Half way through the month, we're hitting our vegan stride. Meals are getting easier, we're feeling better, and our culinary tastes continue to broaden.This week also had its difficulties though with Fat Tuesday and Valentine's Day.
On Tuesday, SB cheated by eating a paczki - a Polish pastry filled with fruit and cream. There's a popular bakery near the refinery whose head baker is Polish, and he only makes the desserts on that day. One of her coworkers brought a dozen into work. She cut one in half and ate it. I don't blame her for cheating.
She noticed that being vegan or vegetarian sucks when people bring food into work. Anthony Bourdain, one of our travel role models, berates travelers on these diets for this reason.
He says it's rude not to eat the foods with which other cultures identity. That's why after this month I'm going back to being a carnivore.
SB's favorite candy is seasonal, so she really missed Brach's candy hearts this Valentine's Day. They contain egg and milk. She also has a family tradition of making oatmeal cookie hearts with frosting, another tragedy of the vegan month.
We did make a few vegan discoveries. Field Roast brand substitutes are better than Tofurky. A member of Toledo's only co-op said Tofurky tastes like dog food compared to Field Roast. The texture of the sausages is less squishy, and it's delectably spiced.
Last Friday, SB's coworkers came over to watch The Godfather and eat spaghetti. I used the sauce recipe from the movie, using vegan substitutes. A coworker brought over a raw vegan cheesecake. We got her otherwise carnivorous coworkers to enjoy eating vegan for a night, which was a small victory.
Like any challenge, we're learning a lot about ourselves, mostly how we eat. We got a coupon book in the mail this week with ads for our favorite pizza joints in the area. Whenever there was a supper we couldn't decide on or didn't want to make, we'd fall back on these places. Looking at the ads, it didn't look appetizing, which was a shock to me. I thought I missed pizza, but I don't. I don't miss feeling like crap after eating it.
Maybe going vegan is teaching my body how to eat healthier, like a new kind of stomach muscle-memory? Or maybe I'll just revert back to crappy eating habits after this is done?
Vegan Sweet Rolls
Field Roast Sausages - Italian and Mexican Chipotle (spicy)
Pizza with Daiya's Mozzarella Style Shreds and veggies
This continues to be a very entertaining blog.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of diets, I am reminded of stories Grandma Strieker told about Grandpa Strieker's appetite. She told me that he would eat anything. She fixed many things for him that she would never eat.
It was not beneath him to eat raccoon, squirrel, possum, or other wild animals. She said once he brought home a road-killed raccoon he found walking home from the farm he worked. She said his judgement on eating road-kill was blinded a bit by Grandpas after-work visit to the tavern on the way home. She refused to skin it or eat it. Grandpa skinned it, Grandma cooked it, and he ate it.
I imagine budgets factored into this wide-open diet as well.
Three generations later....we have a vegan.