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It Ain’t Easy Being (vegan) Cheesey

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I love animals.

I eat animals.

This has been the fluctuating moral scale that dips and rises weekly in my psyche. In an attempt to quell my inner hypocrite self-talk, I try and stick with the rule of eating only critters that I could actually kill myself; this includes poultry (except duck), fish and shellfish of all sorts, but never beef and especially never pork. Except sometimes, I eat beef, duck and especially bacon– but I do feel guilty afterwards.

When I am lucky enough to eat at a vegetarian or vegan restaurant (and it’s good) I feel like I could actually go veg. On the very rare occasion that I eat at a raw restaurant (and it is good) I am positively inspired to go veg, vegan and raw!! Whoop-Whoop- Can I get an AMEN, my Birkenstock-wearing friends!! I leave the restaurant committed to going home and creating some mutha-lovin’ vegan and raw recipes. Traveling from groovy grocery to groovy grocery in search of the best bulk nutritional yeast and chia seeds– Cost and time be damned! I am on a holy mission!

I am still thinking about (craving) the vegan/raw lunch I had last week with my friend Lisa. We hadn’t seen each other in a while and were chatting away, catching up and all– you know, like gals do– when all of a sudden time stopped as the most marvelous lunches were laid down on the table in front of us. We fell silent. I developed tunnel vision, seeing only the raw burrito wrapped in a collard leaf, laying resplendent on the cheery, yellow plate. Lisa was ogling her quinoa burger and sunflower seed mayo with equal intent. For the next few minutes we were still, save for the movement of our arms and hands moving from table to mouth… table to mouth. Eyes rolling then softly closing, moans and grunts of sheer, culinary euphoria– we were experiencing a meal that was altogether different. After three or four bites, we came up for air and, shaking our heads in disbelief, cut our burrito and quinoa burgers in half, to share.

I’ve been thinking about that meal for the past 8 days.  It was nice to see my friend Lisa, too, of course.

So, today, I thought it a grand idea to recreate that raw buritto at home. The first step was looking up a recipe for vegan cheese. I’d made cashew ‘ricotta’ cheese, but wanted to make something that I could shred. Apparently, shredding involves the use of Agar Agar (found at any groovy grocery, aka: health food store)– it’s a thickener vegans use that is similar to gelatin. I bought it, and other necessary sundries from the bulk section so I could get only exactly the amount I needed to make the 3 cup vegan cheese loaf. The tattooed, nose-pierced, blue-haired (not kidding about any of that) young cashier rang me up, “$27.92,” she said apathetically as she moved her gum around her mouth. “Jesus!” I sort of shouted. “What… why?” I asked. “Agar Agar… It’s $86 per pound and you bought 2 ounces…” she couldn’t seem to really form the sentence with her lips, the words just sort of slid out of her mouth. “Uh, okay then.” I paid and headed back home.

A few months ago, I made a gluten and dairy-free pizza. The ingredients cost $32. The same cashier checked me out that time, too.

I won’t give up eating, or making vegan and raw foods from scratch– I view it as a sort of science experiment. I will simply appreciate the experience even more, when I eat out at vegan restaurants.


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