(k)no(w) subject: Friends Don't Let Friends Eat Meat... But I Do!

I work at a brand-new upscale vegan macrobiotic restaurant in West LA, a job I'm very fortunate and thankful to have because as far as waiting tables goes, this place is tops. The restaurant is Seed Bistro, and the story of Chef Eric Lechasseur and his business partner/wife Sanae is wholly touching and inspiring. Sanae was diagnosed with cancer with no health insurance and no money, and she enlisted the help of chef Eric - that was when they began to study macrobiotics, which comes from Eastern cultures and is all about balance, in living with the natural order of life. Together they created a macrobiotic healing diet that helped Sanae beat her cancer, and when she was unfortunate enough to be in a life-threatening accident a few years later, again macrobiotics helped nurse her back to health.

I'm gonna be honest, at the risk of my employers somehow seeing this blog post and discovering my dirty secret: I was nowhere close to being a vegan before I worked at Seed. Unless you count my strange aversion to the texture of most meat - I'd only eat it if it was breaded and fried, or cut up or shredded into small pieces and mixed in with something else - I was an omnivore all the way. And I fully planned on keeping up the vegetarian front I had put on in order to get the job in the first place. I was practically a vegetarian anyway, since I couldn't afford to buy meat unless it came in a red box with a big golden M on it. I didn't really cook unless you count ramen, and the food groups that governed my diet consisted of cheese, carbs, cheese, and cheese. I love cheese. All of my favorite foods revolve around it: grilled cheese, mac & cheese, quesadillas.

But I looked through the picture album I had on my computer called "FOOOOOD!!". Because I used to rarely cook for myself, every time I do I have to take a picture of the finishing product because I'm so proud of myself. In my album, I discovered that the three meals I ever prepared prior to moving out to LA and beginning to cook for myself all happened to be vegetarian - and cheeseless - anyway - in fact, I've never purchased meat that didn't come in nugget, corn dog, or frozen dinner form. Observe:

Falafel Pita with Spinach

Linguine with Red Lentil Sauce and Green Beans

(Recipe here)

Roasted veggies!

What I realized is that I was spending a lot of unnecessary money on take out and fast food when I could have just been making things that I actually like at my house for a lot less money. I said that I was going to start eliminating meat and dairy - dairy because I heard it would help clear up my skin - on the day I finally got an apartment. So imagine my surprise at myself when I looked at the date and realized that I've been an ovo-pescatarian for two months today!

For those of you who aren't interested in googling that term like I did when I was trying to figure out what to call myself in the meatless world, that means I eat eggs and fish (and honey)- but no other animal products - including dairy. And actually, I've only had fish once since starting my new lifestyle (at a delicious sushi restaurant in West Hollywood called Jinpachi, which was A-mazing).

I call it a new lifestyle and not a "diet," because I'm not "dieting." Sure, I have a new diet. But people abuse that word and I want to be clear when I talk about it, because diet can be a sensitive subject to many. When I'm talking about my diet, I'm talking about the foods I eat, plain and simple. Plus, not that I'm really doing a macrobiotic diet, but in macrobiotics, every area of our lives is connected, and we are more peaceful when we all of these areas are in harmony. And you probably have experienced the phenomenon that you are what you eat - what you put into your body has an enormous impact on your physical, emotional, and psychological self.

So now would be the time when most new freegans would get up on their grassy green soapboxes and spout off facts about the injustices done to animals, the health risks in consuming them in today's factory farming industry, and the impact that just one person makes on the industry when he or she becomes vegan - like many of my customers do at Seed (side note, I actually had a customer bring up Steve Jobs on the day of his death and as though he was saying nothing wrong, he goes "Well that's what comes from spending a lifetime of eating dead flesh...).

But my diet is my own business, as is yours. I have no right to tell you what to eat or what not to eat - and I really resent people who think otherwise. After all, I have to be very cautious about defining myself as an ovo-pescatarian, because many people in the vegan/vegetarian community would take offense to my telling someone I'm a vegetarian because I eat fish, or I'm a pescatarian because I eat eggs. I mean really, who knows if I'm even going to keep it up, anyway? But I will say, it's one of the only things in my recently-acquired adulthood that I've been able to stay committed to, and I'm proud of myself for that.

So of course you are wondering, the big question of the night, do I miss cheese? Honestly, sometimes. But not as much as I thought I would. I'm even surprised that writing about it right now doesn't make me want some mozzarella sticks. Changing my diet has just required me to think outside the box - a.k.a. the Standard American Diet. I find myself eating more international foods than I ever did before, which is pretty enlightening. And oncea week I try a new recipe, to build up my arsenal.

My friend Mick and I have started what has come to be called Sexy Sundays. Basically we get together on Sunday nights, my only night off, and cook a meal and drink crappy wine (except for tonight, he ditched me, so I had to drink all by myself and write this blog post instead :-p). He's been a serious trooper with my experiments, and in light of what I just said about judging people for their diets, I'd like to publicly apologize to him. Many years ago (maybe 2 or 3), Mick told me he was going vegetarian and I let out a seriously judgmental and overly snotty "WHYY??"He's since brought this up, a few times actually because it is pretty ironic, and I just want to say sorry.

But I will leave you with some photos of some of our Sexy Sunday creations! And as an omnivore-turned-vegetarian-turned-omnivore-again, Mick can attest to the deliciousness of most of these dishes... unless he's lying to me, I guess....