To me, there's little better than a big
salad at lunch to give me energy for the rest of the afternoon. My favorite is often the same: baby lettuces, lots of carrot strips (I use a vegetable peeler to make them into "noodles"), pitted kalamata olives, red onions, toasted walnuts (or chickpeas) and sometimes a diced apple in a homemade vinaigrette. My cat even begs for a bite. Who says you don't make friends with salad?
Hey Marla. Might you take a question from a vegan newbie? I reached out to a local farm-sanctuary type organization and I'm... perplexed. I've come to trust you to be balanced in opinion, so let me know if you'd be willing to play dear abby.
ReplyDeleteSure! Let me have it. :)
ReplyDeleteOK. So, I've gotten to the point where reading books and blogs isn't really doing it for me community wise. I'm really more comfortable with four legged critters than humans, but I suck it up and get myself to a work-party for this organization. (Work=stuff to do beyond small talk=yeah!) After the work, when we were eating pot luck food, there was a lot of talk about "What do vegans eat? EVERYTHING!!!" They said so in chorus with a disney world-type chipper intonation. Indeed, a lot of the food there was not-meat imitations of Standard American Diet food. One woman expressed pride that no-one had brought a green salad.
ReplyDeleteI just got an invitation to their winter fundraiser and the menu is nine items and the only thing not deep fried and/or covered in not-cheese is dessert. (You may have already guessed that dessert does not include fruit.) Is this normal in vegan circles? There seems to be no understanding that some people have different dietary preferences, which seems odd from a group of people who experience being the odd-eater-out so often in their every day lives. Also, it seems unlikely that they would tend to the sanctuary's animals well if they treat their own bodies so poorly. Am I going to make myself look like some kind of newbie ignoramus if I insist on eating a few vegatables with my meal? I like junk food, too, but this much all at once will make me one sick girl. The panic-y voice inside my head is wondering if this whole vegan thing is a really bad idea. I don't want to turn into a deep-fried disney-intonation kinda gal. (I did say that last thought was paranoid and I wasn't exaggerating, no?)