As a young couple of the era Tom and I tried to be close to nature, and as self sustainable and with minimal negative impact on the earths resources as possible.
When we moved to Colorado in 1976, we gave up smoking (well we gave up smoking cigarettes), it was quite a bit later that I gave up on pot. We gardened, we canned, preserved, or froze all our own food. I made all our breads, tortillas, pitas, etc. We raised and butchered our own chickens and rabbits. Got eggs from our chickens. Got goats milk from a friends farm if we did the milking, I made our cheese from the goats milk. Grew and dried our own herbs. I even sold herbal vinegars and oils at farmers markets. I made Tom's shirts and my wrap around shirts and halter tops.
At some point the raising and butchering was more than my conscience could deal with and I went vegetarian. Which then moved me to being able to cater in both vegetarian and vegan fare. The Vegan was by far the most sought after, I was one of very few that could cater in Vegan in Colorado Springs, at that time!.As time went on, and as we bagan to travel it became somewhat troublesome to find things I could eat, I also happen to be lactose intolerant. I always found it humorous when I would tell servers that I didn't eat meat or dairy and they'd say, No worries, we have chicken. Or they tell me that something I ordered was a bad choice because it either had eggs or mayonaise, because we all know that those things are dairy????
Anyway, the more we travelled, the more often I compromised, a bit of pork in a sauce, pork fat in the beans, or ham or bacon in the beans, pick the meat off the nachos, etc. Once home I'd revert to my old ways. But it happened more and more as we travelled more and more. Then there were the office environment jobs - Slowly I just found myself compromising more and more. Then it got to be where I ate animal but with great infrequency, then I was eating fish and seafood with some regularity, then when I wanted to lose weight it was chicken and veggies, to many carbs in beans...
So now I am a meat eater, a carnivore. I don't like it - don't get me wrong, I enjoy meat sometimes, in fact sometimes I crave it. It's my head, and my body that don't like it. I can't get my head around and feel comfortable with the animals commitment to my ability to both eat it and wear it! And I know my body reacts differently after I have had meat; tired, sluggish...Nancy over in Mazatlan recently wrote a lovely post about her being a vegetarian, and offered up a number of her personal resources.
So I was thinking about starting a Blog for Veg friendly recipes and resources - a bunch of us could have access, be partners on it! It would be great for us here in Mexico where some of the resources and conveniences we were accustomed to are not available. It would be recipes with stuff local, stuff available.
What do you think? Anyone interested!?
You don't have to be vegetarian to enjoy a veg meal.
I frequently prepare vegetarian meals for my meat eating friends, so far no complaints, well at least after the meal - there have been a few comments prior.