Vegan Schmegan

I've been thinking a lot about vegan food lately.  I've had a few friends and acquaintances over the years who were vegan, but I've never had to worry about feeding them.  Recently, however, I spent a couple of years working with a guy who was vegan, and noticed he was more or less resigned to having nothing to eat at the staff morning teas because no one would ever think of bringing food that didn't involve an animal of some description.

I started trying to think of things I could bring or make to help him have some options, and developed a bit of a habit of trying to work out if something was vegan - or if I could adapt a recipe to make it vegan.  It's a bit habit forming, and after he left I still found myself looking for the vegan alternative.

Like most smug jerks who never had a religious, ethical or health based diet to worry about, in the past I'd always dismissed the word "vegan" on something as being a bit of niche marketing.  Vegans are, after all, a group of people who just chose not to eat something.  There's no pressing need to cater to what amounts to a whim, right?

Now that I'm actively avoiding dairy products, I've seen the light and fully understand the wonder that is the "vegan" designation on food.

You see, if something is labelled "vegan" you know instantly that it won't have any sneaky dairy products in it anywhere.  Anyone who is allergic, intolerant or just plain "avoidant" of dairy knows that it's perfectly safe and they don't have to ask any questions.

The same goes for anyone who's allergic (etc) to eggs, honey, fish or shellfish.  It also covers anyone who is on a religious diet and can't eat animal products that aren't Halal or Kosher - and Buddhists, Hindus, Janists and any other religious groups that have controls around the consumption of animal products also know it's safe to eat.

That one word, "vegan", has more than half a dozen collateral benefactors.

It turns out that there were actually a few staff members who, although not vegan, had problems with milk or eggs.  They would also have great difficulty finding something to eat at the staff morning teas, and often didn't bother coming because of that.  When the vegan guy was around, though, these people came out of the woodwork because they knew they could eat whatever he brought to share (and he was a pretty good cook).

This makes me wonder why more food providers don't jump on the vegan bandwagon.  By offering a range of vegan products, you actually cater for a bunch of different interest groups - not just vegans.  You don't actively have to think about all of the different allergens and cultural groups involved, you just make it vegan and it will work for a variety of people.

Plus, vegans have a deep and abiding love for anyone who will feed them, so they make a point of buying stuff from them.

So, I started looking for vegan options to help out a friend, and now I'm looking at them because I actually benefit from them myself - and so do a bunch of other people.

I do have to report an interesting side-effect of thinking about vegan food, however - I sometimes forget that I'm not actually vegan.  I'll be looking at something for myself, to see if it has any dairy in it, and think "Oh, it's got eggs in it", before remembering that I actually don't have any issues with eggs (at least, not at the moment).

And, while I'm talking vegan things - I actually spent a night out at a restaurant the other evening and it did such a good job of catering for vegans that I went vegan the whole night.  It was fantastic.  It was a brilliant example of what could be done if you just gave it a bit of thought.  If I was vegan, I could consider this a good restaurant to visit with a decent range of options.

Shall we come to an arrangement?

So, I'm thinking of taking up flower arranging.

I feel my list of "accomplishments" are insufficient to qualify for a proper Regency/Victorian Lady.

While I did learn to play the piano, I haven't practised for decades and will never be able to provide suitable entertainment for guests in the family parlour.  And my needle point is currently restricted to cross-stitching small birds (exactly two, to be honest).

I can recite poetry, but that is a little further down the rankings of "accomplishments", I believe.

So, flower arranging seems appropriate - nay, necessary.  How else can I prove my street cred as a proper lady?

Last weekend the priest at my church was handing out a list of jobs people could stick their hands up to do, and he lamented that no one ever picks "flower arranger".

Apparently we've had the same plastic flowers at the front of the church for almost three years because the last lot of flower arrangers gave it up for lent (or perhaps old age or a lack of appreciation).  I hadn't noticed.  I'm not sure if many people had (apart from the priest.  And the old flower arrangers, I guess).

So, anyway, I suddenly thought to myself:  "Flower arranging, eh?  That actually sounds kind of like fun."

Flower arrangement is an interesting art form, when you stop to think about it rather than just saying "oh, look, pretty flowers" and moving on.  It's not trying to make or replicate something, like painting or stitching.  You have a number of items, and you must arrange them into something dynamic and visually stimulating.

It's so very simple, but it has the potential to be really deep and meaningful.  The old "language of flowers" used to allow elaborate messages to be displayed in an arrangement (although, these days it seems to be more about symmetry, colour and fulsomeness of display - at least in the Western tradition).  The Eastern tradition of flower arrangement involves more of a juxtaposition and balance of different elements - far beyond "just flowers" - to tell a different kind of story.

I've seen really striking arrangements involving only one "flower" - the rest was all bark, twigs and rocks.  That sort of thing may not be to some people's taste, and that's okay.  When it comes to flower arrangements, it is reasonable to think that there might be a few flowers involved...

I was just thinking that it's strange we don't make a point of decoratively arranging other things, but then I remembered:  Christmas  trees.

I haven't stuck my hand up for it just yet.  Partly because I've never arranged a flower in earnest before, and partly because I'm not sure I'm ready for that sort of responsibility.  But I'm thinking about it.

And while I'm thinking about that, you can think about this:

Floral arrangements in church - purely decorative, or an act of worship?  You are, technically, bringing an offering to the altar...  Discuss.

The Bear Diet

So, I'm thinking of going on the Bear Diet.

"What's the Bear Diet?" I hear you ask.

Well, it's complete and utter tosh that I've just made up myself based on the fact that the Paleo Diet is 3 parts "well duh" to 4 parts "stupid", but seems to be a huge commercial success.  Of course, if it does look like there might be some money in it, I'm totally changing this blog post to get rid of this paragraph.

Following roughly the same quota of 3 parts "anyone with a vague knowledge of nutrition could have figured out that would work" and 4 parts "this idea is ludicrous and full of logical flaws", the Bear Diet involves taking on a diet plan similar to a wild bear.

Why?  Because bears, like humans, are naturally omnivorous predators.  They occupy the same place in the food chain we do.  But that's not the only reason I'm picking on them.

In the wild, they forage for food and eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, augmented by protein that largely comes from small sources (like fish, snails and insects) and a bit of red meat every now and then.  They also eat seasonally, and in small portions scattered throughout the day.

Call me unspeakably naive and ill-informed (go ahead - it's entirely justified)... but doesn't this sound kind of like a) the diet our hunter-gatherer foremothers used to eat,* and b) the health advice we often get from dieticians writing for magazines?

It's gold!  It'll make a fortune!

Okay, so that's the 3 parts "well duh" - now for the 4 parts "stupid".

Bears only eat one thing at a time.  They don't eat big elaborate meals consisting of several ingredients, they have small "meals" consisting solely of berries, or honey, or ants, or salmon...  So, for the Bear Diet, we'll focus on simplicity.

There can be one multi-ingredient meal per day (because cooking is the high point of human achievement, after all),** but the rest of one's food consumption during the day will consist of "foraging" portions of of whole foods (preferably unprocessed, but not necessarily uncooked - food poisoning is taking the "stupid" bit too far).

Eat a piece of fruit.  Then a little later eat a handful of almonds.  Theoretically, this would also apply to sources of protein - you'd just eat a serve of meat or fish.  That sounds a bit unpalatable to me, but it would certainly make it easier to recognise when you've had enough of that thing, and you should stop eating.

When eating at a restaurant, or in non-ursine company, you can make a point of ordering the dishes with the least number of ingredients, and try to eat your meal one food-group at a time.  When you have had enough of eating any one thing, stop eating it and don't go back to finish it.  Yes,  on several levels this is daft - and I suspect this would lead to eating a meal like my dog used to (eating all her favourite bits first, and then leaving the least favourite bits in the bowl if she's had enough).

Additionally, bears do that whole "eat significantly less over winter" thing, otherwise known as hibernating.  Now, humans can't actually hibernate, and malnutrition (like food poisoning) is a little bit too stupid, so to minimise the risk of potential hibernation-attempting death we'll spread the period of reduced caloric intake throughout the year.  For two days out of every week, go a bit hungry.

That sounds kind of like the 5-2 fasting diet, but we'll recommend putting those two days consecutively, rather than spreading them between days of normal eating.  And, just to liven things up a bit, as well as having two days of sparse food, we'll throw in one day of abundance.  It will be just like the wild, where some days you get a boon while other days you don't find much to eat.

So, in summary, the Bear Diet involves

• Having a diet consisting of 60-65% fresh fruit and vegetables, 30% protein from fish and small critters, and 5-10% red meat.
• Eating whole, mostly unprocessed foods, and eating one item at a time over the course of the day, with only one (or maybe two) multi-ingredient meal(s) a day.
• Altering the amount of food you eat over the course of the week to include two low-consumption days and one high-consumption day.

And all of this can go with an exercise plan that involves hiking in the woods (or at least walking on uneven ground).

The only trouble with inventing a cockamamie diet that could make millions is that I'd have to actually follow it myself.  You can't just say "Eat like a bear!  It will do wonders for your health!" while you're still eating like a 21st Century human.  It would be frowned upon, I think.

I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to get the "small critters" part working, as I suspect I should by rights be upping my consumption of snails and insects (my consumption of both of these being currently zero).  I may have to get a bit seafood dependant.

But it will all be worth it once I sell the diet plan, cook book and T-shirts.


*Our forefathers wished they ate the Paleo Diet, but our foremothers probably actually did eat like a bear.  
** Especially cake.  Any and all cockamamie diets endorsed by me shall allow cake.

Adventures in buying new crap

So, I've been on a bit of a spending spree at present.

I do this thing where I look at things but don't buy them for quite a considerable amount of time, and then suddenly realise I've been thinking about buying something for years, and go "You know what?  Let's just have this thing".  And then it's kind of like breaking the seal, only with less drinking.

It started with a bicycle.  I stumbled across a sale and decided to go ahead and buy that Strida I've been staring at for years.  Sadly, it's a bit disappointing.  On almost every measure possible, it's not as good as the Brompton.  It doesn't fold as well as the Brompton, it doesn't handle as well as the Brompton, it's not as easy to tuck away in the corner of a room as the Brompton, it's not as easy to adjust the seat height like you can with the Brompton, it doesn't have a built-in kickstand function like the Brompton...

That's not to say it's completely sub-par.  It does do at least two things better than the Brompton:  It provides a more upright angle for riding, so it's easier on the back than the Brompton is, and it fits into a guitar stand.  The Brompton does go in the guitar stand, but it's not something I'd do again in a hurry.  No, seriously, I keep the Strida in a guitar stand.  My banjo is feeling decidedly unloved.

 

 I have to say that, if I had an ongoing back injury or complaint, I'd probably think the Strida was one of the best bikes on the planet.  Instead, what I have is a slight problem with getting the stupid magnetic clamp to work.  Either it's so strong I can't separate the wheels, or it's so week it comes apart at a moment's provocation.

Just work you stupid bicycle.  The Brompton can keep its act together.

Oh, well.  At least it's giving me the opportunity to use the Carradice seat bag I bought to go touring with the Brompton and never used.

Other recent purchases include a Buck Lancer knife, which I bought for the purpose of teaching myself to whittle.  I bought this knife because one of the whittling books I borrowed from the library had it listed as a decent whittling knife.  My research was a bit poor, though, because nothing I saw gave me a really good sense if just how small it is.  It's a tiny, slender little thing.  Folded up, it's roughly the same size as my pinky finger.

I haven't tried whittling with it yet.  Partly because that requires me to actually get my act together, and partly because I'm slightly wary of it's size, now that I've held it in my hands.  I would have preferred something a bit more substantial in the grip.

Last, but not least, my Alto/Tenor horn arrived today.  A second hand jobby that's probably twice my age, I've bought this instrument because it was cheap.  After months of wondering whether to get a French Horn, a Baritone Horn, a Euphonium or a Sousaphone, I've finally settled on an Eb horn simply because I liked the price better than everything else I was looking at.

I've had a bit of a play, and I don't mind the sound of the thing at all.  The case is a complete wreck, though.  I knew it was going to be a bit spartan, but I didn't realise it was going to be so beat up.  And it smells a bit.  I'd say the last owner was a smoker.

Smokers shouldn't play wind instruments.  If you are a smoker, and you play an instrument that produces wind in any way shape or form, you need to stop being a smoker.  It spreads your bad breath to all future owners of that instrument for generations to come.

I once had a second-hand accordion that had been owned by a smoker, and that thing just pumped the smell of stale tobacco into the air every time you used it.  Highly unpleasant.

Besides, smoking is bad for your everything.

Can we just skip to the bit where I've done that?

The biggest problem with taking up new hobbies is all that guff at the beginning when you don't know anything and can't do anything.

I want to be able to sew/whittle/paint/play the horn, but I want to just *do* it, if you know what I mean.  The bit where you're learning to do it is just so much... crap.

I understand that you have to be in that stage where you are learning how to do the thing you want to do before you can get to the stage where you can actually do the thing you want to do, but it takes foooorrrrrreeeeeevvvvvveeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr.  And you are crappy at doing the thing you want to do during this time.  Your efforts are clumsy and stupid, and it can take so long before you see improvement.

The longer it takes me to get vaguely competent at something, the more time I have to get distracted by something else.  It's a dangerous period of time.

I have made a toy!

I promised photos, didn't I?

Okay, so, when push comes to shove it's really more of a "Manxvole" than a "Manxmouse" (I'll probably discuss that book at some point over on my other blog) - and it's riddled with errors.  But that's what first attempts are for, right?

Yeah, it took me a while.  When you only give something a few minutes a night, and you take a week or so between nights, something that might only be a couple of hours' work can stretch out a bit.  Especially when you've never done this sort of thing before, so everything takes a bit longer anyway.

I'm now starting on the second vole/mouse, and it should be a bit of a smoother process.

I shall make a slightly better mouse/vole.  And it shall have a tail that has been tested for disintegration (so hopefully won't do that).

The important thing is - it has begun.  I have started.  If I can just make myself continue, then I'll be onto something good.

Cabbage and Mince (Eesti toit)

I've been hankering for cabbage and mince for a while now.

It's hard to explain it, but I have some sort of deep memory of this dish - like I ate it once a long time ago and can no longer remember where, when or under what circumstances.

I expect my grandmother probably made it once.  She made cabbage rolls on more than one occasion.  My grandmother left Estonia when she was a child, and the only part of her culture she really kept was the food she made on special occasions.  Sauerkraut and skumbria, mainly, but occasionally cabbage rolls and brawn (we never called it "head cheese", and I refuse to).

My mother was never keen on cabbage rolls, so actively avoided encouraging the combination of cabbage and mince.  I made them once, under my grandmother's guidance, and realised that the amount of work involved wasn't worth it just for the delicious goodness of combining cabbage and mince.

Some time ago I bought a dual-language Estonian cookbook, and one of the recipes was for cabbage and mince.  I filed it away in the "I must try to make this" compartment of my brain.

Well, recently I've just been craving the dish.  I have no idea why, but something deep inside me has been saying "do you know what would be awesome?  Cabbage and mince."

So I rustled up a couple of different recipes, and sort of weaved a path between them that struck a balance between "tasty" and "lazy".

The results?  Good, wholesome food.  It really is awesome.  Plain, simple, yet tasty, and with a goodness that warms you from the inside out.  It honestly seemed like I've been eating this stuff my whole life.

And I fed it to my mother and she didn't hate it.  That's a success in anyone's books.

I think my grandmother would have enjoyed it, and it's a shame I didn't try making this years ago.

The recipe I cobbled together from a few different ones was as follows:

400g lean mince
1 onion, cut in half and thinly sliced
2 carrots, coarsely grated
1/2 a large head of cabbage, thinly sliced
beef stock (I used a heaped teaspoon of Bonox, but a crumbed stock cube would work)
Salt and pepper to taste
Cup of hot water
Bit of oil for browning the meat 

I also added about 100g of diced bacon, because one of the recipes I'd seen in the past had asked for a mixture of pork and beef mince, and my mother seemed more likely to eat it if the bacon was involved. 

Cook the cabbage in a pot with the cup of hot water, being careful not to overcook it. 

Meanwhile, in a deep frying pan, fry the onions and meat until the onions are soft and the meat is completely browned, then add the carrots and seasoning with a little bit of water to dissolve the stock.  Stir through, then add the cooked cabbage to the meat (including the water in the pot) and stir through.  

Cook for another ten minutes until the cabbage has infused with the flavours of the pan and the liquid has reduced. 

Serve with boiled potatoes and rye bread.