Bites of the day

I actually cooked today. I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. I made a baked pasta primavera with leftover Alfredo sauce from the other night, rotini noodles, carrots, spinach, sauteed mushrooms, some grated parmesan and a lovely provolone cheese melted on top and a sprinkling throughout. Seasoned, mixed together, and topped with cheese; it baked to lovely golden browned top. More a decadent treat than an everyday occurrence. I'll probably stay simple for dinner like a salad. Yum.

Plans for my birthday have been in discussion. Since we were little birthdays have always been celebrated with a family dinner of our choosing. Sometimes we go out, sometimes it is something more at home. My birthday dinner discussions often include a sometimes heated discussion about meat being included. I get the whining about being fair to everyone else and how you can't have a family meal without meat, blah, blah, blah. I'm not really surprised. It would just be nice if once there was a sit down meal where I didn't feel like I was eating around everyone else. Somehow, my brother's dislike of spinach is the same as my not eating meat in their eyes. Oh, to live in a world where I'm not the exception. We seem to have come to an agreement (no one else in my family has to negotiate their birthday dinner) of a fondue night complete with grilled kabobs (so I can have vegetable ones and they can have their meat) and a salad.

We're still in the midst of hunting season. Bah! I asked them to be respectful of me by not hunting on our own property (they have a list of family and friends with more property than we have), but this request was denied out of "respect for them." I try to take comfort in the fact they are not great shots and they are down to just bow season (no more deer being chase by guns). I recently had a friend, who is once again a vegetarian (she's been on and off for years now), who tried to lecture me about hunting. Of course, no one in her family hunts and she doesn't come from a 4-H or agricultural/farming family, therefore not understanding how ingrained in the culture it becomes. What some people don't understand is that I am never going to change them. I just really, really wish that they would be a little more understanding and compassionate about my place in the middle.

"I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because its's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her." -- Ellen DeGeneres

Snow and Stuff

It's been one of those days... well a couple of those days. The cold streak in Ohio is getting old, the temperatures dropped so much w had to bring the goats in from the barn. Unfortunately, we lost one of the from the frigid tempteratures. It is a small barn and just isn't enough protection aginast the severe wind chills. (The other is in a large crate/cage in the spare bedroom with plastic covering the floor.) He seems mostly content, even laying up against the bars to be closer to the dog. I think we will all be ad when the temperatures let up and the risks go back down (he may not be a large goat, but I know he would prefer to have more room and be back in his barn and yard).

This may surprise some people who know that I have lived in Ohio all of my life, but really, REALY am not a big fan of snow or ice or cold. It' aggitates my joints and makes me achy. This is my quiet weekend before the business to come is upon me. No one in my house felt much like cooking for lunch so we went out... a local place that has Chinese and other Oriental type foods. I've often found Ethnic food places to have meat-free options that are not always as readily available in other places (Oriental, Italinan, Mexican, etc). It was alright. My mom made dinner, forgetting about me, she put meat in all of it. I ended up making a mushroom noodle soup for dinner for myself, nothing fancy or great, but the warm both was probably for the better. I think sometimes it really just gets to me when I get forgotten when it comes to family meals. Me being meatless is not a recent, new, or on again/off again thing. It's just me, but sometimes that still doesn't seem so easy for the people around me.

I keep having this fantasy of living in a vegetarian house (more than just me and a small scattering of friends, mostly sometimes vegetarians at best), with vast connections to other vegetarians, and living in a more vegetarian world- where meat-eaters are in the minority and not me. It seems a far away fantasy, but I will keep it.

"Tongue - a variety of meat, rarely served because it clearly crosses the line between a cut of beef and a piece of a dead cow." ~Bob Ekstrom

Pet Peeves

It was a mostly decent weekend (We had a good opening weekend, Halloween, some dancing, some hanging out with friends, all good things); but one full of some fairly annoying attacks to my way of being and eating and the whole vegetarian thing. We all have those peeves that just want to send us over the edge of just wanting to lash out at people and struggling not to.

Firstly, a friend of the family farms and their family all hunts (much like my own), they called to ask my mom and brothers if they wanted the meat from the deer one of the boys just got. (If they are going to hunt at least they use the meat or know people that will.) So since yesterday all I have heard around the house is about feild dressing, how long it can safely hang in this weather, getting it processed and butchered, finding a place to process, and what they are getting done with this meat (bologna, steaks, burger, etc.) and possibly the hide as well. There were phone calls, debates, conversations, gloating. I try to just ignore it... it doesn;'t do a bit of good to say anything, I just wish I did not have to hear it constantly. That was the start of yesterday.


Then came part two... the real point of my aggravation. It was Halloween weekend as well as an opening weekend for our show. This, unsurprisingly, means going out both night. (Halloween night I dressed as Mother Nature in a flowly, sheer, autumn inspired dress.) Well last night and into the wee hours of this morning we ended up at Denny's (after everything else was closed) and some of the group were still under the influences of alcohol (which probably did not help). Everyone had ordered and the food had just came. As the one girl (one that I had just met had already found myself shaking my head at more than once) began to dig into her chicken strips announced something about her being a vegetarian. I looked across the table at her plate then up at her, "Um, no your not." (This is probably one of my biggest pet peeves of people.) "Yes, I am. I'm just a vegetarian that eats chicken and seafood, I don't eat all things like beef or pork. You know there are all kind of vegetarians and vegans." She continued one babbling and raiing my blood pressure as she was going to lecture me about how a true vegetarian could still eat chicken and seafood and still be a true vegetarian. I don't think she liked my reference to "vegetarians" or eat such as semi-vegetarians. Finally she took a breath (I was getting more and more annoyed and just flat out aggravated) and something was said about me being a vegetarian (two fo the others at the others at the table know that I don't eat meat) and that I really didn't need her to tell me what one was. She asked what I ate and I explained as patiently as I could that I didn't eat anythign that had once had a face, that included chicken and seafood. So she started in on me about being a fake vegan... I don't claim to be a vegan and never had. She also started bragging about how good seafood was and how tasty her chicken strips are. These are the types of people who help make life harder for the rest of who us who actually do not eat meat. She kept at me about how good her chicken tasted and how I was a pretend vegan. I tried to explain why semi vegetarians who still eat some meat make it harder for the rest of us... when we go places people actually try to use chicken breath as "vegetarian" and fish as a "meat alternative." She was too caught up in her idea of always being right to even listen. I can't help it, but it just seems far worse to have pretend and fake vegetarians stirring up trouble than the meat eaters who just don't understand. It also confuses the meat eaters who think we can and do still consume things like that.

Check out these links:
http://www.theveggietable.com/articles/whatisavegetarian.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism
http://www.vegetarian-restaurants.net/OtherInfo/VegetarianTypes.htm
http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/tp/TypesofVeg.htm

"To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body." ~Mahatma Gandhi