Day Five

Day Five: The day is finally here and thus ends the diet. The final meal was a hodge-podge of various vegetables. One idea that Aubrey had thought up of for a meal was portabello mushroom burgers. The portabello mushroom being a meatier fungus works well on a bun, especially when appropriately seasoned. This idea did not come to fruition but instead a lemon sauteed spinach, green beans and chicken flavored instant noodles was my meal instead. It was good. Final weight was 186. I blame that on the pizza.

People have asked me why I was doing this. There are many reasons why. One is to stretch my culinary horizon. An other was to see if eating no meat would be detrimental to my health, and as far as I can see I don't feel bad at all. I think one important reason to this diet was to experience what it is like to be vegetarian. I go to school with allot of people who are vegetarian and to be honest, vegetarians get a bad wrap. For some reason people feel that the vegans, and vegetarians are crazy anti-meat radicals. From what I see that's not the case. Part of me with this experience feels that I kind of cheated on the concept of vegetarian. But at the same time allot of junk food just doesn't have anything to do with meat, so I guess it's fair game.

I will miss this dietary experience. Often times I give no consideration as to what I eat. Food is just there. It's in the fridge, freezer, the cabinets and less than a mile away at restaurants and grocery stores. When you take away certain foods you start thinking more about food, especially meat. Right now there are people who are thinking about what they are going to eat. They don't have meat, and probably what they call vegetables would most likely be something that we would never touch. Then there is the very real possibility that someone is thinking about what they are going to eat but also realizing that they probably won't be eating anything today.

Day Four

Day Four: I've put to rest the putrid taste of vegetable dumplings and replaced the taste with pizza, with extra cheese. Not the healthiest choice of foods but there is no meat, so it counts. Weight is now 185. Tomorrow is the last day of this dietary test. I do not feel week, nor funny in any manner. Health seems to be good and moral is up. Though I have noticed hamburger commercials much more.

Day Three

Day Three: Part of the challenge of eating a vegetarian diet is to invent new meals every night. Of course I could go to the local supermarket and buy some veggie burgers or veggie frozen dinners but that's just not challenging. I went to an asian food market and purchased some lo mein noodles and some vegetable dumplings. The vegetable dumplings were a classic case of poor thinking on my behalf. I like vegetables, I like dumplings, put them together and I should have a good time.

Unfortunately that was not the case. Aubrey steamed the dumplings and made the lo mein. The lo mein was manageable but the dumplings were tough to choke down. I had, at the most, three and then gave up. Just thinking about them my throat gags just a bit. Besides this meal, things have been ok.

Weight is now 186 and hunger wasn't so bad today.

Day Two

Day Two: So far so good. After one day my weight is still 187 lbs. I have noticed that I am hungry much sooner after a large meal consisting of vegetables than after a meal with meat. Aubrey has been great with the meals. Tonight was mushroom risotto with some peas. It was very tasty. What awaits me tomorrow, I can only wonder.

Day One.

Day One: The objective is to abstain from the eating of meats for five days. Meats include; fish, chicken, pork, beef and hot dogs.

As part of this abstaining from eating meats I will try to track any physical effects that may come to my body and if I feel they are detrimental then I will immediately eat a hamburger.

So far my weight is 187 lbs, and I am hungry. This does not surprise me because I am usually hungry.

I believe that this diet (not diet as in I need to lose weight) will pose certain culinary challenges that I and Aubrey (my wife) are willing to face. So far so good.

Cookies

If there is one thing that I look forward to doing during the Christmas season that is baking. I like to whip up some tasty treats and share them with my friends, wife and mother. The treat of my choice is chocolate chip cookies. I wouldn't being lying if I said that I make a pretty good chocolate chip cookie. In fact at the RVCC radio bake sale in 2000 my chocolate chip cookie's were the first ones to sell out. I don't try to toss in any crazy spices or secret ingredients to wow any would be eaters. I have learned that the best ingredient in chocolate chip cookies is talent, and you can't buy that anywhere.

I used to make the cookies by hand. I'd get out the sturdiest wooden spoon I could find and start churning the cookie dough over and over again. My wrist and forearm would cramp, shoulders would burn but a delicious treat was just a few short oven minutes away. Since my wife has a Kitchen Aid mixer those old days of working by hand are gone. Just a simple drop of the ingredients and in no time there is cookie dough. With all of the advancements in cooking there is a still a crux to making good food or making bad food. That is the directions.

For chocolate chip cookies you need to use two sticks of butter. But not just any two sticks of butter, the butter has to be soft. I'm the type of person that "reads between the lines" of words. If you ask me to describe soft I would say something like pillows or Kenny G music. I guess with food my understanding of soft was not what the directions had in mind. After removing the butter from the refrigerator I decided to put the sticks in the microwave to soften them. One minute later I had a bowl of melted butter. My immediate thought, "That's soft enough."

After the mixing was finished and the dough placed on the cookie sheets I waited the alloted baking time. To my surprise the dough flattened out on the sheets and the cookies connected themselves. Okay, no problem, just separate them when they cool and enjoy. Unfortunately the cookies fastened themselves to the sheet with a grip stronger than any glue known to cookies. My error become instantly evident, the soft butter had created flat cookies. To remove these cookies I would have to use my expertise in removing ice from a car windshield on the cookie sheets. I scraped the cookies off onto a plate and made a crumbly mess in the process.

And so I was left with a pile of sad looking chocolate with cookie bits around them, stacked and mushed together on a plate. At least the concoction tasted like chocolate chip cookies but bore no resemblance to what cookie eaters are accustomed to. When I offered the cookies to my friends there was a bit of confusion but after an explanation and assurance that the cookies were safe the cookies, some of the cookies were eaten.

I wouldn't say that this was a failed attempt at cookie making but another example of discovery in the ongoing exploration of cooking. I don't know if it would be possible to do the same thing again but this time putting the dough into a cake dish and seeing if a chocolate chip cookie cake would come out. I guess that would be called a cakie. Maybe next time.