Randomness!
June 16th, 2004 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shiredancerSummer is here, as can be seen by the fact that I can park right next to my building on campus. It's much quieter now, and -- go me! -- I'm almost done with the work that I usually spend all summer doing! That means I'll be free to build my student database all summer, and cull the files, and work through the *stacks* of useless printouts all over my office. Tidiness and organization, here I come...
Summer means our annual family dining-out experience, too. We started this two years ago -- during the summer we allow ourselves to splurge on a new restaurant once every week or so. Our town is awash in restaurants and there are always new ones to try, but we're just too busy during the school year.
Eating out isn't quite the experience it used to be, since I became a vegetarian a few months back. Yeah, a full-on, no meat OR seafood vegetarian (but not a vegan -- never a vegan. I believe in dairy products and eggs). One of those regressing-to-my-hippie-days flashbacks that have been recurring ever since HobbitCon in January. Actually it's quite easy and a pleasure to give up meat these days -- there are so many great meat substitutes, I don't even miss it. Okay, I became a vegetarian partly because most meat grosses me out. Gristle and fat and grease -- bleh. And the pile of picked-clean chicken bones my husband leaves on his plate? Double bleh. I stood at the sink rinsing off the pebbly-fleshed carcass of a chicken one night and just thought "I can't do this anymore. I WON'T do this anymore." And I stopped, cold turkey so to speak, right then. No really valid reason, I'm not terribly jumped-up over the animal-rights issue, but I'm just happier not eating them. Maybe it's all aesthetics.
But I do miss some things. The occasional good steak. The rare use of bacon. The *very* rare but oh-so-hobbitty corned beef hash. And the best end result of chicken, not the bare-bones stuff but the nicely cubed, deliciously crusted chicken pot pie. Otherwise I'm coping well, despite a teasing daughter who thinks I'm *insane* to do this (she's a dyed-in-the-wool carnivore, taking after her dad).
Sushi just isn't the same, I have to say. No more sashimi, so Japanese restaurants have lost their appeal. Dim sum suffers hugely too, when restricted to vegetable options. I may consider taking seafood back into my diet -- I don't feel nearly as bad about fish dying for my palate, for some reason. But for now I'm being a purist; what can I say? I'll just go with whatever feels right. If it changes, it changes. I'm trying not to be too hung up about it all. Smile.
Summer means our annual family dining-out experience, too. We started this two years ago -- during the summer we allow ourselves to splurge on a new restaurant once every week or so. Our town is awash in restaurants and there are always new ones to try, but we're just too busy during the school year.
Eating out isn't quite the experience it used to be, since I became a vegetarian a few months back. Yeah, a full-on, no meat OR seafood vegetarian (but not a vegan -- never a vegan. I believe in dairy products and eggs). One of those regressing-to-my-hippie-days flashbacks that have been recurring ever since HobbitCon in January. Actually it's quite easy and a pleasure to give up meat these days -- there are so many great meat substitutes, I don't even miss it. Okay, I became a vegetarian partly because most meat grosses me out. Gristle and fat and grease -- bleh. And the pile of picked-clean chicken bones my husband leaves on his plate? Double bleh. I stood at the sink rinsing off the pebbly-fleshed carcass of a chicken one night and just thought "I can't do this anymore. I WON'T do this anymore." And I stopped, cold turkey so to speak, right then. No really valid reason, I'm not terribly jumped-up over the animal-rights issue, but I'm just happier not eating them. Maybe it's all aesthetics.
But I do miss some things. The occasional good steak. The rare use of bacon. The *very* rare but oh-so-hobbitty corned beef hash. And the best end result of chicken, not the bare-bones stuff but the nicely cubed, deliciously crusted chicken pot pie. Otherwise I'm coping well, despite a teasing daughter who thinks I'm *insane* to do this (she's a dyed-in-the-wool carnivore, taking after her dad).
Sushi just isn't the same, I have to say. No more sashimi, so Japanese restaurants have lost their appeal. Dim sum suffers hugely too, when restricted to vegetable options. I may consider taking seafood back into my diet -- I don't feel nearly as bad about fish dying for my palate, for some reason. But for now I'm being a purist; what can I say? I'll just go with whatever feels right. If it changes, it changes. I'm trying not to be too hung up about it all. Smile.
