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The Week Without Meat Day 3: My own personal horror movie
I'm abstaining from meat for a week. Read why here.
The Week Without Meat Day 3: My own personal horror movie
I'm abstaining from meat for a week. Read why here.
Last night, I checked out an advance screening of the spook flick The Uninvited. (Check the movies section online tomorrow for my review.) A little less than an hour in, there's a very inconsequential scene that features stars Elizabeth Banks and Emily Browning in a butcher shop. Banks' character chats with the butcher while he slices up giant hunks of gorgeously marbled beef with a cleaver. The portion of the scene lasts all of 20 seconds and has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, which deals in all sorts of scary apparitions and hallucinations and ghosts and betrayals and attractive sisters and murders and crawly dead moms.
I couldn't stop thinking about the steak.
"I wonder how Elizabeth Banks is going to prepare all that," I began wondering. "Is she gonna season them up and sear them in a pan, then finish them under a broiler? Maybe she's going to cook them on a charcoal grill? Oh man those steaks look so good. Their family lives on a lake, too, so I bet they could do a really nice surf and turf, with a side of ... "
You know something is wrong with you when find yourself fantasizing about red meat during a fucking horror movie.
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| Hello, you do not have meat in you. |
| Photo | Drew Lazor |
A few hours before the screening, I ate a sweet and sour vegetarian soup (tofu, egg, veggies, noodles, etc.) from Joe's down here in Old City. I found it quite tasty but ultimately unsatisfying. I wanted to put pork in it. My coworkers Neal and Holly sat across from me, scarfing down roast duck and shrimp wonton soup with great gusto. It took every fiber of my being to resist the urge to grab their heads and bang them together really hard like Moe does to Larry and Curly.
After I got home, I ate a wedge salad with bleu cheese dressing, some roasted garlic butter mushrooms and a helping of blackened green beans. All were delicious, but I couldn't help but shake the feeling that I was eating a bunch of side dishes and there was a void where the marquee star of my dinner should be. To cope, I walked to 7-Eleven and bought myself a Choco Taco. I nearly, nearly purchased a bag of pork rinds based on the logic that fried pig skin is not, in actuality, meat. I somehow managed to stop myself.
In my life as a meat eater, I typically skip breakfast. I eat lunch about 70 percent of the time, usually something small and random from a place around my office. (I sometimes skip if I'm really busy.) But for dinner, I always get down with a big, filling meal, with all sorts of accompaniments (yes, often veggies!) and a large portion of meat or seafood as the centerpiece. I realize that this is not the healthiest approach to eating, but shit, it's what I do.
This is why I'm approaching The Week Without Meat (TWWM) the same way — I'm not going to wake up and fix myself a sustainable veggie frittata every morning, because I would never wake up and make myself a bacon omelette. Most of my energy is going to be spent on either cooking or ordering one huge meal in the evening. That's why tonight, the plan is for me to attempt some of the awesome vegetarian recipes Meal Ticket readers have been sending in. If you've got anything to share, please do not hesitate to hit me up in the comments or at drew.lazor @ citypaper.net.
Other TWWM notes/thoughts:
- A little later today, I'm going to be speaking with Erik Marcus of vegan.com, who has promised to share with me some tips for making it through the rest of the week. Check back on Meal Ticket later for my recap.
- How the hell did I miss that my TWWM experiment is coinciding with NATIONAL MEAT WEEK? God is so, so, so cruel. More on this soon.
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| Valhalla, I'm coming. |
| bbqaddicts.com |
- I can't even begin to count how many people have sent me a link to the Bacon Explosion recipe on bbqaddicts.com. On behalf of myself and America, I would just like to say that I hope you all die of massive coronaries.
- "I know this is possibly the last thing you'd want to read while going meatless," writes Brendan of Sloth Street, "but I wanted to point you to my recap of the Amada whole roast suckling pig dinner." I appreciate it, man. In fact, I would like to thank you in person. Please e-mail me your home address. And your sleep schedule.
- I recently read a study that linked meat deprivation with thoughts of irrational violence perpetuated against kindly Internet folk. In this same dream, I killed a wild boar with a crude spear and was schooled by a village of rainforest people on the finer points of cooking animals on a spit. I was then married in an elaborate ceremony to the chief's daughter, whose name was Scrapple.
- ohmygodiwantmeatsobad
- I've been thinking. A pork rind — it's not meat! It's skin! So that totally doesn't count! Right? ANSWER ME NOW
Come on, friend, you need to be eating a balanced set of carbohydrates, fats, and protein of different sorts, regardless of what sources you're choosing for them (meat, dairy, egg, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, fruits, oils...). No wonder you are feeling unsatisfied! Hopefully Erik can straighten you out.
Keep the faith, my friend. I did laugh out loud at the latest post. My 17 year old son, who is in the peak of health, became a vegetarian July 2008. I have scoured cookbooks and the internet for recipes that include tofu and beans. These, along with eggs, lentils and nuts, are excellent sources of protein. You need protein for your body and to keep you satieated- probably not a real word ! Google protein and find a few good articles tha also list the protein content. That will help you stick with it. Also, allrecipes.com posts comments on their recipes. These are VERY helpful. Oh, by the way, God only seems cruel when you are very, very hungry. Although I applaud my sons choice- the meat industries are the biggest polluters on the planet- I will never go vegetarian completely. I do enjoy many of his recipes but come on- give up flame broiled Whoppers- I don't think so ! Good Luck January 2009
Oh Man... National Meat Week?! The Fates are laughing at you so hard right now.
one of my favorite things: the indonesian tofu soup at pagoda noodle house next to the ritz east in old city. if it sounds intimidating, it's not at all. it's salty and satisfying. i ask for it with vegetarian broth (to which they nod- i'm really not going to question it). in that broth there are deep-fried morsels of some sort of carbohydrate, julienned beans, bean sprouts, tofu pieces and a fried egg. i add hot oil and white pepper and it's delicious. try it while you're still vegetarian. also if you're really craving something with bite, try the seitan wings at el camino real. it's also one of my new favorite things. or the fried bean curd salad at rangoon. i think the point i'm trying to make is, deep-fry anything and it will be delicious and fill this meatless void right up for you.
Drew, This might get you through the Superbowl: http://urbanvegan.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-hell-is-scrapple-and-where-do-you.html Buy two.
Brynn: I love the seitan wings @ ECR. They are the faux truth. And I really concur with your opinion re: deep-frying. Thank you for understanding! B: Vrapple! I've really been meaning to try it. Felicia D. sung its praises on Meal Ticket not too long ago.
[...] spare rib bits at Sang Kee• A $35 menu plus 50 percent off grape juice at Lacroix? Go on!• The Week Without Meat Day 3: My own personal horror movie Publisher's Clearinghouse• Where was the freakin' Mumm-ing?• Bill Kristol's Been [...]
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