... to write. I'm just too lazy.
Since my last post I traveled to both Barbados and New York hoping for different and "gourmetlicious" reasons to blog. But that would have meant actually going out of my way to find these meatless, tasty morsels to satisfy a vegetarian hunger. But alas no, this was not to be. I don't know about the others out there but sometimes I'm just not in the mood. I'm currently back to my pasta phase. I need therapy, rehab, something to get me out of this pasta phase, I just love it so! During my mid years as a vegetarian I tried a thing or two with soya recipes. Well not really recipes, just basically substituting meat for soya in dishes like pelau and lasagna.
Anyway...
So in Barbados I slipped back into eating egg. Lots of it. Not proud to admit it but I am indeed a lacto-ovo vegetarian, altho, I really want to be vegan. I slipped back into eating eggs because I felt I didn't have a choice for breakfast. I was wrong of course but I didn't discover this until the very last day. The hotel's menu didn't seem very satisfying for my dietary needs. Usually in these cases I'll have fruit and pancakes. Not seeing much of an option I opted to have something similar as my colleagues, a fellow vegetarian (a pescatarian) and a carnivore - veggie omelette, toast, a single hash brown and a single pancake. Not impressed with the pancakes and hash browns at this hotel, I did away with it and just had the toast and omelette. It wasn't until towards the end of my stay I realized I could have a nice fruit bowl. So last day my breakfast consisted of such, plus the omelette.
For lunch I frequented Chefette's Bar-b-que Barn and Salad Bar where I had my restaurant favourite outside of pasta - baked potato and salad. Did I say salad bar? I love salad bars!!!! I love love love salads, especially when given the run of the salad bar, to me it is complete heaven to stack a plate with as much vegetables and fruits as it can hold. Non-vegetarians often look at me strangely thinking it's way too much and I will be unable to eat it all - hello, this isn't carbs we're talking about! Sans the heavy stuff, it is quite possible to eat a huge salad without the possibility of ethnic fatigue. A proper salad with a great variety has many benefits and can be enough for a meal on it's own. Just to be sure tho, I added a little bit of the non vegan pasta and potato salads to my plate only because I knew my days would be long. The worst thing anyone can do to a salad for me though is to put creamy dressings on it, especially a lot as happened one day when I could not get out to get it myself. All you taste is the dressing. I wanna taste my veggies, and most times with a little bit of vinaigrette or italian. At one point at Chefette's I had Barbados' version of a macaroni pie - lovely!!! It has a hint of red colouring to it. I don't know, I didn't ask but it is heavenly! Chefette's also serve roti, this I did not try. It's interesting to see roti served as an item at a restaurant that isn't primarily a "roti shop". But not interesting enough for me to want to try a veggie version of it. In fact I'm not even sure there is a veggie version (usually a potato roti).
Dinner was catered, as my trip was work related. But nothing interesting to report here. Rice or pasta, peas or beans, steamed vegetables, salad. The important thing to note though is that certain foods do not keep. I think our dinner was delivered around 6pm. Which means it was probably prepared and cooked around 2ish, 3ish. The job I was doing involved lots of rain delays, thus dinner was often skipped and I could not eat a thing until after 11pm! One night my entire dinner was dumped and on another night when I had just 10 minutes to eat, thus leftovers, after 11pm I had to dump it anyway.
Post Barbados, the freelance gig switches to Trinidad. No hotel stays this time. Dinner on the job was catered by Eat-it, a restaurant based in San Fernando. There used to be a branch in Maraval but I don't know what happened to it. Oh, the first and second nights were heaven! I can't believe I didn't take photos! They prepared a lovely salad as a started. This salad included chopped almonds, sesame seeds and their very own pineapple vinaigrette - applause!!!. The main course included vegetable rice, potatoes and peas. I have no idea what kind of potatoes it was was it was divine! By the second night, especially for me they did a veggie wrap. Again, no idea what it was, some sort of vietnamese something? No idea but it was, as Rachael Ray would say, absolutely delish!
So during my real vacation in the US, home of one of my favourite restaurant chains - Olive Garden (!!!!) - I mainly ate white rice and cooked vegetables prepared by my Aunt June especially for me. Thanks Auntie! Yes, rice and veggies, only because, except for Sunday, home cooked meals didn't offer much besides meat other than white rice and vegetables. I could of course seek out Olive Garden or other like places but I opted to eat with the family. At the food court in the Staten Island Mall I passed an Italians and Southern food offerings for Japanese. It was the suchi on the menu board that caught my eye. But this is a food court in a mall, no fresh sushi and all the veggie options were gone. So did I order anything extraordinary? Nope, it was jasmine rice that was too soggy and vegetables in a something sauce. My aunt did a better job. On a short shopping trip with one of my young cousins we lunched at Wendy's, soon to be opened in Trinidad. Luckily Wendy's offers my favourite, yup, baked potato (the call it something else) and a normal salad, yum yum yum. Had I been brave enough to call my new friend D-roy, perhaps a restaurant, or two, or three would have been in the works. But I wasn't brave enough to call him.
l'm such a lamo.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
So about seven years ago...
... I decided to become a vegetarian. Why? Just for the heck of it, a sort of will power game I played with myself. My first step was to not eat meat for three months. It wasn't too difficult, not that I actually clearly remember those months seven (or was it 8?) years ago. I still ate seafood though, after all man I live in the Caribbean!
But then during those three months I began reading up on the health benefits of being vegetarian and I decided to make the choice of giving up meat forever. However, I wasn't secure in my choice those early days so I never referred to myself as a vegetarian. In fact maybe after two years I adopted the title. I just simply used to say that I "was currently not eating meat". Or something like that.
Like I said it wasn't difficult. But then I wasn't doing it right. It wasn't until maybe a year later when I started a new job and met a vegan that I realised I was making a mistake. You see I was still eating stew gravies - yikes! I guess I didn't read the guidebook "Vegetarianism for Dummies". Damn man I gotta give up the sauce too?! Stewed meat chicken, beef, pork, wild meat (game), whatever - is a Caribbean staple. I mean we curry, we bake, we fry, we grill, we bar-b-cue but what really sets us apart is a really good "sweet hand" stew. I was OK to give up the actual meat and quite happy to retain the stew but guess what, even with the excuse (yes) of "currently not eating meat", deep down I really wanted to be a vegetarian.
So out with the sauces.
Years later I decided to cut off seafood as well. Funny story. I loved shrimp, it was one of my favourite seafood. Some people say it's a scavenger so it eats the ocean's shit but I didn't care, I wasn't having shrimp sushi. I loved shrimp until I saw the movie "Shark Tales". There is a scene in a cafe where some sharks are having a conversation and are about to eat shrimp cocktail. This being an animated movie of course, the shrimp were begging for their lives, "please don't eat me, please don't eat me..." I felt so bad. And that was just animation! I decided then and there, no more shrimp for me! Of course I had it a few times after seeing that movie (which I didn't really like by the way, the movie that is). Gosh I remember having shrimp fajitas at TGI Fridays in Port-of-Spain and thinking about those poor shrimp, but those fajitas were just so damn good...!
Anyway, I spent some time going back and forth on the seafood thing over the years but I am proud to say that I am totally done with it. During a bout with Tabanca a few years ago I switched to vegan. Being on a vegan diet in Trinidad and Tobago is so tough, let me tell you. You end up preparing virtually all your meals since it's so difficult to find foods without a trace of animal origins. But let me also admit here that I was counting calories during those dark times so I was also controlling my meal portions.
But it really is difficult to eat out as a vegan. You would have to avoid those cheaper-buffet-type-already-cooked-meals-restaurants/food vendors and head to a pricier restaurant where you can order baked potatoes without the yummy trappings, nice salads, pastas with tomato base sauces, etc. Other than that you'd really have to spend a lot of time preparing and packing your own food. My diet in those days consisted of fruits, Total cereal, soy milk, whole wheat everything, tomato juice, raw and steamed veggies, tofu, tofu dogs, soy cheese, legumes, sugar free jellies, etc. etc. etc. I packed my own snacks and sandwiches when I had shoots. Absolutely nothing was dairy based or animal based. But alas it all ended when a friend of mine re-introduced to me to the world of cakes. I love cakes. Carrot cake is my favourite, followed by cheese cake, followed by chocolate... you see where I'm going with this. I could have baked my own vegan cakes from a googled recipe, or at least tried, but no, a visit to Rituals in Crown point ended all that and it was a return to cheese cakes, cheese platters at More Vino, mac n' cheese, macaroni pie, yadda yadda, yadda.
So I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian, sometimes vegan.
One of the tribulations of this lifestyle is the lack of comprehension from meat eaters, carnivores, animal killas. The big question - why? People have argued with me about my choice, why I do not know. it's difficult for some people to swallow my choice. I find that so galling.
Another is catered food. There is always this over compensation of carbs for vegetarians. Meat eaters don't think we have enough to eat. They think we starve ourselves when we cut out meat, never mind we have three or four "sides" on our plate.
Another tribulation is just simply finding a really good healthy alternative to animal based dishes without always having to resort to rice, cheese sandwiches, creamy pastas and fries (usually the only option at night) and flour based meals like roti (when you're trying to be healthy) and roast/fired bakes, the latter which usually comes with fried options.
The biggest tribulation of them all though is simply living in the Caribbean, at least for the moment, in Trinidad and Tobago. Sometimes it's stressful. Few people care to understand it. And so rather than experience it and keep it to myself, I've decided to write about it, with a bit of inspiration of course from watching the movie "Julie and Julia". I'm going to make it my mission each week to search for the vegetarian options in this twin island state and the wider region when I can get there.
Hmmmmm, does this mean I'm now a foodie? We'll see.
But then during those three months I began reading up on the health benefits of being vegetarian and I decided to make the choice of giving up meat forever. However, I wasn't secure in my choice those early days so I never referred to myself as a vegetarian. In fact maybe after two years I adopted the title. I just simply used to say that I "was currently not eating meat". Or something like that.
Like I said it wasn't difficult. But then I wasn't doing it right. It wasn't until maybe a year later when I started a new job and met a vegan that I realised I was making a mistake. You see I was still eating stew gravies - yikes! I guess I didn't read the guidebook "Vegetarianism for Dummies". Damn man I gotta give up the sauce too?! Stewed meat chicken, beef, pork, wild meat (game), whatever - is a Caribbean staple. I mean we curry, we bake, we fry, we grill, we bar-b-cue but what really sets us apart is a really good "sweet hand" stew. I was OK to give up the actual meat and quite happy to retain the stew but guess what, even with the excuse (yes) of "currently not eating meat", deep down I really wanted to be a vegetarian.
So out with the sauces.
Years later I decided to cut off seafood as well. Funny story. I loved shrimp, it was one of my favourite seafood. Some people say it's a scavenger so it eats the ocean's shit but I didn't care, I wasn't having shrimp sushi. I loved shrimp until I saw the movie "Shark Tales". There is a scene in a cafe where some sharks are having a conversation and are about to eat shrimp cocktail. This being an animated movie of course, the shrimp were begging for their lives, "please don't eat me, please don't eat me..." I felt so bad. And that was just animation! I decided then and there, no more shrimp for me! Of course I had it a few times after seeing that movie (which I didn't really like by the way, the movie that is). Gosh I remember having shrimp fajitas at TGI Fridays in Port-of-Spain and thinking about those poor shrimp, but those fajitas were just so damn good...!
Anyway, I spent some time going back and forth on the seafood thing over the years but I am proud to say that I am totally done with it. During a bout with Tabanca a few years ago I switched to vegan. Being on a vegan diet in Trinidad and Tobago is so tough, let me tell you. You end up preparing virtually all your meals since it's so difficult to find foods without a trace of animal origins. But let me also admit here that I was counting calories during those dark times so I was also controlling my meal portions.
But it really is difficult to eat out as a vegan. You would have to avoid those cheaper-buffet-type-already-cooked-meals-restaurants/food vendors and head to a pricier restaurant where you can order baked potatoes without the yummy trappings, nice salads, pastas with tomato base sauces, etc. Other than that you'd really have to spend a lot of time preparing and packing your own food. My diet in those days consisted of fruits, Total cereal, soy milk, whole wheat everything, tomato juice, raw and steamed veggies, tofu, tofu dogs, soy cheese, legumes, sugar free jellies, etc. etc. etc. I packed my own snacks and sandwiches when I had shoots. Absolutely nothing was dairy based or animal based. But alas it all ended when a friend of mine re-introduced to me to the world of cakes. I love cakes. Carrot cake is my favourite, followed by cheese cake, followed by chocolate... you see where I'm going with this. I could have baked my own vegan cakes from a googled recipe, or at least tried, but no, a visit to Rituals in Crown point ended all that and it was a return to cheese cakes, cheese platters at More Vino, mac n' cheese, macaroni pie, yadda yadda, yadda.
So I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian, sometimes vegan.
One of the tribulations of this lifestyle is the lack of comprehension from meat eaters, carnivores, animal killas. The big question - why? People have argued with me about my choice, why I do not know. it's difficult for some people to swallow my choice. I find that so galling.
Another is catered food. There is always this over compensation of carbs for vegetarians. Meat eaters don't think we have enough to eat. They think we starve ourselves when we cut out meat, never mind we have three or four "sides" on our plate.
Another tribulation is just simply finding a really good healthy alternative to animal based dishes without always having to resort to rice, cheese sandwiches, creamy pastas and fries (usually the only option at night) and flour based meals like roti (when you're trying to be healthy) and roast/fired bakes, the latter which usually comes with fried options.
The biggest tribulation of them all though is simply living in the Caribbean, at least for the moment, in Trinidad and Tobago. Sometimes it's stressful. Few people care to understand it. And so rather than experience it and keep it to myself, I've decided to write about it, with a bit of inspiration of course from watching the movie "Julie and Julia". I'm going to make it my mission each week to search for the vegetarian options in this twin island state and the wider region when I can get there.
Hmmmmm, does this mean I'm now a foodie? We'll see.
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