Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

On Good Eats the other day, Elton was doing waffles.

So I decided that I would do them today.

I have really taken to the vegan pancake/waffle recipe.

More on breakfast to come.

Laterz

I sit here conflicted and somewhat ashamed as I fell off the wagon last night.

I am writing this blog post today after having just consumed some tasty corn tortillas with melted cheese (quesadilla) and a Clif Builder Bar.

Early yesterday morning, I made plans with some old friends that Jeremy hasn't seen in like 5 years, I had run into the Prellops a few weeks back, a completely chance meeting. I decided on Cracker Barrel, knowing that there probably wouldn't be anything on the menu for me.

I figured this was going to be my defining moment during this Vegan adventure. I would either crack or I would endure. As the pressure to become an omnivore had been mounting this past week, I started too look at this experiment in dietary veganism as something more like a test of my personal discipline.

I apparently lack consider personal discipline, that would be the conclusion of my vegan experiment.

Given what I read in the book Vegan Freaks, I know that my vegan experiment was for all the wrong reasons, so I welcome any comments from the die-hard vegans out there.

Within a few days of the start of all of this, I realized that being a Vegan was hard, very hard. I never thought it would be fall off a log easy, but I never thought it would be this hard. Of course this reminds me of an adage "If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.'

Since this post is attempting to be about full disclosure of my experiment, I said a few days in 'Being a Vegan SUCKS!'.

Mind you, I wasn't doing it for any of the right reasons. I am not morally opposed to meat. I was trying to find out what it was like to be my sister back in college.

This week had it's fair share of stress at work, but I managed to be good about it all. I managed to go out to eat with coworkers and stick to a vegan lifestyle. There were some moments of poor planning that bugged me, I should have planned better, but I didn't. However, there was something that snapped, or maybe the term 'fractured' at lunch on Friday.

We went to Sushi Sake, a decent sushi place near the office. I ordered Oshinko (various pickles), Miso, Edamame, cucumber rolls and avocado rolls. Maybe I should have ordered more food, but when Gina and Jeremy were eating their steak Bento boxes, I was overwhelmed with jealousy. I love the bento box, I love steak. I didn't want to continue with the experiment.

Mind you, I had this feeling while folks were eating pizza in front of me. But this time it was a bit stronger.

I ordered a bowl of fried rice at this point, figuring that the jealousy was mainly coming from my continued hunger.

The fried rice had bits of pork in it.

SUCK!

I picked them out and ate the fried rice.

While watching them eat the bento boxes, I thought about how I would probably eat eggs and bacon in the morning with the Prellops.

I think I had resigned myself to falling off the wagon in the morning.

However, then in the afternoon. I had a marathon conference call. This was the straw that turned the fracture into a full on break.

I need a drink after work and more importantly I had an urge for comfort food. Unfortunately, comfort food typically isn't Vegan. I should probably restate that. Comfort food that can be bought at a restaurant is typically not Vegan.

We ordered a variety of appetizers and I had a few drinks. The funny part about the drinks was that, I opened the menu and saw a good looking slush style drink that stated it was a red bull cherry slush. But it didn't come with any alcohol, I asked the waitress:

Ben: Does this come with vodka? (pointing at picture of red bull cherry slush)
Waitress: No.
Ben: Can I get this with vodka? (still pointing)
Waitress: Yeah, I think we can do that.

They brought out the glass, and a full can of red bull. "Some assembly required", I thought to myself, I might have said this out loud as well.

I had sort of wanted to order a steak. However, I was concerned that my body might reject a sudden infusion of red meat.

There was a cobb salad on the menu. It was definitely not the best cobb salad I had ever had. But it was pretty good.

That meal ended my 11 days as a Vegan.

I won't go into the details about what I had for breakfast, but it was not Vegan, and I did find it tasty.

I am not sure that I will ever try the Vegan thing again. I will continue to eat healthy, likely I will eat Vegan meals from time to time.

I salute all of you Vegans out there. I salute your dedication and respect your moral convictions.

Time to grab something to eat.

Laterz

I found this post around 2-3 weeks before going vegan.

I can't remember if I posted a link to it up here on the blog.

The writer had also decided to go Vegan For a Month, and in doing so opted to try a 'Cheese Alternative' and oh yeah, 'It Melts'.

I on the other hand have avoided cheese alternatives, mostly because I love cheese. But I don't want to eat something that is like cheese. I mean I have had some soy dogs and soymilk. But that is a little different. I don't drink a glass of soymilk, i just pour it over cereal, to moisten it up and give it a better flavor than if I used water. The soy dogs, I mean come on a hotdog while technically a meat product is about as processed as meat gets, I mean the only stuff more processed that you could still call food would be something they feed the astronauts.

They hated this cheese. I mean the description they give when eating the cheese is so great, I feel wrong pasting an excerpt from it here. But here is a sample:

"... $4.59 is a lot of money to pay for bleached and compacted sewage... "

Please go and read the whole post they wrote.

Back to the grind.

Laterz