The last couple of days has been pretty crazy. We are getting ready for our trip to Philly, it's my oldest son's birthday today (he is 8! WOW!) and I had another day where I woke up and went to my day job and went straight to a make-up gig. My cauliflower spoiled (so no buffalo cauliflower for me until life slows down and I remember to pick some up).
I managed to whip up this avocado-quinoa-chickpea and baby tomato salad the other day. I took a picture of it on my phone, uploaded it to Instagram, and the original photo that I took that I planned to upload to this blog got eaten by my phone. It is gone, never to be found again. Anyhoo, you can see that it is delish. The kids destroyed it. Even the baby. It was even better the next day- I was wary because I thought for sure the avocado would oxidize and make the taste turn south, but the mustard-agave dressing kept it perfectly green. You can find the original recipe here.
Onto some other not-so-terrific subject matter. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was a vegetarian for most of my life. In a Midwestern home this seems like it is the most rebellious thing a person can do. I remember when I was a kid, my mother would make chili (by the way, I am most definitely Midwestern but I was born in Texas... so when mom made chili it was the real deal, not the stuff that is typically made up here). I was about 13 when I discovered (or maybe they had just come out with??) TVP crumbles that resembled ground beef. I went into the fridge and my mom had made me some chili with the label Vegetarian Chili, only "Vegetarian" was in quotations. Then there was a huge tub the rest of the family's chili was in, and it said, "Actually GOOD Chili." I thought this was really funny and my mom had this really unique sense of humor for her generation. I really think she was a bit ahead of her time in this way. But from time to time it would get annoying or exhausting for my mom to cook meals for me. I ended up learning to cook because she finally threw her hands up and told me I was responsible for making my own dinners. The first meals I made for myself were from a cookbook I stole from Home Economics class- it had complete regional meals for every major area of the United States. I would omit the meat ingredients or substitute them- to this day I've only ever owned two vegetarian cookbooks. I just bought Number Two a couple of weeks ago.
Anyway, I was shopping with Lars the other day and we were picking out a couple items for dinner. I had really loved these artisan yogurts called Noosa, and got him hooked on them (even though he made fun of me at first for being so into yogurt). He said, "I'm going to pick up one of those yogurts you like... I am going to buy them all the time and eat them right in front of you once you transition to vegan!" He was kidding of course, and it was all in good fun. But growing up, the mere mention of being vegetarian incited interrogation about my motives, people trying to start arguments with me about why we need meat or or some other animal product, and "look at me, I'm eating dead animal" tauntings. None of these were ever provoked, but they were almost always by adults and I was just a kid. I am not sure why I got so much of this, but it would stop pretty abruptly once I told them I didn't care about their food choices and it was just a personal decision I thought was best for me. Sometimes I would get an argument here or there after that from someone trying to get me to "sell" them on why my beliefs were legitimate. Maybe that's why as an adult, it's really important to me to keep things positive if I am going to have a blog, and not criticize others' choices or ways of doing things differently. I live in the same area of the country but views have changed, I live in a very liberal, accepting city and more and more people are changing their diets for one reason or another, whether it be chemical-free, gluten-free or some level of vegetarianism. I guess it snapped me back into reality when Lars made that joke that sometimes people ACTUALLY do that with sincerity and think that if your reasoning isn't good enough for THEM, then your diet (or life choice, or anything else) isn't good enough for YOU. If you're considering making a leap into some part of life that is more fulfilling or comfortable for you, and its not hurting anyone else or is truly who you are, by all means, do what is best for yourself and don't let negative people discourage you.
One more thing: VegFest was today and I missed it, BUT- I had the best cake (BEST CAKE- not just best VEGAN cake) of my life the other day! My other friend Jennifer (FYI, I have a lot of friends named Jennifer- this one is Jennifer P and she owns an amazing feminist adult store called Smitten Kitten and happens to also be one of my favorite makeup clients because she is adventurous and will let me play with color on her) had me over the day after her birthday and her partner Ryan had made a completely vegan chocolate cake with cashew butter frosting. It was perfect with a cup of coffee and thanks to them I tried hemp milk for the first time. I'm going to try to steal the recipe from him so stay tuned. Why did I not take a picture of this Best Cake Ever?? Hindsight is 20/20, right?
XOXO
Angela
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