday. When we were finally home Sunday afternoon, Bart wanted to assess the situation so I pointed out the kitchen where the carcass was, but it had MOVED... I shivered in terror thinking that I could have helped this poor sick animal yesterday but thought it was dead and it lay suffering all night because of my assumption. It must have dragged its poor little tired squirrel body a few inches down the gutter trying to get comfortable. Now what do I do? It's Sunday afternoon, Animal Control probably won't come out until morning, and here I am with a mostly dead squirrel 15 feet from where I do my dishes!
At that moment I look to the right, and another squirrel sits staring at me, 10 feet down-gutter from the first. We make eye contact as he drapes himself over the edge of the gutter and coughs as dramatically as a squirrel can. Two dying squirrels on the neighbor's roof? Bart, who is still standing next to me, says something about poison... Are my neighbors poisoning squirrels? What kind of people do I live next door to? How can we ever get a dog now? What if the dog catches a poisoned squirrel? Will the neighbors poison the dog too?
Overwhelmed with panic, and sickened by the suffering unfolding before my eyes, I go to the other room. I think about how I'm going to end their misery, most of the options involving lots of courage I can't seem to find right now. Bart, who is a veteran in coping with the Katy-style panic attack, offers to go talk to the neighbors. He walks next door and introduces himself and comes back through the house a few minutes later to get the ladder.
I was just getting the hysteria under control when he came back in the house. Do I ask him how he did it? Do I even want to know? All of the images of squirrel euthanasia swirling around in my head were surely worse than reality, right?
"Well, our neighbors think we're crazy", he says. Crazy? Are they as heartless as I thought? He tells me he met the family, but the teenage son is the only person in the house who speaks english, and he and Bart got up on the ladder. I brace myself as he recounts reaching for the sick squirrel, all the while thinking how this was way braver than him stepping on a cockroach for me.
He reached up in the gutter, ready to fight the potentially contagious squirrel, and both of the squirrels hopped up out of the gutter, ran up the roof, and away into the trees.
Carlos, the teenage neighbor, laughed as Bart climbed down the ladder. Bart, the neighbor he has never met but has lived here for 8 months, just knocked on his door and climbed up a ladder to point out that squirrels were lounging on his roof. Lounging!
All this time, the squirrels were just kicking it up there in the gutter. I guess they sleep in very unconventional positions, like the one I saw on Saturday upside down with his hind legs and tail up in the air, and the coughing squirrel, who draped himself over the edge of the gutter like he lacked the strength to properly lay down. LOUNGING!
Bart, as usual, had to pay the price for my insane little episode with his dignity. Now Carlos and his family, who are not actually squirrel-poisoners, know us as the crazy white couple next door, who came knocking to tell them squirrels were on their roof. No squirrels suffered.
Today, since it's been long enough since the incident for me to talk about it, I went to the window while talking on the phone. One of them is sitting up there right now, mocking me. That's right, the squirrel is back lounging in the gutter again. He probably told his friends to come over and mock me too. That's fine, it's no secret that I'm nuts, you little varmint slacker!
I'm at the kitchen sink several times every day getting water, and for a week it seems, it had been raining out my kitchen window. There's an overgrown Cedar Elm over the neighbor's house that dapples the light in the late afternoon, and while the neighbor's house is not very pleasant to look at, I still like to look out when I'm there.
Saturday afternoon, on the way out of the house, I was enjoying my window when I noticed something hanging out of the neighbor's gutter. A squirrel tail and two little back paws. It was terrible that a squirrel had died up there, but now it was all I could think about when looking out my kitchen window. I started to think about ways to get the remains down from the eave of the house since I certainly couldn't watch the poor thing decay, but finding the neighbor lady scaling your house to get dead rodents off the roof is certainly no way to meet those neighbors for the first time.
Bart was already in the car waiting for me to leave, so I went out to run errands and see if he had a better idea for getting the squirrel down. We came home really late and had to be at his sister's house early on Sunday. When we were finally home Sunday afternoon, Bart wanted to assess the situation so I pointed out the kitchen where the carcass was, but it had MOVED... I shivered in terror thinking that I could have helped this poor sick animal yesterday but thought it was dead and it lay suffering all night because of my assumption. It must have dragged its poor little tired squirrel body a few inches down the gutter trying to get comfortable. Now what do I do? It's Sunday afternoon, Animal Control probably won't come out until morning, and here I am with a mostly dead squirrel 15 feet from where I do my dishes!
At that moment I look to the right, and another squirrel sits staring at me, 10 feet down-gutter from the first. We make eye contact as he drapes himself over the edge of the gutter and coughs as dramatically as a squirrel can. Two dying squirrels on the neighbor's roof? Bart, who is still standing next to me, says something about poison... Are my neighbors poisoning squirrels? What kind of people do I live next door to? How can we ever get a dog now? What if the dog catches a poisoned squirrel? Will the neighbors poison the dog too?
Overwhelmed with panic, and sickened by the suffering unfolding before my eyes, I go to the other room. I think about how I'm going to end their misery, most of the options involving lots of courage I can't seem to find right now. Bart, who is a veteran in coping with the Katy-style panic attack, offers to go talk to the neighbors. He walks next door and introduces himself and comes back through the house a few minutes later to get the ladder.
I was just getting the hysteria under control when he came back in the house. Do I ask him how he did it? Do I even want to know? All of the images of squirrel euthanasia swirling around in my head were surely worse than reality, right?
"Well, our neighbors think we're crazy", he says. Crazy? Are they as heartless as I thought? He tells me he met the family, but the teenage son is the only person in the house who speaks english, and he and Bart got up on the ladder. I brace myself as he recounts reaching for the sick squirrel, all the while thinking how this was way braver than him stepping on a cockroach for me.
He reached up in the gutter, ready to fight the potentially contagious squirrel, and both of the squirrels hopped up out of the gutter, ran up the roof, and away into the trees.
Carlos, the teenage neighbor, laughed as Bart climbed down the ladder. Bart, the neighbor he has never met but has lived here for 8 months, just knocked on his door and climbed up a ladder to point out that squirrels were lounging on his roof. Lounging!
All this time, the squirrels were just kicking it up there in the gutter. I guess they sleep in very unconventional positions, like the one I saw on Saturday upside down with his hind legs and tail up in the air, and the coughing squirrel, who draped himself over the edge of the gutter like he lacked the strength to properly lay down. LOUNGING!
Bart, as usual, had to pay the price for my insane little episode with his dignity. Now Carlos and his family, who are not actually squirrel-poisoners, know us as the crazy white couple next door, who came knocking to tell them squirrels were on their roof. No squirrels suffered.
Today, since it's been long enough since the incident for me to talk about it, I went to the window while talking on the phone. One of them is sitting up there right now, mocking me. That's right, the squirrel is back lounging in the gutter again. He probably told his friends to come over and mock me too. That's fine, it's no secret that I'm nuts, you little varmint slacker!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Don't trust your burger. It is NOT your friend.
Its been 5 years, 7 months and 16 days since I last ate a piece of animal flesh. I'm sure at some point I've been slipped some chicken stock, the occasional splash of fish sauce and a few gelatin-containing candies during that time. I'll even admit that I've knowingly eaten the candy - since Brach's candy corn is like Katy-Kryptonite.
In that time, I've learned to be extra-vigilant. Reading ingredient lists, pestering waiters, trusting no one. Once I was diagnosed with an onion allergy all the checking became even more important as I was not only checking for any kind of meat product but also any onion, leek, chive, shallot, or scallion. I've grown to embrace any food that didn't contain any forbidden ingredient, good or bad... mostly because there wasn't anything else to eat.
I've been fortunate to have fewer reactions to onion product after strict avoidance so I've become less concerned with my "checks". Well today, my lax check policy caused me to make a mistake that I consider unforgivable.
We went to Fat Daddy's for dinner, and Bart and I both ordered Gardenburgers. I used to freak out regularly while eating a meat substitute and make someone else taste it, or dig through looking for recognizable signs of veggie life, but my lax checks must mean I trust the system more lately... In any case, we added our lettuce and tomato and went back to our table to eat. I was starving, so I tore into my burger. I was thinking this was the tastiest pickle I had eaten in a while when I looked at my burger.... and looked at Bart's. And had the terrifying realization that they were different.
We should have had identical burgers since we both ordered the gardenburger, but mine had a distinct irregular quality, and his was definitely formed in a Morningstar factory. I didn't even need someone to check for me. I knew mine was a turkey burger. And I had eaten a third of it.
Thanks to my OCD taking a vacation for the day, I ate turkey. The manager felt terrible, of course, once he realized. Not as terrible as me. Let that be a lesson to all my veggie-saurus friends. Don't trust your burger. It is NOT your friend. Deep-down, it wants to be meat, that's why we like them so much... they are familiar substitutes for a staple of american life.
Safe and domestic is not a good thing when you're a vegetarian. It means you could be eating meat and realize too late. And all of this overshadows a relative tofu victory yesterday, a beautiful baked marinated tofu taco recipe that I was ready to brag about. I'm too defeated to report about it now since someone slipped me the bird.
In that time, I've learned to be extra-vigilant. Reading ingredient lists, pestering waiters, trusting no one. Once I was diagnosed with an onion allergy all the checking became even more important as I was not only checking for any kind of meat product but also any onion, leek, chive, shallot, or scallion. I've grown to embrace any food that didn't contain any forbidden ingredient, good or bad... mostly because there wasn't anything else to eat.
I've been fortunate to have fewer reactions to onion product after strict avoidance so I've become less concerned with my "checks". Well today, my lax check policy caused me to make a mistake that I consider unforgivable.
We went to Fat Daddy's for dinner, and Bart and I both ordered Gardenburgers. I used to freak out regularly while eating a meat substitute and make someone else taste it, or dig through looking for recognizable signs of veggie life, but my lax checks must mean I trust the system more lately... In any case, we added our lettuce and tomato and went back to our table to eat. I was starving, so I tore into my burger. I was thinking this was the tastiest pickle I had eaten in a while when I looked at my burger.... and looked at Bart's. And had the terrifying realization that they were different.
We should have had identical burgers since we both ordered the gardenburger, but mine had a distinct irregular quality, and his was definitely formed in a Morningstar factory. I didn't even need someone to check for me. I knew mine was a turkey burger. And I had eaten a third of it.
Thanks to my OCD taking a vacation for the day, I ate turkey. The manager felt terrible, of course, once he realized. Not as terrible as me. Let that be a lesson to all my veggie-saurus friends. Don't trust your burger. It is NOT your friend. Deep-down, it wants to be meat, that's why we like them so much... they are familiar substitutes for a staple of american life.
Safe and domestic is not a good thing when you're a vegetarian. It means you could be eating meat and realize too late. And all of this overshadows a relative tofu victory yesterday, a beautiful baked marinated tofu taco recipe that I was ready to brag about. I'm too defeated to report about it now since someone slipped me the bird.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
I would love to be a chef, but my execution is less than perfect... And there are no vegetarian culinary schools. So I think I should focus on eating instead of cooking.
Today, the best thing I made was some microwave lime and salt popcorn sprinkled with parmesan and romano cheese...
The worst thing I made was scrambled eggs with bell pepper and jalapeño. The eggs tasted fine, but I made a royal mess of my griddle. I need egg practice.
Here's to being humbled by food.
Today, the best thing I made was some microwave lime and salt popcorn sprinkled with parmesan and romano cheese...
The worst thing I made was scrambled eggs with bell pepper and jalapeño. The eggs tasted fine, but I made a royal mess of my griddle. I need egg practice.
Here's to being humbled by food.
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