Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

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.

sailordave,

I think your analogy is close, but not quite right. I think being a vegetarian foodie is like being a music lover who doesn't like stringed instruments. Any of 'em. Being a foodie vegan is like being a music lover, but not liking stringed instruments, wind instruments, brass instruments or percussion. I guess a cappella music is nice... but it's hard to understand a music lover who dismisses all those other wonderful sounds.

5 days a week we eat a basically vegetarian diet. But there's simply no way I could give up the magical food-binding, sauce-emulsifying power of the egg. To those of us who will eat basically anything, veganism can seem a little empty. And extremely hard to understand.

But good luck to you vegan foodies! I may not understand you, but I wish you all well!

I'm still all for Chiarello. It's his ass (and charity) on the line, not the sous chef's. He wanted a team that he felt could get the win, where is the harm in that? Sure he could have been a little more polite, but how much of that is editing magic? I was dyin to see him punch that little rodent, Dale!

I understand that most of them are capable, accomplished full fledged chefs in their own right. But in this competition, they were SOUS chefs.

The way the show went down was tawdry. If I want to watch trashy kitsch, I'd watch Hell's Kitchen or pro-wrestling or roller derby.

I dearly hope that the Bravo network people let the Spike and Dale schlock show fade into the horizon, never to return. I don't want to watch them.

dropping the entire casserole on the oven door

As a kid, my best friend and I made sugar cookies. She read the ingredients as I incorporated them. She read off 1/4 cup of salt, I then asked her if she read that right because that was a lot of salt. She insisted she was correct and I added that amount in. Once the cookies had baked, we couldn;t wait to try them, we each took a bite and spit them out. She was wrong, it was 1/4 tsp salt!