Easy choices and difficult ones

Vegetarianism is a relatively easy food choice. It's well understood and fairly easy to work around when you're going out. As Alex put it last night, "There is not a lot of hidden meat."

Excepting the few times that I've already mentioned, not eating meat has not been difficult. And even my cravings were easily avoided.

Next month we're going dairy free. No milk, no butter, no cheese.

I'm not worried about my daily latte because I'm fond of almond milk. Since Alex and I typically make them at home, it's an easy switch.

No, the area where I'm most worried is butter, cheese, and milk and going out. Restaurants use them in everything.

I've rather enjoyed being a vegetarian, though I do appreciate meat a lot more now. But I'm afraid of being dairy-free. Not only do I love dairy, but I am worried that if I go out to restaurants, I'll sin unknowing.

Any recommendations?

The emotional experience of food

What food do you reach for when you're sad? When you're happy? When you're bored? The answers to those questions really tells you a lot about how you think of food.

When I didn't get into graduate school in 2009, I was devastated. I wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and disappear. And when Alex sought to coax me into eating dinner, the only thing I wanted was pork dumplings. Today, when I was distressed about graduate school, all I wanted was bacon and hash browns.

When I'm happy, all I want it popcorn or Thai food (sans meat, for the record).

What does this say about me? Meat is my comfort. What else did you learn about me? Graduate school drives me crazier than anything else.

Thankfully, I have a wonderful boyfriend who supports me in all things in my life. He also is a big part in this year of conscious eating, because we dreamed it together. While I curled on the couch and stressed out and raged, Alex cooked the vegetarian dinner we were supposed to have tonight. Had it been left to me, I likely would have turned to meat, in the form of pizza or carpaccio, or bacon, or all three.

We're in this together, Alex and I, and I'm thankful for that. I'm proud of myself for not succumbing to my need for meat comfort. Though, to be honest, had I cooked dinner, I likely would have cooked up the chorizo in the fridge.

On cravings and unforseen difficulties

"I think that allowing ourselves fish has made me not really miss land animals," Alex said to me, when I questioned whether or not he'd had any cravings.

He's right for the most part. I think we'd both be a lot worse off (craving-wise, anyway) if we'd decided to cut fish out. I have a lot of respect for people who are able to do this, but we were being realistic when we outlined the first month of conscious eating.

We have, however, been more thoughtful with regards to the fish we've eaten. Check out the sushi post for more details.

We went out for dinner last Friday with a friend of ours and her friend who came with us ordered a steak. Smelling it and seeing it (and hearing him rave about it) was definitely hard, but we stayed strong and persevered.

My only flirtation with undoing (so far) came in the form of a tweet from a delicious pizza restaurant in Seattle. It was simple but it made my mouth water.

I immediately reported it to Alex, part of me hoping he'd say, "Okay let's go!" But, when it comes to carpaccio, he has more will power than I do and held strong. The sad thing is that I won't even be able to eat it next month because I think we'll be dairy-free.

The hardest thing so far has been finding lunches to take. This seems like such an easy thing, but has proven to be difficult. We used to take leftovers for lunch the next day but since I started volunteering we stagger our dinners and eat leftovers the next night as dinner. This works fairly well, dinner-wise, but makes lunch difficult. We may reevaluate this soon.

The first week we thought we'd make it easy and just take cans of soup. As we stood in the aisle, reading ingredients, we were surprised to find just how many vegetable soups contained some form of meat, if even just chicken or beef broth. We managed, but it was an eye-opener.

This week we've been taking pitas and that has been tasty and filling. I already have a recipe to try for next week to mix it up. But, like I said, I have a new respect for those people who live this lifestyle.

Sustainable, Delicious, Sustainably Delicious

A few months ago, I read an article in the Seattle Times about a sushi restaurant in Seattle that, after being open for nearly 15 years, was closing their doors and reopening as a 100% sustainable restaurant. I was intrigued and filed it away to investigate further.

Now that we are eating more consciously, I thought it was time to check out this restaurant.

I did some reading about sustainable fishing prior to our visit and the most important thing I learned was that if things don't change, the oceans could be empty by 2048. Here's an article from the National Geographic about it. That's a staggering fact. Of course, that's someone's speculation, and may not necessarily be true, but it's something to think about in any case.

Most of the sushi served in restaurants is not sustainable. Just read about unagi and bluefin tuna, if you want to know more.

But back to this sushi restaurant. It's called Mashiko and is in West Seattle. We went because we love sushi, and because we're trying to be more conscious. I'm so glad we did; everything we ate was delicious (including things I never thought I'd like) and I didn't miss any of the non-sustainable dish.

We got omakase. That means the sushi chef, who also happened to be the owner, got to choose what we ate. We told him "no land animals" and that we'd eat anything else he put in front of us.

This is what we had (raw, except where noted):

Oysters, kumamoto and gold creek
Geoduck with yuzu tobiko
Nigiri consisting of: albacore belly, spotted mackerel, and toro
Kombu marinated rockfish
Grilled oyster with sake butter
Cooked geoduck with uni butter
Fried shiso leaf with uni
Pacific saury roll with shiso and salmon roe
Baked black cod
Albacore poke (with seaweed, pine nuts, and onions)
Black cod liver*
Salted squid with fermented cod eggs
S. Carolina catfish, tempura sweet potato, and avocado roll**
Fresh jasmine pearl creme brulee
Satono homare sake

*Black cod liver is a substitute for monkfish liver. In my opinion it is way better than monkfish liver. I didn't like monkfish, I liked black cod.
**South Carolina catfish is an unagi substitute. The way it was prepared, I wouldn't have noticed a difference. The beautiful thing about it is that the supplier of this catfish strives to make a good environment. The water is recycled and whatever can't be recycled is used for irrigation. The fish are fed a vegetable based food. There are no pesticides, no herbicides, no hormones, and the water is filtered to prevent algae blooms. The sad thing? This catfish is more expensive than the nearly extinct unagi.

Our dinner was three hours long and it was blissful. We got to talk to Hijame Sato about the fish and sustainability. We talked about global warming and the environment.

I can't wait to go back. And if you're in Seattle and like sushi, you should go too.

I can't personally vouch for these (yet!), but check out other sustainable sushi restaurants: Miya's Sushi in New Haven, CT and Tataki Sushi in San Francisco, CA.

On eating on the couch

Alex and I are really bad at eating dinner at the table. We used to do it every day, but our dining room table turns into a storage shelf and we're both pretty lazy... What I'm trying to say is that we eat more meals on the couch than we should.

When you eat dinner on the couch, while watching TV, it can hurt you in many ways. You don't typically talk to the person you're eating with, for one. Another way that it hurts, especially in relation to conscious eating, is that you don't pay attention to your food. This means you're mindlessly consuming so, in addition to ignoring your meal, you may also eat more than you mean to. So, eating on the couch isn't conducive to conscious eating.

It was Alex that pointed this out. And he was right.

So I made it a point to clean off the table and we've eaten our dinners there. So far. I'm not saying that I don't expect us to revert to bad habits, but hopefully it will be a conscious choice rather than just something we do because it's what we did the day before.

The first challenge: vegetarianism

Alex and I are avid meat-eaters. Sometimes I flirt with vegetarianism, but then I remember how much I love carpaccio (this one is from Seasons in the Park in Vancouver, BC) and t-bone steaks. And chorizo. And salami. And, well, a lot of things. And Alex? Well, he loves steak and hamburgers as much as the next guy.

And don't get me started on bacon.

But I digress.

This month we are eating vegetarian only.

We'll see how it goes. If you know of any good recipes, please send them along!

A first

Conscious, adjective.
1. aware of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.
2. fully aware of or sensitive to something.
3. aware of what one is doing
4. deliberate; intentional
5. acutely aware of or concerned about

There are more definitions, of course, but these are the ones that best represent what Alex and I are trying to do in 2010.

We are spoiled when it comes to food. We have enough money to buy what we want (and waste it, which I've found we do often). We can go out to eat whenever we feel like it, pretty much where we feel like. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and we do enjoy food, but I feel like we consume without really appreciating the things we are eating.

Hence conscious eating.

In 2010, we are going to try a new way of eating. We are going to think about the things we eat, and enjoy to eat, so that we are better able to appreciate them.

Stay tuned. I'm still not entirely certain this will work.