Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

So happy about this post. I, like many people who commented, have had to endure endless ridicule for using water. Obviously it's not as yummy as milk, but in a pinch it works! My personal favorite is Honey Nut Cheerios. Hooray to Ms. Zimmer for making water and cereal ok!!!

You can certainly be a foodie and vegan. While we may have some dietary restrictions compared to the average eater, we are also much more aware of what we eat than the average eater. Being vegan makes you aware of and appreciate your food just that much more.

A few years ago we were visiting my parents in the Foothills in Yuma, AZ.
They wanted to take us to their favorite Chinese restaurant as it was only open in the not too hot months. Well, my husband ordered a combination chow mein(was pork, chicken, beef, shrimp, veg.) While taking his last bite, he noticed something was very chewy, he spit it out to examine it and it was a cigarette butt filter. He showed it to the waiter and the waiter went and got the manager who accused my husband of planting the butt in his food. My husband is a cigarette hater, and has never smoked and came unglued. This was the times when people still could smoke in restaurants. We were shocked, that they would behave that way. We have often discussed this horrible experience, the only thing we can figure out is that maybe they had : 1. trouble with people doing things to the food, so they wouldn't have to pay. 2. problems with senior's in this retirement area. 3. or Just Assholes! In any case we never order chinese food with a variety of meats an veggies, too easy to clean a plate into the pot, an I do believe this is done, unfortunately.

Huel Howser who has a PBS program called California Gold. He goes around and interviews people about interesting sites and things to do in California often they are the "off the beaten path" type of places.
So he did a show on a place that was suppose to have the best fried fish and as it turned out it was less then a few miles from my home. So of course I just had to try it.. The place is not a sit down but a take out so I got my catfish and dreamed of it all the way home and like therealchiffonade I got glass.
When I went back to the place with the catfish I noticed that the side of the display case was broken. I pointed it out to the manager he did offer to replace the catfish for free but I declined and never went back there again.

I was once eating a bowl of cheerios and right when i was putting the spoon into my mouth i heard a wierd high pitched noise and looked into the spoon and there was one of my children, shrunk down to tiny size in the middle of a cheerio....oh wait...that wasnt me, thats honey I shrunk the Kids...sorry.

I became a vegan at sixty-one (I'm 61 and 1/2) out of sheer curiosity and a desire to reduce my negative impact on Mother Earth. I wanted to know what my childrens' friends were experiencing, what was piquing the interest of some respected authors and artists, what the Skinny Bitches of the world knew that I didn't, and, most of all, how one could cook well on a vegan regime. I've been having a ball with it! There are some anxious moments in the kitchen, since almost every meal is a wild experiment. And, I'll admit, traveling can be a hungry experience. Nevertheless, I'm not interested in going back to my carnivorous ways.

It's interesting to encounter the assumptions my acquaintances make about veganism: they seem to assume that I've got a moral stake in it somewhere, that I've gone uber-Buddhist, that I feel superior. They have trouble understanding that I might simply be exercising an option. They say it is good for the functioning and longevity of our cognition to learn new things in our senior years; since I spend a lot of time in the kitchen, I wondered how I might turn that time into a real challenge. I think I've found a way I can feel good about.

I'm blogging about it with what passes for dry Southern wit and shots at seasoned wisdom at http://www.maturelandscaping.com. Am I the only senior nouveau vegan extant?

I've been following Mark Bittman "vegan after dinnertime" idea for three months, now, and I've discovered a whole new world of possibilities. If anything, it has expanded rather than shrinked my cooking landscape. Having said that, I have found that vegetarian recipes in cookbooks or magazines, are, very often, based on cheese and eggs, which make them vegan unfriendly (as if editors thought all non meat eaters were created equal). While these I'm considering on going vegetarian, I certainly would miss the traditions (both family and cultural ones) that sorround the foods I've grown up to love.

Also, I can't avoid mentioning that I have several vegetarian friends and acquaintances. As for moral choices, I know a couple of them who have cheated on their respective partners, so I would say that eating or not eating meat definitely is not the only moral standard and should not be viewed as such.

@peekpoke - As far as the "sinners" thing goes, I sincerely doubt any of the vegans or vegetarians attracted to sites like SE go into hysterics at the sight of hamburger. I haven't yet been elected vegan spokesperson, but I can't say that I've ever been offended by talk of bacon (though the fad annoys me a bit, as does the cupcake fad, especially when we get into bacon cupcakes, but that's a different issue) or butter or cheddar or any of the things I don't eat. I also am fine when dining companions order cheeseburgers, or when my roommates fill the fridge with milk and meat. I am much more horrified when I see someone using pancake syrup instead of Grade B maple!

If I'm offended by anything, it's being called (by proxy) tasteless, a douche bag, an idiot or a hypocrite in threads where vegan food comes up.

I'm not asking that vegan food be celebrated to the detriment of nonvegan food (nonvegan food is quite tasty - I didn't stop eating cheese because I dislike it), simply that ALL delicious food deserves equal celebration, and that vegan recipes shouldn't immediately be dismissed as somehow lesser than any and all recipes containing meat, eggs or dairy.

Maybe a better analogy: can you call yourself a fashion lover if you refuse to buy clothes made in sweat shops?

That might be just as controversial a question, though.

@TimMoore: Would you claim that someone can declare themselves to be a music lover if they classify 75% of the worlds music as misogynistic or homophobic? Perhaps, but one with a narrow scope.

(keep in mind key ingredients like fish sauce and, dashi, and cooking styles like Chinese restaurant wok cooking where EVERYTHING touches meat products, or the scarcity of vegan desserts before you jump on my 75% number)

As long as you pay the tab, I could care less what you order.
It's all money to me.

@BBQdude - I don't know, vegan food is very diverse and really the only thing hard to replicate is straight up meat. If you want a steak on a plate then vegetarianism can't really replicate that. Although I have made some seitan ribs that were pretty good and I used in a sandwich. I never ate much egg or cooked with much egg but really the only thing I can think of that can't be replicated (or is difficult to do so) is meringue which is something I never liked anyway.

There was also an interesting blog not too long ago that recreated Anthony Bourdain recipes but with all vegan ingredients. The people that did the recipes were quite creative, much more than myself. I don't know much about food science but in order to replicate textures, tastes, etc, it does take quite a bit of knowledge and I salute those that do it.