A Vegetarian for Lent

I'm sorry, but if you start going to Dean and Deluca, we are finis! evil evil bad bad place. They do not know how to handle foods well <trying to contain enormous rant> ack evil evil.

Thomas, you have access to some of the most wonderful good food sources in New Jersey and New York. Just stay away from the regular big retailers. Some of the best fruit/veggies serving the Manhattan restos come from New Jersey and upstate New York. Check out some of the Green Markets - start with the one in Union Square to get to know the vendors - they offer a lot of good info at the stand in the mmmm north-est corner. One of my favourite examples of really good 100-mile food in your area is Ronnybrook Farms - great dairy.

http://www.ronnybrook.com/site_new/aboutthefarm.html

http://www.ronnybrook.com/site_new/greenmarket.html

http://manoavino.typepad.com/mano_a_vino_montclair/2007/06/nj-artisanal-ch.html

Can the thing that is enjoyed, and abstained from during Lent, include social practices? For example, could a person that enjoys the exchanging of "pleasantries" with neighbors give that up? Rather than a friendly, "Good morning Mrs. Jones (name fictitious), could a person giving up "pleasantries for Lent" say, "Grrrrr (to Mrs. Jones), I have given up pleansantries for Lent"?

In my own opinion, Lent adds to the list of reasons that I believe being a good Catholic is a lot of hard mental and emotional work, not to mention physical work, based on what "good works" one may choose to do. An amazingly hard religion to practice correctly, in my opinion. If I come back in another life, I would hope it is in a Protestant family (I am not Catholic, as readers already might know).

That was a really, really bad joke, George . . . i salute you.

Jock and Mary go out alone into the heather in the Highlands, and Jock convinces Mary to her hand under his kilt . . .

Oh Jock . . . it's gruesome.

Put yer hand back, Mary, it'll grow some more . . .

I didn't know that, ehBeth. Anyway, there must be some great cheese shop somewhere in NYC or NJ.

I just noticed this again, after Soz quoted it. In the mid-1980s, i was very overweight (by my standards at that time, at least) having exceeded 230 pounds. I thought a weight of 190 would be better. So i went on a diet of rice and veggies. I cooked my rice by the pressure cooker method, and when i took the pressure cooker off the heat to allow the rice to steam, i quickly lifted the lid and laid the vegetables on the rice, then replaced the lid. For two months, that's all i ate, with the exception of sammiches (usually some kind of cold cut) which i took to work. Within two months, i had dropped to just under 200 lbs., and at the end of three months, i was down to 178 lbs. At that point, i was actually somewhat underweight, so i went back to my normal diet.

At any rate, i tried--those cold cuts were the only form of meat (and with cold cuts, meat is a notional term) i had had for more than three months. When i gave myself permission to return to my old diet, one of the things i did was buy a kielbasa. I cooked the kielbasa . . . and then found i couldn't eat it. The neighbor's dogs were very happy that evening. It was literally weeks before i could return to my old diet.

At that time, i walked enormous distances each day. I walked from about 70 to 120 miles a week. But that was true both before and after the diet, so that was more or less a constant. And the weight i lost stayed off. I didn't regain that weight until i suffered an injury and was literally laid up in early 1999, more than 12 years later.

I agree with you - being a good Catholic is a lot of hard mental & emotional work. In the past I've given up things like smoking (going cold turkey for 40 days was probably one of the most difficult things ever but it was a good stepping stone for getting me to quit for good), caffeine & alcohol (when I was in college and relied on 3 cups of coffee a day and went out with friends every weekend) and meat (pretty tough for a carnivore) but nowadays, I feel like anything I decide to give up isn't really much of a sacrifice for me and isn't that one of the things that Lent is supposed to be?

As for giving up pleasantries, haha - not exactly what the church had in mind when they put this into practice, huh?

thomas :

since you live close to newark , i'd think you should be able to find some decent cheese there :

http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=s2&oq=newark&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLJ_enCA233CA233&q=newark+nj+%2b+gourmet+shop

taking a look at THE GREEK STORE , i think you might find some cheese to your liking :

http://www.eatgreek.com/docs/cheeses.html

any of these cheeses appeal to you ?



even in our small city of about 100,000 we have several stores carrying a wide variety of domestic and european cheeses .
even most supermarkets have at least some genuine SWISS cheese .

i see you have a KROGER in newark (on hebron road , i believe) - certainly carried a good variety of cheeses in their myrtle beach store .

as ehbeth saiid , most italian and greek grocery stores usually have at least a limited selection of imported cheeses .

even if you don't see the cheese you are looking for right in the store , you can ask if they'd be willing to order it for you .
SAY : CHEESE !
hbg

and here is another one for you :

http://www.thecheesestorehoboken.com/

hope you won't turn into a "kaesekopp" .

Okay Osso, it's out of my hands now: I can't be seen shopping at Dean and Deluca. Even if I ever do, I must remain in the closet about it. I know better than to mess with ehBeth. Fortunately I now have lots of good-looking alternatives -- thanks, ehBeth and Hamburger!

Margo: I'll keep you posted about the blood sugar. Until about a week before Ash Wednesday, my blood sugar level hovered around 180mg/dl until a week before Ash Wednesday. Then I stopped taking my medication (Metformin HCl), after which it increased to 215-250 mg/dl. After switching the diet, it went down to around 140-170mg/dl. (My blood sugar levels bounce around a lot, which is normal.)

dlowan: Sorry I can't show you any suffering. Thanks for being happy for me, anyway!

Thanks for your encouragement, MsOlga! If cutting meat remains from my diet remains as easy as it has been until now, I'll definitely end up eating less of it after Easter. Can you actually buy Kangoroo meat and insects in Australia? I'll try everything. Six years ago, when I attended a conference in Wuhan, China, I visited a Chinese food court. (The whole top store of a large department store, packed with food from all around China.) Because I didn't want any European hangups to get in the way of new experiences, I adopted a policy of trying good-looking food first, and then ask questions about what it was. Some very good, shrimp-like delicacies turned out to be insect larvae. Others, kind of caviar-ish, turned out to be insect eggs. I didn't try any actual insects. But the thought of trying them no longer grosses me out.

George: What Setanta said!

Sozobe: Actually, I one hour of cardio is my standard unit. The only thing I upped is the weight-lifting. But you could still be right -- maybe the added muscles are beginning to increase my body's burn rate.

Calamity Jane: Indian restaurant are indeed a great source of vegetarian cooking. Chinese / Thai / Vietnames too.

ehBeth and Hamburger: Again, thanks for the links! I'll check them out.

Foofie: I'm not an expert on the details of the lent definition. But from the sound of it, you don't like the pleasantries with Mrs. Jones anyway. So giving them up would be cheating.

Setanta: Thanks for your experience with that rice and veggie diet. So far I seem to be repeating it; I wouldn't mind continuing to repeat it at all! And about your last lent "sacrifice" -- that doesn't count! That was plain old Irish rebellion and stupbornness -- which I cultivate a grudging respect for.

If/when you're ready to go back to meat, I'm sending you to a pork purveyor at the Union Square Greenmarket that is just incredible.

http://www.flyingpigsfarm.com/

My pal, Marine Engineer, works there when he's ashore. He's <ahem> a real ham.

They have awesome awesome product.


(if you want to know about good Noo Yawk food, follow ME around http://www.chow.com/profile/12482/activity , he's got pretty unbeatable taste)

You sure can get kangaroo and emu and crocodile here.

Insects?

I've seen chocolate covered ants.

You could likely get to somewhere where you can have witchetty grubs and such.

I have always wondered if toasted termites would be a bit like sesame seeds?

I am noticing I am now becoming able to buy free-range, organic pork more and more readily.

I might re-look at my pork avoidance.

I'm a vietnamese food fan but the places here are ridiculous.

Carry on, Thomas (that's a riff re some old movies re carry on, nurse)

Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me ... aren't you?




I'm sure some honey-glazed termites would make delicious garnish around a good, baked wabbit.

Looking forward to trying the kangaroo one day!

Did he drive a Fiat? I don't remember.

Did he drive a Fiat? I don't remember. Probably an alfa.

Don't remember, either.

I'm just noticing I forgot to answer this one:

Eggs and dairy, but no fish. Basically, if it takes the killing of an animal to make it, I won't eat it until Easter.

Sounds good -- still lots and lots of good choices out there.