One Month

Eleven months ago, I read Jonathan Safran Foer's extraordinary _Eating Animals_, and I never ate meat again.

The moral dissonance was too strong - I just couldn't read this reasonable, well-balanced, calm presentation of the facts and reconcile this knowledge in my mind with the fact that I contributed to the inhumanity of the meat industry - the cruelty to living creatures, the environmental damage (and its effect on the health and lives of the human race, as well as other species that share this planet), the way it was damaging my own health - there were just too many factors showing me how destructive, in so many ways, meat-eating was, and even though I'd "known" about these problems before, it suddenly became clear to me -- I couldn't believe in what I knew and continue to eat meat. It stopped being a choice, one I'd made before and which had lasted for maybe a few weeks at a time, and became an irrevocable necessity.

And yet for almost a year, I've managed to squash the sense of guilt at my own lack of full-fledged veganism, telling myself it was enough, "for now," to be vegetarian, I was doing my part, I was keeping myself, the world, other animals and other humans healthier "enough."

But it's been a year (next month) and once again, I have to admit that my beliefs are incompatible with my actions. I admit to my own hypocrisy, and yet for eleven months haven't done anything about it. And that's not who I want to be.

By continuing to consume eggs and milk, I am still contributing to the same devestating industry of destruction - I am promoting abominably cruel treatment of animals (who are hardly treated any better in a dairy or egg factory than when they are meat, outright), I am still contributing to the environmental damage caused by these industries, I am still doing damage to my own health and well-being, I am still not doing enough to help there be enough food in the world for my fellow human beings. And all of these things I know, and I know, too, that I will not be deprived of good food, or even delicious, self-indulgent, mindless snack-level of good food, if I give up animal products entirely. I have proven that to myself. I have spent eleven months without meat, and in that time I have also drastically reduced my dairy and egg consumption -- in part because I never cared for eggs as eggs (i.e., omelettes, scrambled, fried, poached, etc - in baked goods is a whole different problem), and because a latent lactose intolerance became much more noticeable once I stopped stuffing my body full of crap and started paying attention to my health again.

I have lived these eleven months as a nearly-vegan. I have come to prefer almond milk in my cereal, soy cheese on my sandwiches, tofu in my scrambles, almost as much as I have come to prefer crumbled tempeh in my tacos, or grilled eggplant 'fakon' in my BLTs. But I haven't gone whole hog, if you'll excuse the expression, because while it took only a month or so before the very notion of consuming meat revolted me... it's still a deliberate choice every time I don't eat cheese.

That's the problem -- the cheese! Cow's milk tastes thin and sour to me now, and I really truly prefer almond. I haven't had eggs-as-eggs in a long time and the concept sounds greasy and dense to my palate. And as far as American or cheddar or Provolone on my sandwich, I happily consume my veggie substitutes with no qualms.

It's the mozzarella and the feta that I haven't managed to give up - the Caprese salads and pizzas and flatbreads, the feta pesto dips for my pita chips, the scrumptious feta-or-yogurt with my Persian dishes... I love me some Daiya on my pizza, but it's still accompanied by a wistful sense of longing for "the real thing." It's still a choice, while it's been a long time since I had to "choose" not to eat meat.

I want to get myself to the same point about all animal products - but goodness knows it's difficult. It's not just the desire for gooey melted mozzarella or salty, briney feta, but the little things - the whey in my sandwich bread, the gelatin in my daily vitamins - it's always seemed so difficult to pay attention and make the right choice, even when I've known it's the right choice.

Right for myself and right for the world.

But how can I advocate a vegan lifestyle as the answer to so many of the world's problems, and yet hypocritically go on being merely "veganish", and thinking that my "82-and-a-half-percent humanity" is "enough"? Better, perhaps. Enough? How can it be?

In one month, I will have been vegetarian for a full year. In one month, I will have more than enough time to finish off whatever food I already have in my fridge and pantry that still contains animal products. In one month, I will stop being a hypocrite, re-align my actions, bring my behavior in balance with my beliefs, and be, in fact as well as in opinion, a vegan.

One month left of hypocrisy.

Food in the new year

I last posted exactly one month ago. Since then, I've had fall quarter finals, went on break, rang in 2012, started a major weight loss resolution for the new year, cooked a lot of vegan and vegetarian recipes, read some books, watched a lot of television and a few movies, and played a lot with my new puppy.

So! Some things I cooked this month--

Native Escalivada
A recipe I got from a Native Foods Cafe cooking demo, a vegan version of a Catalonian recipe. Meant for an appetizer, but I put it on bread and made it a sandwich instead. This recipe took a lot of work (comparatively) to make but it was SO delicious! Even made my meat-cravin' dad stop demanding "a main course" or "more protein", and want more the next day. Two weeks later he mentioned how much he'd enjoyed it.

This recipe was sort of in three parts. Grilled eggplant, then a mixture of soaked cashews, soaked currants, & olive oil as the most DELICIOUS cheese substitute ever, and a mixture of thyme, capers, grilled onions, grilled red pepper, and balsamic vinegar. All together spread on a baguette. Om nom nom.

Pad Thai Salad
Got this recipe from Isa Chandra's fantastic Appetite for Reduction, a low-fat vegan cookbook from the blogger of The Post-Punk Kitchen, one of my favorite vegan blogs. This was the first vegan recipe I made for my dad, and he grumbled about wanting more "protein", but I gave him couscous and he went back for thirds. Delicious peanut/lemon juice/soy sauce dressing gave this salad Thai flavors without the noodles or tofu.

Peanut Dipping Sauce
Okay, not quite a recipe, per se. I'm new at this, remember? Mixed together peanut butter, soy sauce, lemon juice, and minced garlic. Dip for carrots, absolutely yummy.

Cherry Candied Almonds
Toasted almonds, coated in a syrup made from brown sugar, cherry jam, and olive oil, then cooled and sticky and scrumptious.

Persian Rice Cookies
Naan berenji! I've made two different recipes' versions of this recently, neither one vegan (both use eggs, one uses butter). The first one I found online, and added about double the amount of rose water, and while it wasn't the traditional texture - much chewier and moister - I liked it a lot. The second one, with butter, was my mom's recipe from an old cookbook she's used for years, and it was more how the texture's supposed to be - exploding into powder in your mouth, dry and crumbly. Personal preference, I like them chewier, my sister likes them more 'traditional'.

Cashew Creams
After I made the escalivada, I had a bunch of soaked cashews left over, so I tried a couple of different combinations in the food processor. One batch I blended with honey (not vegan, I know! couldn't find the agave nectar) and banana, and it was a yummy breakfast kind of thing with Graham crackers. The other, sundried tomatoes, salt, and olive oil, and it made a really amazing hummus-type dip for crackers. Oh so good.

So it's been a good month for food, really. I hope the rest of 2012 continues as well! :) 

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

I am hardly qualified to write an analysis of the way race relations are treated in Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling novel The Help. I’m a privileged white girl growing up in California in the 1990s/2000s, and I barely want to touch these issues with a ten foot pole. But given the extremes to which reviewers of The Help seem to go in their critiques, and having just read it myself (late to the party, as usual), I feel I have the right to say something, if not everything.

I’ve read other reviews, casual and official, good and bad, and everyone has something to say about it, whichever side they fall on. Maybe it’s different, listening to the audiobook than reading it myself, or maybe it’s because I’m not from the south and so everyone’s accents sound like some kind of stereotype to me, not just the voices of the African American characters, but the well-acted, well-read dialogue didn’t bother me as it seems to have bothered others.

Yes, this book had narrative problems. Oblivious and naïve as I may be, I too questioned certain plot points – why didn’t Skeeter, from her well-off and comfortable position, consider doing anything to help Yule Mae’s sons? Why didn’t she, or for that matter Minnie, make any kind of comment to the discomfort of the white lady taking credit for writing the book (when clearly Aibilene was just as competent to write it as Skeeter, and the stories weren’t Skeeter’s at all)? For that matter, why didn’t either Skeeter or Aibilene ever raise, even in their own minds, the issue of Aibilene doing all the work on the Miss Myrna columns the whole way through? It’s true that Skeeter, even from her position as the novel’s sole politically conscious voice, seemed curiously unaware of how she was taking advantage of Aibilene – at the very least, by the time they had become friends, Skeeter should have been rethinking how she exploited her friend’s maid in those earlier days of the column. I agree, too, with the common complaint that it makes no sense for Celia Foote to be so oblivious to the rules and boundaries regarding relations between white and black people, given that she is a white woman in Mississippi, even if she’s white trash. (If anything, she should be more aware of those lines and where her position is in relation to them.) In general, though, I was more disappointed with Celia’s plotline for its tight and easy ending, its total lack of going anywhere with the infertility issue – after the promise of that mimosa-chopping scene, and the tragedy of the miscarriage, to have everything conclude with “and we’re so grateful, you have a job with us forever, Minnie!” just felt easy and pat.

There are other issues, too, of a similar nature, but honestly, I enjoyed this book, and I really didn’t find it as problematic as many reviewers seemed to. For instance, I didn’t think that The Help divided its characters into black people = good people, white people = evil. I didn’t even think that those white characters who had done terrible things were particularly Baddies Are Bad – yes, Miss Hilly is a pretty dreadful person, but we are asked to like and almost to sympathize with Skeeter’s mother as well as with Stuart, and both of them have done bad things for bad reasons, both of them hold the typical views on race and both of them are simultaneously condemned and still liked by Skeeter – which just feels real to me. And the fact that we are, with Skeeter, asked to reconcile that liking of them with the disgust for what they believe is what prevents, for me, the Baddies Are Bad factor.

As for the critique that The Help portrays all the problems black women in the 60s had to deal with as catty gossip and petty backstabbing…that’s kind of ridiculous. I believe this critique was more focused on the movie, which I haven’t seen, so who knows? Maybe the film lightens the novel’s narrative considerably and eliminates all those references to lynchings, attacks, murders and maimings and unfair imprisonment and the total, absolute injustice these characters face… but the novel certainly does not pretend that the worst its black characters might have to contend with is social disgrace or petty gossip. Even at its best, the petty gossip can lead, the book informs us, to no longer being able to get a job, which itself means ruination of a family’s life – no food on the table, no way to support your children – and at the worst, there is murder, there is a black boy beaten to blindness, there is a woman put in prison for years for a crime she came nowhere near committing, there is absolutely reality here. The women who tell Skeeter their stories aren’t scared of being caught gossiping, and being embarrassed – they are scared that they and their families will be arrested, attacked, destroyed. How is that making light of the situation?

Leaving aside those issues, though, the book has some narrative flaws – like I said, the Celia plotline wrapped up far too neatly and easily for me, and furthermore, I was sick and tired of hearing oblique, menacing references to “that awful thing I done with the pie” when it was absolutely obvious from nearly the first moment exactly what it was Minnie done (the same problem goes for what Skeeter’s mother did to Constantine – with all the looming threats and mystery surrounding that incident, I was expecting a trifle more than what I got, and was just tired of the awkward, stilted phrasing used in both cases, to boot – that awful thing! That terrible thing! The horrible thing Mother did!). But for the most part, I can only say that I listened to those eighteen and a half hours in one weekend, turning it on every chance I got because I was intrigued, wrapped up in the slow, drawling world, dying to know what would happen next (even when what happened next turned out to be frustratingly trite). And really, that’s all I expected or asked for from The Help.

A goat and a slinky

The Blogger profile asks you a random question. I tried to answer in my profile, the point of the darn thing, but it was too long. It's a blog post instead, now.

"You're trapped in a well with a goat and a slinky. Describe how you will escape."

Goats will eat anything (or so cartoons have told me). I get the goat to bite the slinky in half, put the two halves together to make a whole, put the hole in the wall of the well and tunnel upwards, with the goat eating the dirt as we climb. After our escape, the goat and I become celebrities as well as bosom buddies, until we have an epic falling out over the issue of an interview the goat has done with the New York Post on the subject of our Miracle Tunnel Escape, in which the goat takes full credit for my escape plan. We are eventually reconciled in a surprisingly touching, often-played-in-reruns episode of the Daily Show. Our relationship is stronger than ever, and I will be named godmother to the goat's first and fourth kids.



In unrelated news,
Don't talk to me about a man's being able to talk sense; everyone can talk sense. Can he talk nonsense?
William Pitt 

All the things...

One of my goals for this (school) year was to cook/food prep more. I haven't gotten off to a very good start, but yesterday I made lunch - sauteed broccoli & cauliflower with truffle oil & dried rosemary, with a handful of cherry tomatoes & some almonds - and this morning I made a smoothie out of kale, a Shingo pear, half an avocado, some almond milk & the spiciest fresh ginger I've ever eaten. And both were delicious. Too delicious to wait and take pictures. Oops.

Other life things right now include that I took the GRE this afternoon and while I won't get my real scores back for a while, because I took the revised one, the estimate given based on the old paper-based version was 700-800 verbal and 530-630 math, which I'm okay with because hey, I really legit didn't study so I can't really expect better. Do hope my essays were decent.

Now I need to focus on all the things, allllll the things, and fit into that choosing what grad programs to apply for, and getting letters of rec, and and and and and.

Booktracks

This is my first attempt to post via the new Blogger iPod app, so forgive me any issues...the keyboard doesn't rotate, so my typing is more awkward than usual.

So- just downloaded my first Booktrack!! It's an app (also just online I believe, not only app) that is essentially an ebook that has a soundtrack. I got Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band, it's the only story available on the iPod at the moment that isn't a kids fairy tale. However, they said more titles are forthcoming... Including Pride and Prejudice - excited for that, of course!

It's not an audiobook-- in the sense of someone reading the story to you. It plays a soundtrack of musical underscoring and light sound effects appropriate to the narrative - for example, a crackling fire during a scene in Baker Street where Holmes refers to the fire being lit, footsteps at the top of a page where characters make an entrance, etc. So far it hasn't been distracting. The app uses a fairly simple way for you to adjust playback speed -- I read much faster than the default pace -- and learns your speed pretty quickly.

This is essentially what I have been wanting for years, trying to do myself with carefully chosen Pandora stations (note: it rarely works, except occasionally for Jane Austen), and which certain audiobooks like The Golden Compass and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell alllllmost have for bits of their audible files. But not the whole way through - and not as a soundtrack to something you read yourself.

In general I prefer to read books myself rather than listen to an audio (though the narrator of the Jonathan Strange audio is one of the few that I prefer to my own mental voice), so having this Booktrack option is amazing. There are some little glitchy things in the app, but hey, it's new; and I wish they had more titles available. But I think it's a fantastic start and I am so excited to downloading more as they become available!

Trader Joe's Vegan Products list

Trader Joe's: List of Vegan Products

Handy webpage for future reference!

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