Saturday 10 January 2009

beets!


I love beets. I love the way they taste, and I love how beautifully red-purple they make whatever you add them to. So, I give you: Beet-ish dahl-ish soup. About half a cup of red lentils, 3 grated beets, a chopped onion, 4 cloves of garlic, turmeric, a few little chopped up spuds. Boil that up. Then add a whack of grated ginger, some grated garlic, salt, black pepper and lemon juice.

This is easy to make so long as you can keep yourself from accidentally dying the entire kitchen bright purple. I set it a-simmering after my run, and it was pretty much done by the time I had finished showering and getting into my jammies. I wanted something just simple tonight. I've been in London for the week at a conference, and have been fed really oily, rich food. Note: there is such a thing as too many dishes that have been "drizzled with olive oil", no matter how good that olive oil is.

And now, a rant from Ms.Manners to all the omnivores out there who eat lunch (or dinner, or whatever) with a vegan: your snide comments are not clever, nor are they new. I've heard pretty much all of them before. Also, I don't want to hear about your friend/coworker/second cousin who used to be vegan but now isn't. And shockingly, I don't want you to explain in gory detail to me how you butcher your own chickens, or catch and kill fish, especially while I'm eating. Basically, me being vegan does not give you permission to be rude to me. Get that through your brain. If I sat down to lunch with you and launched into mocking your food, followed by a diatribe about how I know omnis who are malnourished (and I do) or who have such horrible eating habits that they are heading straight for a lifetime of diabetes (yup, I see some of my friends doing that as well), and pointed out how this was connected to *your* food, it would be unthinkably rude. It would also be rude of me to detail how slaughterhouses and dairys get that food to your plate. So please, do me the same favour as I'm doing you: Shut up and eat your lunch.

One more thing. Please don't tell me that this will all change *when* I get pregnant, since "my body will tell me it needs meat". That statement is beyond offensive on so many levels. One, you assume that just because I am in possession of a working uterus that I intend to have children. WRONG. Sexist and wrong(and even the assumption that i'm in possession of a working uterus is a bit presumptuous). Second, you assume that vegan pregnancy is impossible. WRONG. Uninformed and wrong. Third, you assume that people eating whatever they want means that they're eating what their body needs. Uh, probably WRONG given the obesity epidemic in most countries where people are rich enough to eat whatever they want. So, on that one, we'll give you blatant denial of available evidence ad wrong.

Sheesh people. Fucking be a bit considerate.

dancing off the anger to: Joan Jett, bad reputation.

5 comments:

medici said...

I saw this soup.
I ate this soup.
And it was every bit as gorgeous as KitchenDancer describes it -- and at least twice as delicious.

I had a hard time focusing on the movie because I was trying to determine with each bite which part of the soup I liked the best (so that I could save the best bit for last): 1) the bites of spud, 2) the shredded beet/onion/garlic/ginger mash at the bottom of my bowl, 3) the broth by itself, or 4) various combinations. I couldn't decide!!! Now that's a successful soup -- its parts as delicious as its whole, and its whole too good for words!

Um, YUM.

Jake said...

Beets make me nervous. It's an entirely irrational response, I know, and I'll happily eat them if someone puts them in front of me (although I think I've only ever had them raw), but I've never gotten up the courage to buy and use them myself. Do you know of any beet support groups in Toronto?

medici said...

I've heard that juggling with then often has a calming and normalising effect. I haven't tried it myself, though -- I've always liked beets, and so have my shirts. I support you founding a beet support group, though.

sinead said...

Hmmmm... if you're daunted, you can try something easy, like baking them in their skins (just wash them and then bake them at 400F until you can poke them with a fork). Then, let them cool a bit and the skins will just slip off, and you'll have sweet, baked beets. This soup would work fine if you used those and just mashed them up.

The juggling also sounds like a good idea.

Let me know if you find or found a beet support group. *grin*

Anonymous said...

...apparently you're not alone, Jake... http://veganyumyum.com/2007/01/the-beet-challenge/ , perhaps this kinda counts as a beet support group.

I have one friend who thinks its funny to see how far he can push his rudeness about my veganism. He picked a bad day to play that game once, and I spouted a bunch of stuff he really didn't want to know about milk. I am usually far more civil than that, and would rather talk to people about it than scare them, but he was playing an underhanded game. He looked sick when I told him,which was great, because he'd just consumed a latte. He hasn't tried to bother me nearly that much again. (promises to play nicer next time)