Sometimes THIS SUCKS!

This post is going to be the antithesis of the last post. I am not focusing on how good I feel or how glow-y my skin is. I'm not thinking about how it's been relatively easy to switch to a vegan diet and how I've been introduced to an entirely new world of flavors. No, this post is going to be a petit rant of why it (sometimes) sucks to be vegan.

As some of you know, I'm going to NYC at the end of the month. One of the best things about NYC is the food and luckily, there are plenty of vegan eats around. And I plan to indulge in many of them. However, none of my friends there are vegan, and I don't want to force them to eat at vegan restaurants every night. So a couple of other options were thrown on the table, and one of them is quite possibly the most unvegan restaurant ever. Enter: DBGB.

In the past, this restaurant would've appealed to me. I used to LOVE sausage. I mean, LOVE it (and yes, I know, it's like the most digusting foul meat bits possible, but I still loved it). DBGB apparently specializes in sausage (and some tres UNappealing options like pig's head and tongue). But I figured, there must be something else I can eat. I called the restaurant. Nope. I could eat a salad, and that's about it. And maybe they could put together a simple pasta dish.

Well, guess what? I don't want to eat a pathetic salad or lame pasta dish on one of my NYC nights! I want to be able to order anything off that menu, AND, more importantly, I want to be able to order those fantastic-looking sundaes. Oh man... I die. I die for those desserts. So, I'm angry. Right now, at this very moment, I wish I weren't eating vegan. I wish I could live in the blissful naivete of not knowing how my meat is raised and slaughtered, and I wish I had never read Eating Animals, the book that truly changed it all for moi. I wish I could go to NYC and eat at any restaurant I so desired. I wish I could indulge in brioche french toast and heavenly goat cheese omelettes at brunch. I wish I didn't have to worry about whether the restaurant has nondairy milk for my coffee. Right now, being vegan is a pain in the ass.

Starting A Conversation

I walked to the ginormous flagship Whole Foods store for lunch today (yay for squeezing in exercise during the workday!) and met up with my friend Jenny. Jenny's a bestie from law school who is also an attorney here in Austin. As we sat outside and munched on our respective salads (see mine above... so colorful!), she told me about an incident on her recent ski trip to Colorado. Apparently one of the couples sharing the lodge told the group about their recent attempt to cook lobster (aka boil lobster) at home. Jenny told me that as she heard the story, she got sadder and sadder and almost started crying. How cruel and sad is it to boil an animal alive? Of course they clamber and hyperventilate and panic! And it's not that she didn't know it before, she just never thought about it. This, my friends, is known as lifting the veil.

She told me that the lobster story stuck with her all weekend, and that when she got back to Austin, she decided she would try to eat vegetarian for a month. I was so excited to hear it! Not that she is attempting vegetarianism (which is awesome), but that she was ready to start a conversation. Jenny wasn't terribly supportive of my decision to go vegan at first (she even told me she hoped I hated being vegan otherwise we could never dine together again), but since we surpassed that initial hump, she's been fabulous. She even liked my vegan mac 'n cheese! I love that she wants to start this discussion with me. We're planning to watch Food, Inc. together next week, and I'm ready to be there for all her questions.

It bugs me SO much when I hear people say they don't want to know about the food they eat. That they're too scared. Why? What are you afraid of? Knowledge is power, yes, but knowledge about how this country procures its massive amounts of meat & seafood is not necessarily going to turn an omnivore into a herbivore. And people, the veil must be lifted if we are ever going to see the end of factory farming. I love seeing that veil being lifted, especially for one of my dearest amies.

Anyway, this whole thing reminds me of this video I watched of John Robbins talking about how Julia Child gave up veal after visiting a veal farm. Kind of amazing, huh? I mean, this woman loved vegetarians just about as much as Anthony Bourdain does. Not a whole lot.

Day 4: Heading North

Day 4 restored my faith in Austin restaurants. I had lunch plans with a friend at North, a "Modern Italian Restaurant" at The Domain - Austin's newest upscale luxury outdoor shopping mall (aka Dallas wannabe). Now, one might suspect that an Italian restaurant wouldn't be the best choice for a vegan, seeing as how most American-Italian dishes include copious amounts of cheese and cream. But I took a look at the menu beforehand and saw a couple of salad options that could easily be made sans cheese, and I figured it would be a better choice than California Pizza Kitchen.

But when I got to the restaurant, I found myself wanting something heartier and warmer than a salad. I wanted pasta. After scanning the menu, I semi-unapologetically (really trying to work on not apologizing for my requests, seeing as how there's no reason for me to be sorry) asked our waitress what pasta dishes could easily be made without dairy. She informed me that they actually have a dairy-free marked menu and brought it for me. Yay! I selected a yummy and fresh-sounding angel hair/tomato/basil concoction and ordered it sans ricotta. I also requested the addition of some greens (kale).

Not only did my lunch arrive in all its dairy-free glory, but the manager even came by twice to make sure that everything tasted good and met my expectations. Um, hello! TAKE NOTE, PAGGI HOUSE!!

And, for the record, my pasta was delicious. Fresh, warming and satisfying. I cannot begin to tell you how awesome it feels to know that I can dine at Italian restaurants and eat more than lettuce. :)

For dinner, I made bean burritos, and while they were good, next time I'm going to add more to them - like Mexican rice, lettuce, guac, etc. Anyone have a good Mexican rice recipe?

My friend Matt brought over his dinner that he picked up on the way - Wendy's. Now, I love Wendy's fries, but the bacon burger could not have been more unappetizing. All I could think of was the crap (literally, the fecal bacteria) swimming in that square piece of meat... yuck. He asked, like other friends have, whether I would be eating chicken and cheese again after the 21 days are up. Considering it was only Day 4, I hardly felt that I could adequately answer the question. But I did say this: I will never eat chicken again. His response? "I love my factory-farmed chicken."

Austin Restaurant Week

I knew this would happen.

A good friend of mine (who knows about the vegan thang) just emailed me exclaiming that next week is Restaurant Week, and we should totally go to dinner and then watch Gossip Girl!!! Hmm... I immediately headed over to the ARW website to check out some of the menus, and sure enough, NOTHING is vegan. Very few things are even vegan-friendly. Okay, I take that back - there's one place that has actual vegan dishes (including a vegan brownie for dessert), but to be honest, I've never heard of the restaurant, and it doesn't sound appetizing or restaurant week-esque.

This is when it's hard. When I feel like I'm the odd one out, and I can't participate. Nevermind the fact that every ARW experience I've had has been tres mediocre (the food is just not that good), I still feel bad for disappointing my friend, not being able to enjoy something we enjoyed once before.

I know what's happening right now. I know she'll see my reply (in which basically reiterated what I said above) and groan and think ugh, when is Carolyn going to get over this, and blah blah blah. It sucks. It sucks to think about that. I care way too much about disappointing people and not being what people expect, especially when it comes to my friends.

But then I think, really? REALLY? It's Austin Restaurant Week, for crying out loud. It's nothing. I actually think the whole thing is ridiculous, especially considering most of these restaurants aren't that expensive to begin with, and you are limited to a very, very limited menu. I mean, it's not New York City. But I digress. The point is: as much as I don't care about AWR, it bums me out that there are some things I just can't do anymore (unless I want to go really, really hungry).

Pourquoi & My 1st Vegan Weekend

I assume most of the people reading this (if there are any at all) have come from my original blog: Hang On Little Tomato. And I bet you're wondering why I felt the need to start a new blog devoted to my foray into veganism. Well, my reasoning goes a little something like this: not everyone wants to know about my diet. And because I have a sneaking suspicion that I will have a LOT to say over the next several weeks about what I'm eating and what I'm not eating and why and how hard/easy it is, I thought it best that I put it in an entirely separate place. Does that make sense? (Plus, I thought the name "vegan tomato" was kinda fun!)

Anyway, on to my first "vegan weekend." My weekend was full of social engagements, and all of them involved eating. It was admittedly difficult, though not impossible. Friday night I had dinner at 34th Street Cafe with several dear friends, and it must be said that 34th Street Cafe is not vegan-friendly. It's not like I could just order something without the cheese - the cheese was an integral part of the dish (and I'm not just saying that b/c I love cheese!). So I couldn't indulge in any of the appetizers, and I ordered the veggie plate for dinner, prepared sans butter or milk. Well, that basically meant I got a plate of asparagus, swiss chard, and quinoa, all of which was ridiculously over-seasoned, particularly with salt. LE SIGH. Whatever - at least I got my greens in for the day, right? On the bright side, my friends' reactions to my, "I'm trying to eat a vegan diet..." was not as bad as I expected. Most were actually tres supportive in making sure the chef was informed (chef was a friend of one of them) so that was sweet.

After dinner (and too many glasses of wine), I met up with two other friends at Uncorked, a hip wine bar on the east side. I was, naturally, craving something sweet, and when I saw the bread pudding a la mode on the menu, I couldn't resist. I figured this would be my last hurrah! I mean, technically I'm not starting until March 1, right? Right... So I ordered it and I ate most of it, and yes it was delicious, but was it worth it? I don't know. My tummy was less than pleased almost immediately, and it pushed me over the edge to that uncomfortable full feeling. So, I don't know if it was worth it or not. But, happily, these friends were also supportive of my decision and agreed that cutting dairy was likely to have great effects on my health and overall well-being. Yay!

Saturday night, however, was a bit more challenging. I had dinner with a friend whom I knew would be giving me shit about the vegan thing. Under normal circumstances I think I would've dealt with it in a lighter way, but I was kind of over the whole "how will my friends react" thing. Snarky comments combined with my general exhaustion over the topic equaled a very irritated moi. This is to be expected. This IS what I expected, but I can see that my patience for it is tres limited. Have any of you dealt with this? How do you do it? How do you stay upbeat and positive and ignore the haters??

Today, Sunday, was the hardest. I woke up and had my coffee with soy creamer (fine), and then decided on grits for breakfast. Well, the problem is, I normally have my grits with a pat of butter, a sprinkle of cheddar/monterrey jack, and a delicious fried egg. This morning I had my grits with a scoop of Earth Balance, which admittedly was not bad. The problem is, I added too much liquid so the grits were more watery than usual, and the fact that I didn't have cheese to ooey-gooey them up made me a little sad. After a few bites, I threw them out. And then made myself a hemp shake w/ rice milk.

Then came my trip to Whole Foods. As I was reaching towards the avocados, my nose was immediately hit with that salty pungent and terribly familiar smell of parmigiano reggiano - a giant wheel of it. Okay moving on... I picked up some fruit, greens, coconut creamer, soy milk, vegan worcestershire sauce, tamari, an Amy's frozen cheeseless roasted veggie pizza, etc. It was all well and good until I hit the salad bar to make a late lunch to-go. None of the hot foods were vegan. Okay, fine, I'll just make a salad (even though I HATE eating nothing but cold food as a meal). And what's the first thing I see? My FAVORITE feta - huge chunks of it, speckled with delicious seasoning and ready for eating. Pass. Boiled eggs? Pass. Pasta salad? Pass. Tofu? FINE. Ok so my salad will be ridiculously healthy, that's fine.

Or it was fine, until I got home, ate it, and was so. not. satisfied. Because then I got all depressed and was like, "is this what my life will be like without cheese???" and dramatically threw myself face first onto my bed and cried to Lola. Yeah, can we say melodramatic? After about 20 minutes, I made myself a piece of toast w/ peanutbutter and felt way better. And then I proceeded to search the web for yummy vegan and cornbread recipes that would satisfy my desire for warm, flavorful food. And you know what? They were DELICIOUS. And even though I now have enough chili to feed a small army (must cut recipe in half next time), I'm soooooooo glad that my first attempt at vegan cooking went very, very well.