And then I started writing one myself and as it got longer and longer and more and more personal and obtuse, I was like "hey that's what I have a blog for."
Anyway the blog was about how sorry vegetarian options are at fine dining places in NYC. Bruni, diplomatically sympathizes with the veggies. They can't get much else but risotto or green salads at the city's best and most innovative restaurants. And often vegs have to pay high prices for food that hasn't been paid as much attention to as their omnivorous counterpart's meals.
I was a vegetarian for a while.
I stopped eating meat at 12, mostly to avoid the catcher's mitt-like flavor and texture of my mother's Sam's Club pork chops. God I hated those pork chops. I would watch my father eat these industrial gray, fat ringed shingles covered in Gluden's mustard, mystified. They appeared to be enjoyable, somehow, someway, to Pop. Mom as well, but she likes Lima beans and liver. Not like, pâté liver, like LIVER liver.
I knew my parents would not accept me saying "I don't want this, it tastes like fingernails" and would rip into me about my "constant complaining" so I had to come up with a "belief system." My parents were quite tolerant when it came to me trying on ways to organize my identity. During my notable "Christian Camp" phase - I mostly went for the free ski trips and cubic zirconium crosses in the most holy gift shop - I made the fam say Grace every night, which went over like a lead poop. Then I would spend the evenings torturing myself about my inability to reeeeeeally believe in Jesus, thus I was damned to literally actually watch my own skin bubble in hellfire FOR EVER (that's what they tell you in those crazy places, really!!!!!). Nothing like trying to watch your daily dose of 'America's Funniest Home Videos' with a weeping 10 year old flagellant. During my "Ayn Rand" phase, I was just generally, inexplicably cunty, everyday, all the time. And cheers to Mam and Pop for letting me do my thing. I assume they understood I would grow out of all these things.
Anyway my pork chop antipathy ran so deep I said goodbye to cheeseburgers, "meat sauce", and my favorite thing in my childhood world, Hebrew National hot dogs.
No meat, not even hot dogs blessed by a Rabbi!
But I took to vegginess ok. Around 12 is when girls are figuring out which eating disorder works best themselves and their lifestyle so everybody was "not eating" something. Being a vegetarian in a South Carolina high school essentially meant I subsisted on a lunch diet of cheese pretzels. A perfect food, the cheese pretzel. Not only is it salty and full of empty carbohydrates, but with yellow # 5 paste in its heart. At NYU I was truly in heaven. The dining hall provided me with a million ways to eat a ton of food that had no meat in it, with the lowest health benefits possible.
Eventually I cracked. My vegetarianism was essentially sans moral/ethical foundation and as I got older and my idea of fun shifted from hanging in dorms, enjoying appetizer of Georgi followed by Bong then perhaps, Floor...to going out with friends, fit for public consumption, to an establishment of food or drink. My boyfriend in the end of college, Nick, (go look at his blog over there in linkies) cooked. Real meals, which didn't come from a box, and enjoyed great food, as did his parents who came through NYC frequently and were nice enough to take me to dinners with them. They were interested restaurants that were exciting and experiential. I'd never really had food like that. The temptations of really good meals were irresistible. Outside of major cities in this country, most restaurants in any given town are awful. When dining out options are uniformly overpriced and banal, avoiding the "Tex-Mex shrimp and chicken fiesta" for the meatless "Baked potato skins" at your local mall parking lot feeding trough, is no biggie. Its all shitty, and ambiance, forget it.
But the more encounters I had with great opportunities to eat amazing stuff in NYC, I just could not pass up eel at at Sushi Yasuda, skirt steak at Al Di La, or the Head Cheese at the Spotted Pig. Oh wait. hold the head cheese - it made me gaggy, but you get my drift {Please note, the Pig is UHMAZING, head cheese not so much}.
All that leads me to be of the belief that you're not going to get a transcendent restaurant meal if you aren't eating meat. And I don't think you can really complain to loudly about that. You can get wonderful dishes, but if you truly want to enjoy the whole package of eating out - the food, the pacing, setting, experience, and the more intangible things that make restaurants worth going to - don't refuse to eat some of the most flavorful ingredients that exist (unnnnlesss, you eat at a restaurant who's ideology in in line with yours, i.e a vegetarian place). I think high-end restaurants exist not to cater to limitations but to indulge palates, to overwhelm with whatever qualities characterize the place. And like, whatever, you can get great food with no meat in it, you're just going to have to work a little harder, and I mean a little. I've had a lot of great vegetable dishes all over the place in the city. Sometimes I end up ordering entirely veg with out even thinking about it (shout out Lil Frankies Salad and/or Calzone!) When I'm eating by myself I generally never eat meat. I never learned how to prepare any kind of meat other than what goes into a meatball so I just stick to the veggies. Also on a SERIOUS NOTE, I do care about where my food comes from and the damage it does to this cracked out planet. If you are actually reading my blog, you are probably well aware of the implications of industrially farmed grocery store meat as well as its lack of flavor. Also, I would rather know my bacon lardons had an ok time when they were pigs and are not full of more hormones than M to F pre-ops.
Lots of times I crave those weird bland, tofu salad deli sandwiches of questionable provenance. I believe they call them "Tofu Power." I also love that weird fake jerky that kind of tastes like plastic ahahha oh yea, they call them
And then I'll stare at the sandwiches and try and pick out the Best One.
Like one of them is going to really be the ne plus ultra Tofu Power Sandwich. It's the One. The Best Mushy and Sort of Frightening Sandwich Ever.
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