Kev and I alternate cooking weeks, and his last week he made mostly vegetarian. I'm not quite there yet, but yesterday I learned a new lentil curry I actually like (from the Sri Lankan section of the Charmaine Solomon cookbook), and we had a vegetarian Indian meal with friends, and it was good. We're aiming towards meat/chicken/fish each once a week, perhaps, or less. A big change from having meat at every lunch and dinner! It's both notably cheaper and healthier for us, so a win-win, I think. But still weird to wrap my mind around. Yes, I know most of the world hardly ever eats meat, but I'm a spoiled American, and I find it a little difficult to feel full unless there's some meat in the meal. It's totally a stupid mental block; I'm working on it.
Dinner was with Venu and her new beau, Sendhil, and Nilofer and Shashi and their girls. I don't know if I mentioned here that Nilofer's family is moving to the Bay Area. We are not pleased. But Shashi got his dream job, so I suppose we have to try to be happy for them. Pfui. We did have a great time at dinner last night -- a fair bit of Sarah Palin snarkiness mixed in with much kid discussion. Also food. I made: saffron-sultana rice, lentils, spicy potato, mushrooms, carrots (came out really good -- I used half a can of coconut milk instead of regular milk for a change and so much better than normal!), beets, beet leaf salad, and chili-lime mangoes. We have a lot of leftovers, because apparently, I am incapable of cooking for less than an army. When will I learn?
Kavi is learning to help cook already...
Don't bother her when she's in the throes of creation!
One thing we noticed last night is that Kavi is notably quieter and mellower than both of Nilofer's girls (one younger, one older) -- which is funny, since she seems like such a handful to us. But in contrast with other kids, the difference is striking. I wonder how much of that is personality and how much is genetics. I suppose if we have another kid, we might get more of a clue. Although I'm a little scared -- having three kids in the house at once last night? A little overwhelming, and more -- a little loud!
Today, cleaning lady comes (yay), babysitter comes for the morning (double yay), and I try to catch up on backlogged e-mail and maybe write a little piece for the version of
Yoni ki Baat that Rasaka's putting on in January-ish -- they said they could use some more depth/variety in their pieces, so I was thinking I might try to write something about vaginal birth, or the lack thereof. We'll see. In the afternoon, Sugi Ganeshananthan's stopping by (in town for a wedding) and letting me have her comments on
Arbitrary Passions. Yay, writer friends. :-)
I’ve recently convinced my parents to start including (whey-based) protein powder in their mostly-vegetarian diets, and they’re both noticing how much fuller it makes them. It takes some experimenting to figure out what you like (I do a chocolate-flavored protein-only in water; they prefer vanilla mixed with half juice). But the protein thing – is not your imagination.
Years ago I tried vegetarianism twice. Once for about a month, the next time for maybe three. I studied all the stuff about complementary proteins, but I was still weak and sick much of the time. I suspect that some people need meat more than others. My daughter tried for three of four years and finally gave up, for the same reason. I don’t believe that vegetarianism is healthier for us; I am not convinced it is healthier for anyone.
I’m far from vegetarian, as you know, but I do find that I eat more often (4x a day, for instance) when I’m not eating meat. And I do feel “full” in a different way, just as I feel full differently when I eat ice cream! It helps me a lot to think of it as “bulking up my repertoire of vegetarian dishes” rather than cutting out meat. Two nights ago I made a salad of cucumber, tomato, chick peas, kalamata olives and feta, for instance, and almost didn’t eat the meat side dish because I was so full!
(Also, that helps you skip all the doctrinaire debates and morality, which people will get into at the drop of a hat! It’s definitely true that if you simply remove meat from your existing diet, it probably won’t be right for you, but then my roommate can live on brie, Ritz crackers, ice cream and Mountain Dew for a week at a time, so obviously diet is relative. Ew.)