Shopping, cooking, and eating: day 2, part 2

Dinner last night was veggie potstickers, tofu with string beans, and brown rice from the Yum Yum House. I was still over at A.'s apartment—my date D. came to pick me up and we ended up ordering in. A. ate sweet and sour tofu and crab rangoon (yes, I'll explain what that is in a minute) and D. ate egg rolls and chicken chow mein, which, as a special bonus, came for free because the YYH has one of those buy-two-entrees-get-free-noodles dealies.

And then there was the prodigious after-dinner snacking:

• a whole lot of the Trader Joe's version of Pirate's Booty
• some milk chocolate with hazelnuts
• and, um, a piece of A.'s crab rangoon, which is like a fried wonton filled with cream cheese and fake crab (pollack, D. declared, and he was seconded by A.'s ex-boyfriend A., who had stopped by to...oh, forget it, I'm not explaining the whole situation, this isn't that kind of blog), and seasoned with chives and pepper. How did this happen? Well, A. wasn't gonna eat it, and she offered it to me. I recoiled in horror (I've eaten crab rangoon before, in my I'll-eat-anything, never-really-thought-about-where-it-came-from days, and it's just...weird), and D. made some comment that reminded me of the time last week when I ate bacon-flavored squeeze cheese on a Ritz cracker at his house (and no, I'm not explaining that one, either, 'cause nor is it that kind of blog), after which he said, "I win!" Of course I took that as a challenge, and since the thing was gonna get thrown out if I didn't eat it (D. is allergic to shellfish, and even though it was really pollack he wasn't gonna do it) I saw it as more of a freegan moment than a breaking of the rules. Physically I think I felt worse due to the fried aspect than the cheese/pollack aspect. But, regardless, it was so not a good choice to put that in my mouth. Thankfully I had already forbidden D. to say "I win" after.
  

I had a 100% vegan Sunday—

But my Monday has gotten off to a less-than-auspicious start. And it's not even 1:00 a.m.

See, tonight I found myself needing to have dinner at midnight, and there's only one place I know where that can happen in a way that's at all appealing: the Mexicali Rose. Nothing there's vegan or even remotely not-factory-farmed, but I figured a cheese enchilada would be better than going to bed hungry.

So I get there, settle in with my magazine and my big basket of the best chips on earth, and place my order: one red enchilada with cheese, along with the usual insane mound o' rice and beans. When it comes, it's all good and cheesy on top. Like a cheese enchilada should be. Except when I dig in I find that it's not cheese inside, it's ground beef.

Of course, I could send it back. I ordered cheese. Getting the totally wrong food is pretty much the only reason I would ever think it's acceptable to send something back. And I have actually sent things back before (okay, one time) when they had meat in them and weren't supposed to. But I don't. And, moment of truth: It was only a teeny-weeny bit because I didn't want to be a pain in my waiter's ass. Part of me was pretty psyched. Even though I thought the ribs would last me a good six months, I was happy to be eating the beef—especially since I didn't have to have any ethical conversation with myself before ordering it. Because I didn't order it.

And then the lunch that made me want to start writing...

Yesterday I ate a big plate of meat for lunch. Barbecued ribs from Flints, to be exact. Not organic, not locally or sustainably produced, not at all in line with anything about the way I say I eat.

And. It. Was. Good. Not just that, but I felt good afterwards, too. I've been recovering from a nasty bout with the zombie flu, and my energy has been looooow. A big plate o' meat seemed like just the ticket.

And I had already been planning to eat some meat: curried goat with my new friend D. I was justifying this because, hey, there's no real goat industry in this country, so the meat is likely produced on a relatively small scale. And, of course, with handy-dandy rule no. 8. I've only eaten goat a few times in my life, but damn is it tasty. And you don't see it around the menu every day. When D. and I were having our first lunch together two weeks ago (I kept it veggie then, but not vegan—we were at the Mexicali Rose, where absolutely nothing at all is vegan; I guess in the last post I forgot rule no. 9, which is: If you've gotta eat, you've gotta eat, and you might as well like it), I mentioned a taste for goat, and she told me about her favorite Caribbean place not too far from my house. Obviously we had to go.

Anyway, the goat place was closed. Apparently it's run by stoners. No surprise they run late. We tried another Caribbean place, but it was closed, too. The sign on the door said they were catering some reggae show in Santa Cruz.

By then I was starving (I skipped breakfast in preparation for the heavy meatiness), and primed for meat. D. was thrilled that Flints was still around and might actually be open. It seemed like fate.

And I ate the ribs and I was happy—even though your very much face-to-face with what meat is when you're eating it right off the bone. There were sinews. That tasted good. Oh, my.

As a pretty extreme example in the long line of things I choose to eat that I quote don't eat anymore unquote, it's makin' me think: Is it chickenshit of me to say I have these rules when I break them so much? How can I balance my own needs with the needs of others (meatpackers, farmworkers, people who live near polluting feedlots, cows) and with my own ethics? Am I just not trying hard enough?