Amy’s Gripping Commentary

Work is settling, but end-of-month is always a bit harried. I’ll interrupt the insanity with a recipe I made last night which is adapted from one at The Simple Dollar which was adapted from something on NPR. I aimed between their recipes because, come on, you shouldn’t sub garlic powder for real garlic! I even tried their use of bread to thicken the stew but either the execution or the idea was poor. Too much oil (I even used less than they called for) + bread = soggy oily bread (and then oily soup), not a thick paste. Here’s my recommended revision:

Spiced Chickpea Spinach Stew

2 cans chickpeas (I drained/rinsed ‘em)
6 cloves garlic, minced or whatever size you like
Olive oil
1 Tbsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 pound spinach, washed and cleaned
splash(es) of acidic something (lemon juice etc)
Salt and pepper, honey to taste
Cornstarch for thickening

Bring the chickpeas to a boil in a soup pot of water and/or broth (enough to cover what you’re cooking; I used up some old vegetable broth and added water to make up the rest). Add in the spinach and boil for a few minutes, then simmer at medium heat.

Meanwhile, saute the garlic in oil, adding in the spices and cooking until fragrant and thick but not burnt. {stop to enjoy the smell!} Add spice mixture to the pot of chickpeas/spinach. Continue medium/high heat and add enough lemon juice and honey to suit your taste, as well as salt and pepper. Thicken with cornstarch (bringing back to a boil for a bit helps). Serve with good, crusty bread or over rice or noodles.

This has strong flavor (not hot) and I swear it tasted like a beef-broth based soup. Check out the source links for info on browning the bread and mashing it with the garlic into a paste which then goes in the soup, which sounds great but I just couldn’t get it to work well. Easy meal! You can get lots of flavor from the spices and save yourself a high salt content as a result.

Chickpeas are so versatile. They’re one of my go-to foods.

I got this awesome deal through Restaurant.com that gave me $70 worth of restaurant gift cards for about $3.50. The place we tried to go with a gift certificate was closed today, so Plan B was to try Sesame Chinese restaurant. I had read on a local blog or comments or something that they had good veggie options, and since Chinese food has been boring since I went veg (it’s often hard to talk to servers about what’s actually in the dishes, so I mostly get fried rice), I was looking forward to trying this place.

It looked like a hole in the wall and not any more special than a Chinese joint on our side of town. The menu didn’t seem very different either. But since I knew to ask about other options from the reviews I’d seen online, I ended up with broccoli & beef made with seitan instead and it was great!! Our only experience with seitan at home was a disaster, but this had great texture, was cut to be the same as the beef you might get in the normal dish, and tasted just like the Chinese food I had been missing the past couple of years. Not only that, but the vegetable roll and pot stickers were the best I’d ever had, and the service was great. David had a spicy garlic eggplant dish which was also very good, but still was squishy enough (the curse of eggplant) that I was glad I chose something else.

I scanned their takeout menu for y’all. Any of the beef dishes can be made vegetarian like I had it! There’s also a nice selection of other veggie dishes (plus all the normal stuff you omnis want). Check out Sesame at 86th & Ditch in Indy.
Sesame Chinese restaurant menu

Well, I had to try it just because it was there. I’ve never had real haggis so I don’t know how it compares, but it was very seasoned and very comfort food-y. You can try your own (or the real version) at MacNiven’s on Mass Ave in Indy. Sorry for the dim camera phone picture. Unlike a European establishment, they WILL kick you out when you finish eating and other people want a table.

Vegetarian Haggis, Neeps & Tatties
Kidney beans, lentils, mushrooms, onions, neeps, peanuts, almonds, walnuts & oats make up this version, served with mashed potatoes & sweet neeps.
They don’t seem to have a real web page with menu (and prices are dated based on what I paid) but if you want to go to their myspace page with annoying autoplay music, be my guest.

This week I also tried the new Siam Square in Fountain Square. They have lots of veggie options! We had spring rolls, veggie tempura, eggplant chicken (but w/tofu), red curry, and coconut chicken soup (again subbing tofu). The appetizers were just good but the soup and main dishes were worth coming back. The ambiance was weird since we were in the overflow upstairs seating, but overall it’s a hip casual vibe and it was crowded on a Saturday evening. The downer for me was when the server guy threw a glass beer bottle in the trash. It’s not like those are hard to recycle.

One wonders if these guys really have no Ns when they obviously have three Vs.

Coming soon: I saw the BEST giant sign typo tonight! I have to go back for a picture later. I know you’re on the edge of your office chairs.

Also: It’s COLD!
Hey, how cold is it?
It’s so cold we had dinner with a bunch of Canadians tonight and THEY thought it was way too cold!
Meanwhile I didn’t know they said pasta as (living-in-the-)pas-tuh.

We had a family poker party (though I played Perquackey instead) this weekend for Great Grandpa’s 100th birthday. Of course he’s been gone five years but we met in his memory. My poor aunt ordered a Happy 100th Birthday, Grandpa cake and everyone at the grocery store kept asking her how he was doing! She said it was really awkward but it was pretty funny to us. The post title is something he used to say when another driver honked at him.

I neglected to take any pictures until right before I left. Maddux is staying with Lucy while the kitchen at his house is being remodeled.

Last week we got together with KNH’s family for a comparison of two turkey substitutes. Here we have a Celebration Roast (lower left side of plate), a Quorn Turk’y Roast (center), and our yummy side dishes. The Celebration Roast is more of a hearty grain-based meal that isn’t supposed to approximate meat taste specifically but still have good texture and flavor, while the Quorn version was very meatlike but dry. We decided gravy would have been a good addition but it was a school night and we just didn’t have much time to cook. We did manage to drink a lot of wine, however.

And we had PIE! The whipped topping being the most important part.

My humble blog, just my diary and a way to keep up with friends and family, occasionally attracts some cranky outsiders. Getting involved with shelters confiscating breeders’ rabbits always pulls the breeding community in for a throwdown. Today I discovered my Tofurky picture, part of my meal last Thanksgiving, was linked in the comments on a conservative syndicated columnist’s blog post about people whining too much about Sarah Palin’s turkey-pardoning-in-front-of-turkey-killing interview. I think her interview was in poor taste (or perhaps super ironic but still poor taste) and I’ll just leave it at that. I’m not surprised that the Fox News-watching crowd thinks my Tofurky looks inedible; this is the guy who made my dinner famous. But I wouldn’t recommend reading his work if you think our president elect is more than his middle name or you actually like gay people.

Re: Fox News: I actually check in now and then to see what’s up. But the conservative columnist mentioned touts her contributions to the channel, so there ya go.

The folks who make Tofurky, who must have a sense of humor about how much ribbing their product gets this time of year, have a contest to win an eGO Electric Cycle. You guess how much grain is saved this year by all the Tofurky eaten instead of turkey. (Don’t worry, there’s a hint.) In 2007, 1.6 million pounds of grain were saved by not feeding them to turkeys first.

And now for something to eat with your Tofurky!

Curried Roasted Vegetables

2 large baking potatoes
3 red potatoes
3 large carrots
1 turnip
1 orange or red bell pepper
1 large red onion
olive oil
salt and pepper

1 T curry powder
1 t chili powder
1 t turmeric
2-3 t grated ginger
3+ cloves garlic, minced
1 can coconut milk
1 can chickpeas (I drained them)
vegetable stock if more fluid needed
cornstarch if thickening needed

Chop all veggies (except chickpeas) into 1″ chunks. Drizzle generously with olive oil, salt, and pepper on baking sheet. Roast at 425 F for about 45 minutes (time will vary based on size/type of veggies), turning veggies with tongs at least once during roasting.

Saute garlic and ginger in oil and add spices, frying to a lovely aroma (couple of minutes). Add coconut milk and chickpeas and cook (med/high heat) for a few more minutes. Add roasted veggies and simmer until chickpeas get that ‘done’ texture. Add vegetable stock and/or cornstarch to make more of a sauce or gravy as needed. Salt to taste. Serve over basmati rice or if it has a good gravy, on its own!

This recipe came together after I had a similar dish at Georgetown Market. I got an ingredient list from them and used tips from KNH and random online recipes to work out amounts. I used the root veggies I had available (and I wanted to finally try a turnip!), so feel free to sub in sweet potatoes or anything else that sounds good. We would like more zing to the dish so we’ll probably use more chili powder and curry next time, but as written, this is a hearty dish with a mild sauce that has a bit of sweetness.

My brother sent me this graphic from The Onion.

Anyone interested in a copy of The Enchanted Broccoli Forest? Most of the people I hang out with already have it. It’s all vegetarian recipes but generally simple/homestyle/hearty, and is another of Mollie Katzen’s in the Moosewood Cookbook series. This is the new revised edition. We already have a copy (which we use all the time) so I’d like to find another interested person! I can mail it to you (U.S. locations please), so be willing to share your address with me through email. I’ll give it a few days and then use a random number system to pick the receiver if there are multiple responses. Please let me know if you want it by leaving a comment!

You can see a preview of what appears to be the whole thing at Google Book Search. Google’s always doing something cool, aren’t they? Now you’ll know if you are really interested in it or not because you can read it ahead of time!

As a diary of sorts, I feel I should be able to rant on discuss any topic of interest to me, but I’m also sensitive to how my opinions (however strongly held) may differ from readers’, and that my opinions do evolve. I’m going to talk briefly about turkeys at Thanksgiving because it’s not something I’ve ever heard about until I went looking for the information, and while this may only be my third Thanksgiving NOT eating turkey flesh, it’s nonetheless important to me and I hope will not be taken as a strictly holier-than-thou entry (which I don’t intend any of them to be, but I’m not sure I’m successful in getting that across sometimes).

This year I decided to adopt a turkey, sort of in an effort to atone for the turkeys that would be purchased to eat at the work and family functions I will attend, and because it makes me feel good to donate to causes that make life better for animals. This is Apollo, who lives at Farm Sanctuary in New York:

Lacking the facilities to physically adopt animals saved from factory farming, I am really just sponsoring him. Maybe someday I will be able to do more, but the foster rabbits will have to do for now. I did get to meet some cool turkeys during a rabbit rescue last year.

While I was at Farm Sanctuary’s website, I found these (all pictures/italicized captions belong to them):

Bred to grow unnaturally quickly, factory-farmed turkeys suffer crippling leg injuries and often die stuck in the excrement that covers the warehouse floor.

Hanging upside down and shackled by their feet, turkeys enter the slaughterhouse.
(The Humane Slaughter Act does not apply to poultry or rabbits, which means they do not have to be rendered unconscious before killing them.)

(Celebration FOR the Turkeys at Farm Sanctuary)

I wish I didn’t feel like I had to apologize for being vegetarian, but an awful lot of people go on the defensive when they find out I am. Or they demand to know if I consume dairy/eggs, somehow looking for a loophole in my sincerity that excuses them from having to think about their own hypocrisy. Nope, I’m not perfect. I still have some leather shoes and I still buy a few eggs (I go out of my way to find free range eggs, but there are plenty of reasons why that’s “not enough”). On the other hand, once I thought about my reasons for eating meat, I decided it wasn’t acceptable for a being to have to die for my lunch. It just didn’t make sense to me. So that’s when I started figuring out where to draw my new line, and it still moves a little as I consider more data (no, it does not move such that I eat any meat or other foods that require someone to die).

Honestly, I haven’t watched the horrible videos that are supposedly out there about slaughterhouses and factory farms. I already know it’s terrible and would make me cry. But I have read enough and seen a few pictures; they make me look for alternatives, whether that’s me eating a fake turkey product at Thanksgiving, or encouraging a meat-eater to find a humanely-raised and slaughtered turkey for themselves. Did you know Californians just passed Proposition 2? It wasn’t just a bunch of vegetarians voting for this:

This law phases out some of the most restrictive confinement systems used by factory farms – gestation crates for breeding pigs, veal crates for calves and battery cages for egg laying hens – affecting 20 million farm animals in the state by simply granting them space to stand up, stretch their limbs, turn around and lie down comfortably

That’s AWESOME. I would like to have an audience that can share in those victories with me, even if we don’t practice the same eating habits. Perhaps they will make small changes in their shopping habits. One step at a time, people… just switching from regular eggs to ones marked “cage free” may not be all fun and games for the hens, but you won’t be supporting battery cage use, and that’s an EASY change at your same grocery store.

On the same day I sponsored Apollo, I also gave to Critter Corral guinea pig rescue, Wheeler Mission (which is uncharacteristically churchy of me, but they are doing great work with the homeless and hungry in our city), and Gleaners Food Bank, which runs nine food banks that distribute food products to 400 central Indiana hunger charities. I tend to identify with animal needs more, perhaps because they really have no voice except the one we provide on their behalf, but I am saddened by my neighbors not having enough to eat. I think I lack the constitution to make myself face the situation in a shelter (though I hope to “evolve” here too), so I choose to donate money instead. The downturn in the economy only means more trouble for those struggling in poverty in the first place.

Give where your heart is this season!

1. Annoying changes at work are not being shared with all impacted areas, and gee, no one thought about all the consequences as a result.

2. Just when I was all excited about great new vegetarian options at my work cafeteria, they decide to cancel the pasta bar (and the tofu along with it) and send the cook who hooks me up with these things, asks me how to make the food choices better, and warns me about unexpected pitfalls like bacon in the guacamole to another site.

3. XM/Sirius finally combined programming yesterday. One of the best parts of XM was the lack of DJ yapping, but suddenly my channels had new DJs and an awful lot of talking. STFU. If I want to know the song name I’ll look at the display. By the way, people don’t like change, so if you smooth it over for a couple weeks ahead of time by saying “hey on Wednesday we’re changing programming!” or sending a freakin’ email about it before the day the programming changes, it’ll go over better. Also, I can’t tell WTH channel I’m on anymore because the channels have different numbers on Sirius vs XM, so now they won’t display the channel number in the artist display between songs anymore nor say it on air, but the display isn’t big enough to simultaneously show actual channel number AND artist AND song, and they changed all the channel names at the same time so calling the music type “Spectrum” doesn’t mean I have any idea that it’s adult contemporary vs a Talking Heads channel.

4. Rained all day yesterday, and when I got in the car after 12 hours at work to go home and do more work, my car rained on me out of the map light buttons.

Day Off #2, and I had plans to paint the porch trim, but a few errands cropped up first.

After the pup and I took a ride to pick up my bike at the shop, I got a call from a bunny friend who was fostering a sick rabbit for a southern Indiana shelter. The rabbit has some lameness in one leg, drains in the other leg, sore hocks, and who knows what all, requiring an easy-entry special kind of litterbox I happened to have and not need. So, I took the litterbox to my friend, and picked up some hay and a dog crate while I was there.

My friend lives near a health food store that carries a few weird items I can’t find elsewhere, so to make the trip to the NW side even more efficient, I decided to go there. I’ve been to Georgetown Market at least ten times but for some reason I couldn’t find it today. My travels spiraled downward from there so I drew you a helpful map.

Red line: I traveled west/north to my friend’s house, where you see the red bunny. Note the attempted accuracy at using the correct exit ramps in my travel line.

Pink line: I try to drive from the bunny to the market, represented by a Quorn Turk’y Roast, which I bought for my Thanksgiving dinner. Remind me to tell you later about the turkey I adopted. Anyway, the Jeep now has hay in it, so I used Google images to find a representative picture by searching “jeep hay.” I got a picture of Hilary and Haylie Duff and their floofy dog doing some contest that Jeep sponsored, so that’s why you see them on I-65.

While I was unsure of how to find Georgetown Market from this direction, it is helpfully named after THE ROAD IT’S ON, so I turn left on Georgetown Road. I had a sense this was the wrong direction but to the right is a mall and no more road, so left it was. You will then see where I turned around at a liquor store because I could tell this was NOT the right way. I even checked my map at the liquor store but it also showed Georgetown ending at the mall. The map only cares about the part that goes to the Motor Speedway, I guess (note blue arrow pointing to the IMS, next to Danica Patrick making the sport respectable for other female drivers).

Light blue line: Now I’m heading back north (sorry that I’ve obscured the map’s “Georgetown Road” label with my pink and blue lines, but trust me, it’s the right road), and I decide to turn left on Lafayette, where you see the pink/blue/brown lines cross. I realize right about this time that there is a yummy Indian restaurant straight ahead (noted by the samosa) and it’s lunchtime, but I’m in the wrong lane. Surely I can stop back later, right?

The light blue line now stops at Rick James, because I notice there is an AT&T wireless store next to the market (yes, I’ve found it! Georgetown Road picks up again up here) and my cell battery likes to die after about ten minutes of conversation. I tell myself I’ll just price check here since cell stores tend to be a ripoff, and I chat with David on the dying phone about my plan. He says, “I hate cellular stores.” After signing a list in the store and after all the people ahead of me on the list have been helped, a salesperson gets to me.
Me: I need a battery for an LG CU500.
Her: We don’t carry those phones.
Me: I bought it from you.
Her: We haven’t had those in at least two years.
Note I haven’t had my phone nearly that long, but I do get a nice tip about a Batteries Plus store. I desperately ask for directions given my earlier problem finding the market, and find out it’s on Lafayette near WalMart, which I know is nearby, but she couldn’t tell me where to turn out of the store, so I will have to wing it. Then I call David and say, “Now I hate them too.”
(Regarding Rick James: That came up when I Googled for “AT&T b*tch”)

I walk next door to Georgetown Market where I buy things like organic carrots with the tops (the bunnies and piggies love those), no-beef-beef-bouillon, the aforementioned Turk’y Roast, rice noodles, etc. They don’t have harissa, which is in a recipe my magazine swears is easy to find at places like this. I’m still not quite sure what harissa is but it will probably involve a trip to the International Market, shown by the pretty bird. I put that in my head for another day because finding anything at the International Market requires a tour guide who speaks seven languages. I at least need to know what part of the world harissa comes from, and while I thought it might be Egyptian, this was not the day to get lost over there. Besides, I know there’s an Egyptian market nearby too! (See the camel.)

While at Georgetown Market I also have curried roasted vegetables from their hot bar, and it’s so good I’m going to find a recipe for it. It would be great with the turk’y!

Green line: Now I’m on a mission to find Batteries Plus. Watch the green line where I turn completely the wrong way, north, and end up on 56th Street, then come back down Lafayette. I see WalMart and figure the battery place might be in the outlot shops, but after driving around (see the circle around the second Hillary’s head), I discover it’s not here.

Now heading back down Lafayette, there it is! Except it’s not accessible due to a median. So I turn at the next possible spot, which is, oh, right in front of Georgetown Market at a furniture rental/clearance place. See the office chair made from a B-52 ejector seat. I decide to stop in and look for a used office chair, and the only ones that meet my ergonomic needs are used $600 Herman Miller chairs. Chairless, I get back in the car.

Blue line (not the Danica one): I finally get to Batteries Plus, where I pay $37 for an off-brand battery.

Brown line: Thanks to the median again, I have to turn around somewhere weird where I see a Mike-n-Ike car. Note WalMart in the background. I guess Hillary’s head is obscured by that utility pole.

In the interest of map accuracy, WalMart Hillary and the giant battery are actually on the east side of that street, but I ran out of room on my map where the ejector seat is. You probably shouldn’t get directions from me anyway.

I follow the brown line home, where I find an off-brand cell battery at Amazon.com for less than $9 with shipping. Along the way I call my mom to complain about her generation’s music because “Yummy yummy yummy I’ve got love in my tummy” comes on the radio, but she doesn’t answer.

Lessons learned: If I had an iPhone, I could have looked up Google Maps in the car and saved all that time and fuel. Better urban planning would have helped too. Heck, with an iPhone I wouldn’t need to go to the cell store because I could look online for the prices, get the phone number for Batteries Plus, find out what harissa is, etc. Meanwhile this entry took so long my wireless mouse’s batteries died in the middle.

I did get an hour of painting in before dark!

A meme that’s been making the rounds, including at Chubby Mummy and Must Be Motherhood. I changed the one about things I like about autumn to my list of crap to do because while I like autumn, I really need the accountability more. And I combined the things on the wish list with the things needed/wanted because really, those seem the same, and I just don’t want that much stuff.

8 TV Shows I Love to Watch: (I don’t really love watching TV… but I like it on in the background while I do other stuff or fall asleep on the couch. Consequently I miss the end of at least 25% of what I watch. Thank goodness for TiVo.)
=> Suze Orman Show
=> Daily Show
=> The Office
=> King of the Hill
=> Breaking Bad
=> Battlestar Galactica
=> Living With Ed (has that been canceled?)
=> 30 Days (canceled?)

8 Favorite Places to Eat:
=> Shalimar (Indian)
=> Donatos carryout, especially with the $5-off-a-large online coupon!
=> Mediterrano Cafe (Middle Eastern)
=> The cafeterias at work where the chefs hook me up with hummus, vegetarian soups, tofu on the pasta bar, beans for the burritos, and other good stuff every day
=> Broad Ripple Brewpub, because at least half their stuff is vegetarian
=> Machu Picchu (Peruvian)
=> Yats (Cajun/Creole, always good veggie options)
=> Red Robin or Denny’s for great veggie burgers!

8 Things That Happened Yesterday:
=> Flexed off some work hours to vote and get other stuff done
=> Bought 11 bottles of wine (I love the new boxed options, both for price and environmental/resource concerns)
=> Had Yats for dinner
=> President OBAMA!!
=> Drank too much wine and fell asleep during the acceptance speech
=> Cleaned the guinea pig cage
=> Put the soil back in my pot of mums that some creature dug out
=> Went to two meetings and didn’t get much of anything accomplished in either of them except scheduling more meetings! (Today: SAME THING)

8 Things I Look Forward To:
=> Wearing fall and winter clothes
=> Selling my house
=> Just-planted bulbs blooming in the spring
=> Marking a bunch of items off my to-do list
=> Travel
=> Visiting family
=> Bonded bunnies
=> Peace

8 Things on my To Do List:
=> Replace Jetta glow plug to get the engine light off
=> Repair Jeep flat tire
=> Take bike in for tune-up
=> Organize recipes
=> Rehome all the crap I don’t want anymore
=> Work with investment guy, make a plan
=> Administer fluids to my friends’ cat
=> Finish digging out roots and planting shrubs/bulbs

8 Things on my Wish List/Needs/Wants:
=> New office chair (ideally meeting ergonomic, non-leather, recycled, space demands!)
=> A clean house
=> Yakima racks on the car (purchased, just not yet installed)
=> Co-op membership
=> New pants for work
=> New cell battery
=> Better time mgmt/less procrastination (or just learning to deal with that aspect of myself)
=> More sleep

8 Things I’m Passionate About:
=> Animal welfare
=> Hunger/homelessness
=> GLBT rights
=> Peace
=> Grammar/spelling!
=> Lessening my environmental impact; sustainability
=> Adopting, not breeding, pets
=> Leading by example

8 Words or Phrases I Use Often:
=> What the heck
=> Nice driving, *sshole
=> Are you huuuuuungry?
=> Casper, shut up.
=> Did you just fart?
=> That can be recycled.
=> You can’t do that!
=> Your mom

8 Places I Would Love to Go or See or Visit:
=> Iceland
=> Thailand
=> Vancouver
=> Montreal (or was it Toronto?)
=> The Grand Canyon
=> Farm Sanctuary
=> Best Friends
=> Tropical beach

8 Things I Have Learned From My Past:
=> Don’t mouth off to people in charge
=> Don’t date anyone at work
=> People are generally good
=> Everyone is equal and deserving of respect
=> Eat dinner as a family (and cook it at home)
=> Go to college. It’s worth it for the experience, the pride/sense of accomplishment, and the extra income! Then push yourself to learn more
=> Work really hard. It impresses people and gives you a leg to stand on when you do need a break
=> Listen to your dentist

The Good:
It’s World Vegetarian Day!

Be nice to your animal friends and the earth today by skipping meat in your meal. It’s good for you, too! (Missed it October 1? Don’t worry… we’re observing all month.)

The Bad:
James McMurtry sings this excellent song. The Bad is the truth it spells about our country, but I care so much that I vote.

The Random:
Why does Tom Bosley keep sending me spam?

Those pants are unfortunate.

I guess I know I’m even busier than my usual busy when I can’t come up with the time to post here. The last few days I’ve been getting home late and falling asleep on the couch. I’m only checking email or using my home computer a couple of minutes in the morning… Once again, I either get enough sleep or I get everything done. Sleep wins this week!

I’ve ridden my new bike to work twice this week. It’s very light, agile, and fast (weighs at least 10 lbs less than my old bike) and I’m enjoying my time on it. Well, the way home still isn’t that much fun after a long day, but coming to work is zippy so far. It’s been fast enough that I am having to learn to pay more attention to obstacles, pedestrians, and traffic (like the school bus that nearly ran me down today) because I’m coming upon them more quickly and have less time to react.

My first ride on the new Bianchi was with people from work when we did a 20+ mile route around town, and while it wasn’t as fast as many road cyclists like to go, I felt able to keep up on my new contraption even while I was learning a totally new system of brakes, shifting, and steering. Even coming down the left lane of Meridian Street! One big benefit (and one of the reasons I chose this bike instead of another flat handlebar bike, which I thought I wanted) is that the rotated hand position above the forward-most set of front brakes makes my ergonomic injury (basically tennis elbow) feel MUCH better, instead of aggravating it like the traditional positions of using a mouse, rowing, and riding a flat bar bike do. I think I’m actually stretching the muscles in a way that combats my computer use!

I have a few brightly-colored wicking shirts and tanks which I wear to hopefully avoid getting smushed by inattentive drivers. A 10-year-old girl yelled from her porch the other day, “I like your shirt!” This is great because David HATES that pink shirt (like most pink things) and I trust a little girl’s fashion sense more. I yelled my thanks.

In other news, I recently had the chance to attend a benefit dinner for Lambda Legal through a ticket I won at work. I don’t discuss this topic much here, but GLBT rights are something I feel strongly about. I decided to go despite my discomfort with more formal, social occasions, primarily because I knew it was a good development opportunity. Even introverts should be able to interact and network with executives from their company. Finding a suit that still fit was a humorous affair, but fortunately I had one in my closet that worked. It was a lovely dinner–my eating preferences were even accommodated without too much hassle–and I met several vice presidents from my company. Bart Peterson, Indy’s former mayor, received an award for his work to make our city a more just place to live. Would you believe it’s only been in the last couple of years that it’s no longer legal to fire or evict someone in Indianapolis because he’s gay? Lambda Legal represents cases like these, or when HIV-positive people are denied government employment based on their health status, or lesbians who are denied fertility treatments because their doctors decide it’s morally wrong to let them raise children. What century is this??

The next night I met friends for Meatout, which was held at City Market this year instead of a church basement.

The venue was much more pleasant but the event seemed rather sparsely attended. I don’t think it’s advertised all that well. Some of the food was kind of blah, but I really enjoy going because I can eat ANYTHING there and it’s great to hang out with like-minded folks. Amanda and I staffed a table for IHRS and I carpooled with Nicole and Ainsley, who didn’t fall through the upstairs railing! I even won a Whole Foods Market raffle prize, which included a book I’d been wanting to read by a cattle rancher who went vegan, plus a cookbook, spatula, and a couple of snacks in a reusable shopping bag.

The rest of life has been bunny stuff lately, and a bit of experimental cooking. I tried a new recipe this week with spaghetti squash, spinach, chickpeas, sun-dried tomatoes, basil, and of course garlic and onion. A little salt and some cheese and that’s it! It was weird but pretty good.

Another good one from Samsara! Except that link isn’t including her meme for some reason. After I posted it and traced it back I discovered it was meant to be all-veg stuff, so I guess I’d eat haggis, etc, in that format, but should you really recreate stuffed intestines?

1) Copy this list into your own blog, including these instructions
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
(I removed cross-tagging instructions… who has time for that?)

1. Natto
2. Green Smoothie
3. Tofu Scramble
4. Haggis
5. Mangosteen
6. Creme brulee
7. Fondue
8. Marmite/Vegemite
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Nachos
12. Authentic soba noodles
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Taco from a street cart
16. Boba Tea
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Gyoza
20. Vanilla ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Ceviche
24. Rice and beans
25. Knish
26. Raw scotch bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Caviar I’ve had roe, though, pre-veg
29. Baklava
30. Pate (though in the more general sense, I’ve eaten vegetable pates… I just assumed they meant some tortured goose’s liver)
31. Wasabi peas
32. Chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Mango lassi
34. Sauerkraut that smell makes me want to barf
35. Root beer float
36. Mulled cider
37. Scones with buttery spread and jam
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Fast food french fries
41. Raw Brownies
42. Fresh Garbanzo Beans
43. Dahl
44. Homemade Soymilk
45. Wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Stroopwafle
47. Samosas Last night for dinner! Love these. Of course I ate these for dinner because the vegetable dishes at the family party managed not to be veg*n…
48. Vegetable Sushi
49. Glazed doughnut
50. Seaweed
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Tofurkey
54. Sheese (a different brand anyway)
55. Cotton candy
56. Gnocchi eh
57. Piña colada
58. Birch beer
59. Scrapple
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Soy curls
63. Chickpea cutlets but not the much-touted ones of a recent cookbook
64. Curry
65. Durian
66. Homemade Sausages
67. Churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake
68. Smoked tofu
69. Fried plantain
70. Mochi
71. Gazpacho
72. Warm chocolate chip cookies
73. Absinthe
74. Corn on the cob
75. Whipped cream, straight from the can
76. Pomegranate
77. Fauxstess Cupcake
78. Mashed potatoes with gravy
79. Jerky just got a soy jerky the other day–yum!
80. Croissants
81. French onion soup
82. Savory crepes
83. Tings
84. A meal at Candle 79 I wish
85. Moussaka
86. Sprouted grains or seeds
87. Macaroni and “cheese”
88. Flowers
89. Matzoh ball soup
90. White chocolate
91. Seitan
92. Kimchi My Korean-American roomie in college ate this… sorry, it’s stinky!
93. Butterscotch chips
94. Yellow watermelon
95. Chili with chocolate
96. Bagel and Tofutti
97. Potato milk
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Raw cookie dough I think they’ll have this in the good-themed-afterlife I hope to go to

This week marked two years since I stopped eating meat. So, time for my annual tally!

In 733.71 days, you have saved:
0.2760 cows
60.599 chickens
0.6733 pigs
2.0199 turkeys
0.1615 ducks
114.46 fish

Total: 178.19 animals
Thank you

See what 178.19 animals looks like

And then there was this cute popup!

This comes from a veg*n calculator, and is discussed a bit here.

That two-thirds of a pig reminds me of an irritating ad insert in the paper the other day by some Indiana pork producers’ group. It said, roughly, Indiana Pork Feeds Every Hoosier, 5 Million People Around the World, and 15 Million Americans!

Sorry, folks, you don’t feed me. And there might be a few equally irritated Jews and Muslims in this state. Their website states the group “provides the pork needs for every man, woman, and child” in Indiana, which is better phrased since at least that allows as how I might not have any pork needs. I won’t bother giving them a link and increasing their traffic.

A fur-free Olympian has been a bit controversial, but I gotta say, she’s got the abs needed for her lines of work:

Thanks for allowing me to rant today! Back to my tofu.