Concessions

I've been 'almost vegan' long enough that eating vegan at home is easy.  But I still find doing so out of the house to be a challenge, particularly if I'm staying at somebody else's house.

I've just returned from a two-week trip to spend time with my East Coast family, during which we celebrated my in-laws' 50 years of marriage.  It was a lovely trip and my in-laws were very supportive of my dietary choices.

However...I had to make some concessions in my diet because a) I couldn't stock their pantry and fridge with my stuff and then drag it back to the other side of the country and b) I couldn't expect to use their kitchen every day.  I did go out and buy tofu, soy milk and tempeh.  I did not buy fake cheese, fake butter, fake ice cream, or any of the other vegan items (such as stevia or agave) that I generally use at home. 

Translation:  this "almost vegan" ate some dairy while on vacation.  I found it the most convenient compromise.  I did NOT, however, eat meat or eggs (though I suspect the one piece of anniversary cake may have had eggs in it). 

While at their house, I ate an incredibly boring diet of oatmeal in the mornings, coffee with soy milk (and white sugar), toast (with butter), brown rice and tofu and veggies (or tempeh) for dinner, and a tempeh and veggie sandwich and fruit every day for lunch.  It was all fine, but monotonous. 

I did cook for them twice:  pinto and plantain stew (from Veganomicon) and a veggie and tempeh stir fry (they added shrimp to their portions, though they said they liked the tempeh).  During the week I watched them eat lobster, veal, chicken, eggs, bacon, liverwurst, turkey and ham, cheese, yogurt, ice cream.  They also eat fairly big portions of fruit and veggies every day, but watching them eat made me aware AGAIN of how many animal products I am NOT eating anymore.  (For the record, I have NEVER had veal.) 

When we went out for their anniversary dinner -- at a very nice Italian place -- I asked the cook to prepare an eggplant dish without the smoked mozzarella (but GOD it looked so good!) and to just give me a side of pasta.  Done.  Vegan even while at a VERY non-vegan restaurant.

I did have a *little* ice cream and I did have that piece of their anniversary cake.  Should I feel terribly guilty? 

I don't particularly, though I know there are vegans who would never have made these concessions, even while on vacation, and even while living in somebody else's house. 

Would YOU have taken over somebody else's kitchen?  Why or why not?  What concessions, if any, do you make if you are staying in somebody else's house?

Applebee's

I'm in the thick of the end-of-the-term madness and have little time right now to write a proper post.  But I thought I'd share my experience this evening eating out with my kids and my sister, her husband, and their three kids.

We went to Applebee's.  Family friendly.  Relatively affordable.  Relatively large menu.  We knew each of the kids (each picky in a different way) would actually eat something there. 

We discovered nearly immediately that the menu offers NOTHING vegan; not even anything vegetarian.  Unless you want a plain baked potato or just an order of fries, this restaurant caters exclusively to the meat-and-dairy-eating crowd.  Not a huge surprise, of course, but *most* restaurants these days have at least a pasta and vegetable option or a garden burger.  Not Applebees.

I sat there mulling my options:  cheat and eat something with dairy (as in a ceasar salad or a bowl of French onion soup) or just have a beverage and be REALLY hungry on the two-hour-long ride home.

Then I noticed the menu had a dijon chicken and portobello mushroom item that came with steamed veggies and potatoes.  Could, I wondered, they make that with more mushrooms and leave out the chicken?

I asked for that.  The cooks did a very good job and the presentation was, frankly, very attractive.   My sister, a committed omnivore eating a spinach and shrimp salad, looked over and said, "THAT looks good.  Next time I'm here, I'm ordering that, that way." 

A little vegan victory for this almost vegan.  :)

Modernity, Privacy and Neighbors

I hate my neighborhood.

Well, I guess that's putting it a bit strongly, because I really like my house and I'm pretty happy with my kids' schools. And my hair salon is nearby and I like that, too. But everything else? Notta so much.

I've lived here for almost 19 months now. I realize that it takes time to get to know people. I realize that it's way different moving far away with kids (in three different schools no less) than moving far away when you're just a couple or are single. I have less TIME to meet people than I did before I had kids. But gosh, I thought I'd know more people in my neighborhood by now.

Part of the problem, frankly, is the architecture: people drive up to their houses, the garage doors go up, the cars drive in, the garage doors go down. Privacy is FANTASTIC here; neighborliness is not. People do not spend time in front of their house; everyone here has fairly big backyards (not that I'm complaining...) and 6-foot privacy fences (feel free to sunbathe nude when you visit, nobody other than me will see you).

The effect of such architecture is that all socializing takes place in very private backyards. And, because this is Oregon and not, say, Florida or Southern California, there are only so many months where people are actually out in said yards anyway. People don't know each other AT ALL. If I had to identify my neighbors in a line-up, the only ones I could recognize live across our driveway. All others? No idea what they look like, what cars they drive, or what they do.

A few weeks ago, I took my daughter 45 miles away to another college town, to watch her friend compete in the state gymnastics competition. As we were standing there, a woman started talking to me. She discovered I was from Eugene; "I am too," she said. She asked how old my children were; I told her and discovered that her two are one year older and one year younger than my oldest. She asked me where my daughter went to school; turns out that's where her kids go too! Then she asks me where I live; I tell her my street name. "Oh! Me too!"

I had to meet a neighbor who lives ON THE SAME STREET and whose kids go to the SAME SCHOOL at a gymnastics meet in a town 50 miles away!

Another example: my husband went to the doctor, and the doctor, seeing his address, said, "Oh, I live about 500 feet from you!" My husband didn't ask where; he naively figured they'd run into each other from time to time.

That was 15 months ago. We have no idea where that doctor lives.

Modernity sucks, man!

I've decided, if I have any hope of even KNOWING if I like my neighbors, that I have to get proactive. I'm sending a letter asking if anybody well, wants to know us. I'm not asking for best friend status or babysitting or dog sitting or anything. I just think that, at the very least, we should know each other for safety's sake.

So, what about a neighborhood party?

I'm organizing one. Probably in July. If you know somebody in my neck of the woods that wants to come, feel free to tell them they'll be hearing from that Elaine, a new neighbor who thinks neighbors should actually recognize each other. I'm 42, brunette, white, well-educated, married, drive a Honda, have three kids and an orange cat, teach college and am on a vegan kick.

There's more to me than that, but I'd love to know at least that much about my neighbors.

In Memory of Aunt Laura

On Thanksgiving, I learned that my favorite great aunt had died six weeks earlier.

I'll skip the tempting discussion of how totally dysfunctional it is of my family not to have told me -- or how bizarre it was of Aunt Laura's family not to have held a memorial service for her -- and instead launch straight into a memorial of my own.

Born in South Dakota 94 years ago, she grew up very poor. Her life revolved around the family farm and all the work involved in trying to make it during bleak years in a family with six children. Born to German immigrants, she was the oldest girl, and spoke only German until she went to school. Once she started school (and the wars broke out and anti-German sentiment was rampant), her father insisted that the family only speak English. I've always found our family's loss of German sad though understandable.

She was reportedly very bossy as a child. I can easily believe that because her most distinctive character trait as an adult was a powerful ability to hold her own in ANY argument. She was also distinctive because she was nearly six feet tall, rather ungainly, and not particularly feminine. She must have stood out when she was young, both for her height and for her personality. The best comparison I can make to someone well known is Julia Child, though, heaven knows, Aunt Laura was a terrible cook and quite thin.

Like many poor children, she didn't have a chance to finish her education. After the eighth grade, her family sent her to work in the city (Rapid City) for "rich folk" as a maid, in order to help support them all. She later married Uncle Jim, a man who had never completed formal schooling past second grade.

Even with that minimal education, Aunt Laura and Uncle Jim did well. As young adults, they moved west, to Oregon, as did most of their family members. They worked HARD. They were frugal to a point of insanity, and they were born inventors. I suppose, when you can rely neither on wealth nor education for success, your next best bet is what you can do with your own two hands and your mind.

Uncle Jim invented the first portable saw mill (lumber used to be key to the Oregon economy), and in doing so, he made a whole lotta money. I'll never forget a conversation I once had with Aunt Laura while eating lunch at a mall. I must have been about 9 or 10. I was aware that Aunt Laura and Uncle Jim had put both their kids through college, and their son through dental school, and had helped both their son and daughter buy VERY nice homes, and were helping put three of their grandchildren through very expensive private school. I said, "You and Uncle Jim are rich." Rather than criticize me for my rudeness, she said, "You got that right!" And went right on eating her .99 burrito.

You would have never known, had you met them, that they were rich. They dressed incredibly shabbily. Uncle Jim wore jeans and flannel plaid shirts and Aunt Laura wore polyester trousers and Walmart-quality blouses and shoes. I doubt Aunt Laura ever had a massage, a pedicure, or a manicure. I don't even think she ever colored her hair. She would have thought such things selfish, silly, and a total waste of money (she did, however, buy such "fancy" services for her granddaughters).

Aunt Laura and Uncle Jim lived in a small shack -- literally, a little, white, run-down, one-bedroom house with a galley kitchen and a teeny fridge under the counter -- in a part of Portland that has little to recommend for it. Uncle Jim also built -- BUILT, with his own hands and ingenuity -- what must have been one of the first motor homes. Dark green and ugly as sin, I thought it was the bee's knees when I was a kid. He and Aunt Laura took their kids all over the United States in that thing -- they were nothing if not patriotic -- and it was still running strong in the 70s when I was a little girl.

When we stayed over at their house (always a big treat), they would chauffeur us around town in that big green monster, allowing us to lounge on the bed in the back of the truck and watch TV. (NOBODY else we knew back then had a TV -- let alone a bed -- in their vehicle!) We didn't have to wear seat belts when we were with them, something that I found incredibly extravagant. (The thing was built like a tank and honestly, if Uncle Jim had hit somebody with it, we would have been fine, but I'm not so sure about anybody in another car.)

They'd take us to the mall and buy us junk food; our parents never did that. They'd give us five dollars each and let us buy whatever crap we wanted at the dollar store. They let us jump on the bed. They let us stay up late and watch TV (and they had cable LONG before anybody else did). They'd take us to McDonald's or Taco Bell or wherever we wanted to go to eat. They also built go-carts for us -- old-fashioned, 50's-style go-carts -- and let us race up and down their street without adult supervision. Of course, where they lived, there wasn't really any traffic to speak of anyway.

In other words, when we were with them, we were spoiled rotten. We had amazing freedom when we were with them. Some of the best times I ever had as a kid took place in their big ugly "mobile home," their little shabby house, and later, at their new house on a big hill with a huge farm-like yard.

Aunt Laura's idea of cooking was dumping cut-up hot dogs and baked beans in a dish and baking it until crusty. She did, however, routinely make fruit leather and always fed us (overcooked and/or frozen) vegetables with every meal (that is, when she wasn't taking us to some fast-food place that we begged to go to). She also made a mean chocolate-zucchini cake.

Despite her lack of skill in the kitchen and her willingness to let kids eat fast food, she was quite health-conscious. As her son once said, 'If Mom read somewhere that a 10-year-old kid should have 10 peas a day, then, by golly, every 10-year-old who walked in the house and ate with us got those 10 peas.' When one of her granddaughters (she raised two of them) was having trouble in school, she took her to be tested for food allergies because she had read somewhere that allergies can cause behavioral and/or learning difficulties. Now, this was 25 year ago -- back when such an idea was relatively novel and, well, weird. Sure enough, my cousin was allergic to milk, eggs, and oatmeal -- things she had been eating EVERY day before school -- and Aunt Laura took those things out of her diet and my cousin's school performance improved dramatically.

I have no doubt that were my Aunt alive today and knew of my vegan diet, she'd find it interesting, be willing to talk about it, and to try new dishes. (I doubt, at her age, she would have converted, but she would have found the evidence for the healthiness of a plant-based diet compelling and she would have listened.) When her husband was diagnosed with something (I no longer remember what) and was put on a diet, the poor man was the proverbial hen-pecked husband as Aunt Laura made sure he ate what the doctor said.

Aunt Laura was also a good hostess. By this, I don't mean that she set the table a la Martha Stewart or that she cooked recipes from Gourmet magazine. I mean that she cared whether guests were enjoying themselves. Did they find something to eat that they liked? Could she get them something different? I'll never forget, actually one of the last times I saw her, how she reacted when my then six-year-old son said out loud that he hated her meatloaf. (In his defence, it was horrible.) My mother, who was with us, was about to flip out over his rudeness, but Aunt Laura took a different approach. "Well, son, do you like hot dogs?" He nodded his head. Well, yes, he does. She got up, made him a hot dog -- god only knows how long she'd had that package, but I tried not to think about that. As she handed him his hot dog, she said, "It's important to eat something you like!" Everybody returned to eating their food, the rest of us terribly jealous of my son's ability to get something to eat that was actually tasty. :)

She was also of the generation that believed that kids could, and should, find things to do without a whole lot of adult intervention. One new year's eve, we were visiting her house during a birthday party celebration for her son. Many relatives were there, crowded into the little house. All the kids were pretty much forced to be together in the bedroom. All of sudden, my son (then five) came running over to me, showing me that his hands were full of nails and magnets. Yes, NAILS. Aunt Laura had given the kids a plastic bucket of old nails, a bunch of magnets, a few ancient toys (30+ years old) and a tub of old candy. The children never bothered the adults that entire evening, and everyone left with teeth and eyes intact.

She was fascinated -- fascinated -- by all inventions that saved time and had, I believe, every one imaginable. I suppose, after all those years of hard work on the farm and in the city, the idea that cooking could involve opening a can with an electric can opener and sticking the contents of said can in a microwave was, on some level, very liberating.

Aunt Laura was generous both with time and with money. She and Uncle Jim gave the BEST Christmas presents, and they were almost always something electronic. At the time, I didn't quite understand why Mom and Dad thought that the handheld Merlin game and the air hockey table were "typical" of Aunt Laura and Uncle Jim, but now I do: they were electronic gizmos and Aunt Laura and Uncle Jim found them totally irresistible. So did we.

My Aunt and Uncle lived during years that saw unprecedented social and technological change. Despite their lack of education, she and my Uncle kept up with a surprising amount of it. They recalled, as children, driving the horses across the field or into town. Aunt Laura told me that she loved doing that because "you could really feel the power in your hands." By the time of their deaths -- in 1997 and 2009 -- they had seen the world transform from an era of horses and buggies to an era of mass transportation and cars, cars, cars. They rarely talked of missing the old ways; they were forward-thinking people who joyously embraced technological change.

Aunt Laura loved to videotape and audiotape us -- where those tapes are, I don't know -- but she took lots of home movies and cassette tapes of us, and encouraged us to keep in touch with the family and to know our history. She was the family historian. She knew who your third cousins were, what the South Dakota relatives were doing, whose kid had just left for college, or what year your aunt was born and what the weather was like that day. She plastered her walls with pictures of her children, her grandchildren, their children, nephews, nieces, friends' kids and grandchildren. I always knew when I sent her pictures of my kids that those pictures would be up on her wall, proudly displayed next to the portraits of me and my sister taken when we were three.

I now realize what an invaluable lesson she taught me: to embrace change while remembering the past.

I'll miss you, Aunt Laura.

A Vegan(ish) Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was my first major holiday since I started eating a vegan diet.

Of course.

Thanksgiving is basically a holiday that revolves around a dead bird; dairy-laden mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, creamed onions, buttery stuffing, and creamy pies; and a fictitious tale of goodwill between colonists and natives. A great backdrop, to be sure, against which to highlight dietary changes.

I knew going into this that I was THE vegan. Nobody else. Not even a vegetarian in the crowd. Everybody else would eat whatever they normally ate -- which is to say, the stereotypical all-American thanksgiving feast, complete with debate over whether or not to cook a turducken next year.

The best I could do was bring a few dishes of my own (to share, of course) and pray that I didn't get a lot of flack from the relatives. I didn't want the holiday to turn into a "weird Elaine" conversation, nor did I want to turn it into a lesson for everybody else. I just wanted to eat and celebrate abundance. Lessons can happen at other times.

I was a little on edge, anticipating a whole lot of drama. After all, what's a holiday without a little family drama, I ask you?

Well...I actually have nothing -- NOTHING -- to complain about. I am floored to be writing this, as I could easily regale you with tales of holidays past when arguments about things far less important than diet or animal welfare or the environment went from lively to heated within minutes (topics like kids' bedtimes or ages at when kids SHOULD KNOW TO TIE SHOES, for instance).

Nobody gave me a bad time. Nobody tried to trick me into eating something that wasn't vegan. Several people tried my dishes and proclaimed them tasty (leek-mushroom pie, a tofurkey roast and a sweet potato dish). I happily ate my dishes, salad and a roll. Though I ate less than everybody else, I TOTALLY had enough, and was spared the 'oh-my-god-I-ate-too-much-and-I'm-going-to-die' feeling.

I titled this post "vegan(ish)" because I did succumb to a teeny slice of pumpkin pie, which I'm pretty darn sure had some dairy in it somewhere.

Next year, I'll bring a vegan pie, too. :)

Small victories

Today was a day of many small victories in my quest to change both my family's diet and its perception of animal rights. It started in the most unlikely of ways: My daughter didn't have school today and so I took her shopping. Like twelve-year-old girls everywhere, she's been growing like a weed and needed new clothes. For fun, we brought along one of her friends. A mall is not exactly the venue you might imagine for a series of small "vegan" victories, but here's the story.

After a few hours of looking at the mind-boggling array of nearly-impossible-to-put-on-unless-you-really-are-anorexic skinny jeans, the girls (neither of whom are fat) got hungry. We stopped at a local chain, Cafe Yumm, which my daughter's friend suggested because "it's a good place for vegetarians." Indeed, it is, and I think it's remarkable that my daughter's friend remembered that I am one. Small victory number one.

While eating our lunch, the friend told me that she herself is a vegetarian. I quizzed her a little. Are her parents vegetarians? Uh, no. (That much I already knew.) Does she eat chicken? Well, yes, because she LOVES it, but she is "trying" not to eat it anymore. My daughter volunteered that she doesn't like how chickens are treated in factory farms. I nearly fell off my chair. Small victory number two!!

I continued asking the friend a few questions. Does she eat fish? Yes, it's actually her all-time favorite food. I skipped the lecture that was in the back of my head, and simply told her that technically she's a pescatarian. She liked that word. She then asked me what I was eating (a tempeh reuben), and then asked me what tempeh is. I explained it to her, and she volunteered that she likes tofu, as long as it isn't by itself. Then -- I almost fainted -- my daughter said that SHE likes tofu, at least in stir-fries. Considering that a few days ago, she had made a big to-do in front of another friend (who thinks I'm crazy not to eat meat) that she HATES tofu, this is quite the admission. (And I think it's true.) Small victory number three.


While we were at the mall, it occurred to me that I'm desperately in need of a new belt. I could not find, in either of two malls, a non-leather one (unless I wanted one with skulls, or roses, or studs, or sequins, or all of the above, on plastic). I told the girls that I just didn't want to buy a leather one, because it didn't make sense to kill a cow for leather goods when there are lots of man-made options available. My daughter replied, "Yeah, I wouldn't kill a cow for a belt, either." Small victory number four.

My daughter's friend needed to go to Payless to get these shoes she absolutely couldn't live without (and which were on sale). So, off to Payless we went, where my daughter spotted some Ugg knock-offs. She has been PINING AWAY for a pair of Uggs for over a year, which I was initially reluctant to buy both due to price and the rate at which her feet are currently growing. But, not only were the Payless version WAY cheaper than the real thing, but they are constructed of manmade materials. My daughter asked if she could have them, and then added, "At least, unlike Uggs, an animal didn't die to make them." How, exactly, could I resist that logic (since I've been trying to teach it)? She now has her Ugg knock-offs. The naysayers will just recognize that my kid, like all bright kids, has figured out how to use her mother's thinking to her advantage. Oh well, a cow didn't die because she did. I say, "small victory number five".

When we got home, I got on the internet to find the elusive man-made, decent-looking, faux-leather belt. It was a SNAP to find, thanks to a site called "Alternative Outfitters." Even with the $6.95 shipping fee, the belt was CHEAPER than the leather alternatives at the GAP, Kohl's or JCPenney. Affordable and vegan? I say small victory number six.

Full disclosure: I'm baking a chicken for my husband, who is coming around, bit by bit, to my new way of thinking. We already had the bird in the freezer and we've decided to use up what we have while we transition to a different diet. But he's not ready to give up dairy (frankly, I can cut WAY back, but I'm not ready to give it up completely either). But he has started buying organic milk. Small victory number seven. And cage-free eggs. Small victory number eight.

I fully realize that the most committed vegans may be unimpressed by these small victories. I guess one can either have the perspective that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, or believe the Chinese proverb that a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

I'd rather believe the latter. I think lately we've taken several steps. It's a good journey.

Changing Their Palates, Take Two (Hundred?)

I'm nearly five months into an almost-vegan diet, and trying to get the kids to eat fewer animal-based foods and more plant-based ones. Despite that I am allowing them to eat some meat and some dairy (dairy daily, meat once or twice a week), the modifications I'm making to their diets are still proving to be tough to accomplish. To any of you out there who aren't parents yet, know that if you want your kids to eat well, best not to EVER let them have poor-quality (read: processed, cheesy, fast, easy, typical "kid") food. Changing their palates is darn hard work. No vegan or vegetarian dish tastes as good -- claim my kids -- as chicken strips and french fries, or pizza, or fried chicken, or scrambled eggs, or grilled cheese sandwiches, or Kraft Mac and Cheese, or a bowl of ramen.

Yet I persevere; my kids did not get their tenacity from nowhere. In an attempt to better my odds at improving their diets, I recently purchased a cookbook: Mattare and Muldawer's "Better Than Peanut Butter and Jelly: Quick Vegetarian Meals Your Kids Will LOVE". The title and the reviews both seemed so promising. So far, my husband and I love the recipes and, well, the kids...do not.

Tonight's menu was "Crispy Snow Peas" and a recipe with a wonderfully hopeful name: "Spinach Casserole They'll Really Like". My husband and I thought both dishes were delicious. Yet, the four-year-old practically screamed at the sight of the casserole ("Get it off my pwate!"), but happily ate the snow peas. The nine-year-old flat out refused to try either dish because, in his typically brutal analysis, "that food looks DISGUSTING!" He ended up eating cereal with fresh berries, two pieces of leftover homemade pizza (one slice was veggie), and a bowl of popcorn. All in all, not horrible, but still not ideal. (I harbor the hope that one day, all five of us will enjoy the same healthy food.) The four-year-old ended up eating a sizable portion of the snow peas, an apple, and chocolate ice cream.

My twelve-year-old is vacationing with friends; just received a call. Apparently she ate an "adult-sized portion of ribs".

Sigh. I have my work cut out for me.