A New Path

Yesterday our very helpful neighbor and friend, 'Farmer Joe', came by with his tractor-sized rototiller and enlarged my veggie garden plot. He also kindly tilled the pathway to the garden, so I could properly lay down the flat rocks that I was given last year, care of one of my parents' neighbors. I've had a picture in my head of how cute a rock pathway would be, with herbs growing on the side and maybe some hardy thyme or other ground cover plants in between the rocks. I actually had the energy to lay all these rocks out and dig them in, just the way I've been wanting to. They still need some adjustment, but I was able to get enough accomplished yesterday to be able to visualize my new path.

Which brings me to a story about another fairly new 'path' of mine: being a vegetarian. I've been vegetarian for about 3 years or so. While I have eaten meat about four or five times in that time frame (it was served to me and I hadn't made other arrangements in advance), my intention was and still is not to eat anything that can move about on its own. Making this choice necessitates paying attention to a few things, to ensure my nutrition is complete. Well, it turns out I've been a 'bad vegetarian' and haven't been paying attention to everything I needed to, specifically getting enough iron. This was made very clear to me when my doctor (also new) called earlier this week and said I needed an "urgent" blood transfusion, because my hemoglobin level was so low. I was mildly reprimanded by the doctor, and when at the hospital itself two days ago, I was told by the nurse I was "lucky" to be getting the transfusion. I certainly did feel somewhat guilty for taking two units of blood that should have been left available for car accident victims, or the like. It was a strange, strange day. I have since begun taking an iron supplement liquid, and I will be more diligent in taking my other vitamins as well.

I do feel better after having the transfusion - I can go up the stairs without running out of breath with a pounding heart, and yesterday I could do a morning's worth of dirt-shifting and rock-lifting without feeling drained. (It's amazing what having enough cells to carry oxygen to your heart can do!) In fact there are a lot of symptoms of iron deficiency I'm looking forward to not having any more. And there was no way I tied all these things together as being related to something like anemia - I just figured I was wimpy and had to suck it up. So, if there are any other new-ish vegetarians out there, you may want to have your iron levels checked at your next doctor's appointment!

New path, or not-so-new path, there is always, always something to learn.

A few nice things....

I've had a few neat experiences over the last week that made me smile:

• The lady I buy my honey-based face moisturizer from at the farmer's market said she would refill my plastic containers for me.
• I ran out of the dried sage leaves I picked over the summer for my tea, and I found a really good deal on a sage plant at a local nursery that should get me through the winter.
• One of the guards at work told me how he makes his own dry oatmeal raisin mixture to take to work for breakfast, and just adds boiling water to cook it when he gets to work. I'm going to copy him. Now I don't have to buy the pre-packaged (and sugar-filled) stuff anymore.
  
• My dad showed me how he's hooked up his furnace to deep cycle batteries and an inverter in case the power goes out. The same set up will be good to hook up to a solar panel.
• Gord and the 'bag girl' at the grocery store chatted about being vegetarian while packing our groceries into our cloth bags.
  

Just a few nice things to be grateful for....

Picture courtesy this website

Yogurt --> Tzatsiki

A couple of people who commented on my previous post about my unexpectedly successful yogurt-making also mentioned their fondness for the Green cucumber dip made with yogurt called tzatsiki. I've been making this stuff for years - usually on a Friday night when it doesn't matter if I smell a bit garlicky for a day or two. I got the recipe from a Frugal Gourmet cookbook, but I have modified it somewhat since then, so I don't think I'm breaking copyright if I post my version:

• 1 cup thick plain yogurt - (called "Baltic Style" here)
• 1/2 cucumber, grated (I use the largest grating surface on my cheese grater), with the liquid squeezed out. ( I just drink the squeezed out cucumber juice - it's refreshing!)
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (approximately - sometimes I add a bit more)
• 1 clove garlic - finely grated or squeezed through a garlic press
• 1/2 lemon's worth of fresh-squeezed lemon juice (bottled is also fine, but fresh is more tasty)
• 1/4 tsp salt, or you can leave it out entirely.

Mix all these things together and taste. You may wish to adjust a few things to your liking, but I'd hold off on adding any more garlic right away, because the flavor intensifies with time. I find that this recipe gives me enough flavor to be tasty immediately, but doesn't become too much when I eat the second half the next day. Serve with pita bread wedges that have been brushed lightly with olive oil and grilled to your liking. Mmm!

Be sure anyone you plan to kiss in the next couple of days doesn't have a garlic aversion!

Mmmm.....Bacon

Nope, I haven't reverted back to my meat-eating ways, but I did try out a really great restaurant by the name of "Bacon" this week.

With a name like that, you wouldn't think a vegetarian would have much luck with the menu, but there was lots to choose from! And the best part was that their ingredients are as local as possible, many well within the '100 mile' foodshed guidelines. I was pleasantly surprised to see produce from the Sparrow's Nest organic farm on the menu, as well as organic, local herbal tea from Vitaly Teas. For meat-inclined folks, all of their meat comes from local producers who don't use any hormones and who raise their animals ethically and humanely. They even have biodegradable take-out containers!

I had the India Bazaar Rice Bowl for dinner, and a flourless chocolate cake for dessert. I had some Alberta-grown chamomile tea as an accompaniment, and it was served in a lovely cast iron Chinese tea pot along with a proper handle-free pottery tea cup. The whole experience was quite wonderful! I highly recommend it to anyone in the Edmonton area looking for a place to eat that is slightly off the beaten path. Although by the looks of it, the path to their door is getting a lot more beaten these days. Mmmmm......Bacon.

"For the Vegetarian in You"

In November 2006 Gord and I took a trip to Victoria for a little vacation. We were doing one of our favorite things, browsing through used bookstores, when I happened upon a book called "For the Vegetarian in You." Actually, I think I found the book in one of the Sidney thrift stores. I had been seriously considering vegetarianism by this time, and the introduction to the book really grabbed me. It outlined a vision of a world where people didn't eat animals. There was enough food for everyone; no one went hungry. The remainder of the book just solidified the case for becoming vegetarian. It moved me so much that I posted the following on the CavyCages website vegetarian forum in December of 2006:

I have been 'sort of' vegetarian for the past year or so. Last month I was on holidays and while leisurely poking through a used book store in Sidney, BC, I came across this book:

"For the Vegetarian in You" by Billy Ray Boyd (1996, Prima Publishing, Rocklin, California, USA).

This book is a compelling yet easy to read account of a man, raised in the Ozark mountain area in a pro-hunting culture, and how he became a vegetarian and then a vegan. He goes on to talk about the personal and worldwide implications of meat-eating vs. veg lifestyles. Once I read that we could feed the world easily if everyone went vegetarian, instead of feeding that food to 'food animals' destined for slaughter to feed (likely more privileged) humans, I knew I had to stop eating meat.

My first step toward vegetarianism came last year when on another holiday to BC I found myself parked on the loading deck of a BC ferry beside a chicken transport truck. When I went to get into my vehicle after the ferry ride, I looked over at the chicken truck, at first just pissed off that some chicken poo had gotten on my car. Then I made eye contact with one of the five or six chickens (or the chicken made eye contact with me, I'm not sure which) who were stuffed into a cage only 1 foot high. The truck must have contained hundreds of these cages. I felt nothing but shame to be a human being at that moment. Mr. Boyd's book has helped me work towards the promise I made to those chickens that day. I encourage everyone to read it.

An eye opening experience

It was on our 1st anniversary trip to Victoria where I had a major perspective changing event occur. We were on our way back to Edmonton after our trip was over, and we had taken one of the first BC Ferries of the day from Swartz Bay to Tsawassen. Coming down to the car deck as we neared port, I noticed that some chicken poo had gotten on my nice red Jetta's hood. This pissed me off, since this was the nicest car I had ever had and now some stupid birds had gone and shat upon it. So I turned to look over at the poultry transport truck and there she was: a scared looking chicken looking right back at me. Stuffed into a 1 ft by 1ft by 3 feet metal cage, with at least three other chickens in there. Right there I realized that humans should not be doing this to animals! Animals should not be made to suffer! They have no capacity for evil and yet they are being treated as expendable, meaningless "products" for human exploitation. I was sickened. Sickened at my own ignorance and nauseous at the state of humanity. That was my first real step towards becoming a vegetarian.