Vegan-ish

It's no secret that I eat a lot of weird shit. Friends at work in Seattle and New York commented daily about the concoctions I would pull out of the microwave, usually involving some mixture of kale/spinach, TJ's masala burger patty, 5 tomatoes, and beans. Throughout the year, that menu changed to just eating 10 tomatoes on a plate or just a bowl of beans. My eating habits have evolved as I've become more compulsive in my advancing age. As a kid, I used to adore school lunches, even the ones that every rational child thought were disgusting. Cheese Zombies? Check. Zippy Dog? Of course. "Soft Tacos" made of horse meat? Give me seconds. For after school snacks I used to beg my mom to take me to Dairy Queen and get me a chili dog or the #2 meal from McDonalds. Eating well, a term that has changed from quantity to quality throughout the years, has always been valued in the Morgan household.

All throughout college and for some time after, I was a fish-eating vegetarian. You can still eat a whole lot of disgusting stuff as a vegetarian, dairy being the main culprit of an unhealthy vegetarian lifestyle. Look at the menu at the next standard restaurant you go to. If you don't eat meat, I can guarantee that there will only be two choices: some kind of salad with cheese and nuts, and either butternut squash ravioli OR some kind of cheese and cream covered pasta. Dairy is the crutch of the vegetarian world. Once I moved for grad school and started living with Shawnz, a Chinese dude from Singapore, and Soraya, a Thai girl, I decided this whole "vegetarian" thing would have to go. As they led me through the underbelly of the London East Asian food scene, I found that pretty much all of the food I had been ever been exposed to was bland by comparison. Bland and disappointingly inauthentic. This is where I developed a true love for offal, odd cuts of meat, and shellfish in varying stages of rotted, pickled, or dried. Clearly, I've had a real love affair with food my entire life.

Recently, though, because of my yoga practice and escalating compulsions regarding food, health, and politics, I have become vegan-ish. Vegan-ish essentially means that I'm incredibly picky and annoying to eat with or prepare food for, as almost everything delicious that my family knows how to make and nearly all of the best authentic Thai, Singaporean, Indian, and French food is meat or dairy laden. That's disappointing to me, but not unworkable. Listen, I can't help that my family has a history of high cholesterol. Why waste your time on boneless-skiness chicken breasts when you can eat something with some real flavor? This is my philosophy, and I'm sticking to it. Let me show you my food pyramid, and you'll see where I make the exception between vegan and vegan-ish.

I think it seems perfectly reasonable. You?

Also, if anyone is in the market for a true gift that will keep on giving...this Paté of the Month Club is perfect for me.