I may not have met any yet, but they do exist. A friend of mine is cooking for a bunch of people at a festival she helps organize every year, and around ten of them are vegetarians. She gets stressed out enough as it is trying to cook for a bunch of people, but the whole vegetarian thing has her ready to pull her hair out.

You see, the Portuguese, or at least most of them, really like their meat. Pork, beef, mutton, goat, rabbit — it’s all good eats to them. No animal is deemed too fuzzy or too cute for slaughter. OK, cats and dogs are not on the menu, but you get what I mean. It’s a very different culture over here, one you can still find many people living off their own land and raising their own livestock for food. If you come at the right time of year, you’ll probably be invited to the annual pig slaughter and resulting feast.

So this friend of mine has been having a hard time trying to figure out what exactly she is going to feed these vegetarians. “If only they would eat some fish, it would be easy, but they don’t even eat fish!” I tried to explain to her some simple ideas for vegetarian meals, but we didn’t get very far into it because we kept veering off topic. Still, she ended up with a few good ideas that are easy to make both with meat and meat-free.

One thing she already knew how to make was a soy bolognese sauce, which seems to be a popular go-to meal among the handful of vegetarians in the area. I’ve never heard of granulated soy, nor do I think I ever want to try it, but if they like it then cool beans. Another dish she’ll be making is Russian Salad, which I have to admit, is super easy and awesome.

The thing is, a lot of traditional Portuguese dishes are inherently meatless or contain so little that to leave it out would hardly change the dish at all. Almost all Portuguese soups are vegetarian. In fact, I can only think of two where meat is an important ingredient: Sopa de Pedra (that’s Stone Soup, just like the children’s story) and homemade chicken soup. Because many still take great pride in being self sufficient and thrifty, and legumes are cheap and very easy to grow, stewed chickpeas, favas, or black eyed peas can be found on many a dinner table as a main course.

In fact, traditional Portuguese cuisine has come to my rescue many times over the last year when I had no idea what the frick I was going to eat for dinner. So, even though I don’t understand my friend’s stress over feeding vegetarians, I do hope that for next year’s festival she’ll let me help her out. Who knows, maybe she’ll even add a vegetarian meal or two to her own menu.

Change is almost never easy, even when we are the ones who implement it. Seriously, sometimes I just want to give up and say screw you, cows, I’m having a steak. I’ve started working outside the home for the first time in over five years and the adjustment hasn’t been terrible, but sometimes I just don’t want to bother with vegetarian food. I get that evil little voice inside me saying, go on, you’ve worked hard, now take a break — you can always start again tomorrow.

Luckily for me, my mom and I share the same feelings about meat and pretty much every major step towards vegetarianism I’ve taken, she’s taken as well. The thing that sucks is she lives all the way on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, so any moral support we provide each other is done over the phone or the computer. But for right now, my parents are here on a two week visit so they could be here for my daughter’s fourth birthday, and it has been really, really nice to have someone vegetarian-ish around the house. For one thing, she helps me out in the kitchen with food prep (since my cooking gene came from my Dad) but more importantly, I have someone to actually eat the food with me.

Maybe that sounds strange because I’ve mentioned before that I cook every single day, and obviously what I cook gets eaten. But sometimes it gets, for lack of a better word, lonely to eat separate food from everyone else. Having someone to talk to about, cook and eat vegetarian food with makes the whole experience much more enjoyable. Even if it’s only for a couple of weeks, the time spent with my mom always results in a lot of wonderful memories and some amazing new vegetarian recipes to add to my arsenal, as well as renewed faith in my seemingly neverending quest to say goodbye to meat for good.

So that’s nice, you say, but what the hell does a picture of pasta e fagioli have to do with that? Well, it’s just one of the awesome inventions my mom and I have come up with in the past week and a half. Recipe coming soon to a computer screen near you….

Don’t worry, I’m just childish enough to start that sentence, but not finish it. One reason I never thought I would be a successful vegetarian was because of my own misconceptions about nutrition, specifically protein. I thought if I wanted to get enough protein in my diet, I would have to eat tofu or some sort of TVP fake-meat product. Fake meat can be tasty, but even if it were commercially available to me (because it’s not), I would try to avoid it just as I try to avoid most processed foods. And tofu … well, that stuff just plain scares me.

Enter the humble bean: were it not for beans, I would have either thrown in the towel on vegetarianism before I started, or had a heart attack from eating so much cheese. How could something so simple solve most, if not all, of my culinary dilemmas? It turns out it’s ridiculously easy, as long as you’re willing to experiment a little bit to find out what’s good and what isn’t.

Reading cookbooks and perusing through recipes online give a good guideline to start with, but it really all comes down to personal taste. For instance, black bean chili on its own or over rice just doesn’t do it for me. But stuff it into a taco and it becomes the kind of food that makes you wonder why you ever ate meat in the first place.

The grainy, earthy texture and flavor of chickpeas are perfect when combined with a warm, spicy, slightly tart sauce of chopped tomatoes simmered with garlic, ginger and curry powder. Or you can puree them into hummus with lots of lemon, tahini, and cumin. I haven’t yet tried the recipe for curried chickpeas and kale that Debbie wrote about in her virtual dinner party for me, but as soon as the weather cools off and my kale is no longer being attacked by plagues of aphids, that dish is so going on the menu.

White beans and kidney beans are excellent in all kinds of homemade vegetable soups, or they could even be added to canned soups to give an extra boost of flavor and nutrition. Tonight at my house we’re having pasta tossed with with sauteed zucchini, cremini mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and cannellini beans. The zucchini is the last one left after we made the super incredibly amazingly delicious recipe for stuffed zucchini that Kona posted a while back — which also included cannellini beans, by the way.

Get the drift? Beans aren’t just for those things that come out of  a can slathered in barbeque sauce with rubbery bacon, or in a frozen microwave burrito. There are a zillion and one ways to use them to make great vegetarian dishes — you can keep your tofu as far as I’m concerned.

Whenever we try to quit or even just cut back on something — chocolate, smoking, shopping, or in my case, meat — there is the probability of backsliding. It’s just natural I guess. I’ve been doing really well for the most part, but last week’s bout with food poisoning really messed with me.

As is usually the case when these things happen, I wanted nothing to with most food in general, but was particularly wretched at the thought of eating anything I had the day I got sick. Vegetables of all kinds were especially scary. But I needed to eat something, and the one thing I wasn’t associating with food poisoning was meat, because I hadn’t eaten any.  So, for the sake of my poor tummy, as well as my sanity (paranoia, don’t you know) I turned my back on my eating habits and bought some smoked turkey from the deli and made myself a sandwich.

I had kind of sworn off deli meats and didn’t plan on buying it anymore for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s not all that great for you. I’m pretty sure it’s loaded with salt and preservatives. And, secondly, in spite of said preservatives, the stuff always seems to go bad within a couple of days, which means some always goes to waste. In my own twisted mind, this is a terrible sin because if it doesn’t get eaten, I feel like I killed an animal just so I could throw pieces of it into the garbage. Which really, is exactly the case. And guess what, about half of what I bought didn’t get eaten. Not that I’m beating myself up over it or anything.

Between last Wednesday and Sunday, I probably ate meat at at least four or five meals, which is more than twice my usual consumption. Roast chicken one night, chicken, black bean and corn tacos another night, chicken soup over the weekend. Sorry, chickens! I just didn’t think I could do fish, and I’m long past the point of no return with beef and pork. More than anything it was to give myself a much needed break, not from eating vegetarian food but from preparing it. I just didn’t have the energy to figure out which meatless meals might have appealed to me, much less spend the extra prep time making separate meals for myself and the rest of my family.

The last few days I’ve been getting back into the swing of things, for the most part. I made a somewhat strange but pretty tasty black bean chili the other night and I got some red bell peppers and cremini mushrooms at the store yesterday that are just begging to be added to a pasta dish with lots of garlic and cheese. I feel better overall when I’m not eating meat, even if it’s only a slight difference.

So yeah, you could say I slipped, albeit in an intentional way, but I don’t really regret it. Because sometimes, you just have to cut yourself some slack – end of story.

Well there’s nothing quite like a good old fashioned case of food poisoning, is there? Yes, I’m here doing my thing and trudging through my day, but I would really much rather be in bed trying to block out the rest of the world. Still, I’m doing much better than I was last night. Don’t worry, I won’t go into details.

I do find it funny and kind of ironic that when someone mentions food poisoning, the first thing our minds go to is meat. Tainted ground beef, undercooked chicken, and so on. But vegetables and other vegetarian foods are just as liable to make you sick, if not more so, as meat. Peanut butter, spinach, eggs… sucks to be us, right?

The last time I got food poisoning, I could only find one thing to blame: a bag of “ready to eat” salad greens. I had eaten some at dinner the night before, but my husband and daughter didn’t, and I was the only one who got sick. I didn’t throw up once that entire time, but I couldn’t stand up straight because of the relentless, debilitating stomach cramps. To this day, I have kept my vow to never again buy — or eat — salad in a bag.

That’s not to say I’ve never gotten sick from eating meat. I remember very well a family party at a Garfield’s Restaurant and Pub when I was in grade school. The next day, everyone who had eaten the beef was confined to bed the next day, and everyone who had the chicken was fine. This was an ironic punishment because I remember choosing the beef specifically because the chicken looked scary and possibly not quite done enough for my tastes.

Then there was the Hamburger of Doom on the last day of a school trip during my senior year of high school that caused me to spend most of a 5 hour bus ride home to New Jersey from D.C. in one of those tiny little bathroom stalls, hurling my guts out. One particularly nice boy said “Stop throwing up already!” Oh, high school, I miss you so.

When I remember that particular time, I feel pretty lucky that last night and today have not been nearly as bad. Still, I haven’t figured out which food is the culprit, so I’m kind of wary of everything in my fridge right now. Not that I’m even considering eating anything for the time being, anyway.

When I was a kid in grade school, the only vegetables I remember eating with any regularity were carrot sticks and sliced cucumbers, and more often than not, I would conveniently “forget” to eat them if my mom didn’t remind me. I wouldn’t eat tomato sauce until I was in third or fourth grade. I don’t think I ever ate broccoli until probably somewhere towards the end of my middle school years, and when I did, it was that frozen kind that comes covered in gloopy cheese sauce. If I really want to embarrass myself, I’ll tell you that the first time I ate a green bean I was 17, and that to this day I still have never taken a single bite of asparagus.

So it should be of no surprise when I say that the first time I tried to go vegetarian at 14, it lasted all of a week. And really, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t let my stubbornness get the best of me, because with my eating habits at that time, I would most certainly have made myself ill. Pizza, baked potatoes, and mac and cheese do not a healthy vegetarian make. Having only the most basic knowledge of what healthy eating was about, I quickly realized I was in over my head and went back to eating meat.

The idea stuck with me though. Around a year later, right before we made our move to South Korea, I found myself at the Hurricane House with my parents, eating a chicken cheesesteak, thinking, why am I eating this?  I told my parents, “After this, I think I’m done with meat.” Being the laid-back people that they are, I’m pretty sure the answer I got back was “Alright.”

This is where I get into technicalities; I didn’t properly give up meat at this point. When we moved, we spent at least the first couple of months in a hotel, which kept cooking to an obvious minimum. I continued to eat meat a few times a week because I knew I still wasn’t able to maintain a vegetarian diet and a healthy protein intake. I didn’t know what that healthy amount was, but I had a feeling I wasn’t going to meet it with the occasional bowl of red beans and rice from Popeye’s (which, when I think about it today, I am sure had meat in it anyway). I wasn’t about to start experimenting with tofu, either.

Then, I read an article in Rolling Stone called “From the Slaughterhouse to the Grill; The Dirty Secrets of Fast Food,” which informed me of the horrifyingly disgusting practices of the meat industry in general, which was, believe it or not, a huge shock to me. Then, I had “The Dream.”

I won’t go into too many details about said dream, but I will tell you it involved a puppy, a knife, and me throwing up. You can go ahead and say this had something to do with the fact that I had just moved to a place where people really do eat dogs, but I’m pretty sure at that point in my life I was ignorant enough to think that was just a myth. Back to the point at hand: after that dream, I gave up  meat for real.

I won’t say my diet at that point was much better than before, but I made an effort at the very least to eat more fruits and vegetables. My good friend Annie, who recently guest clacked for us, used to accuse me of eating rabbit food because of the cheese, lettuce and carrot on oat bread sandwich I brought to school for lunch nearly every day. The day I caved and ate some chicken nuggets around a year later, she was like a proud momma. Those chicken nuggets, of course, put me on a downward spiral back into full time meat eating.

Fast forward to last year. Glutton for punishment that I am, I just had to watch the video of those idiots trying to force downer cattle up to their feet with forklifts so they could go to slaughter. While it was no fun to watch, it did get me thinking. And the more I thought, the more sense it made not to be a part of the problem. So it went, from cutting down on beef, to giving it up, to giving up pork as well. Finally, I decided I had the necessary knowledge and cooking skills to give up meat entirely and still be healthy and happy with what I ate.

I’m glad I’m taking it slowly this time and not jumping in headfirst; I’m still learning a lot along the way. When I do take that final step, I want it to be for good.

When it comes to food, everyone has a line. Except maybe Bear Grylls, that is. I’m pretty sure that dude will eat anything. But you get what I mean. I have a friend who will only eat meat with no bones, because the bones remind her too much of what her meal once was. I know plenty of people who are not only not bothered by bones, but will eat just about any part, or organ, of the animal that can be eaten, and quite enjoy it. Then there’s me.

When I got it into my head that I wanted to be a vegetarian, I didn’t really think about where I would draw the line. It seemed pretty cut and dry. Either you eat meat, or you don’t. Then, as Kona reminded me, people will sneak animals into your food where you least expect it. For her, it’s marshmallows, and for me, it’s gummies. Gummy bears, gummy worms, Swedish Fish (A friend you can eat!), cola bottles, Sour Patch Kids, I love them all.

Yeah, I get that I should probably give them up anyway, because besides the fact that they are made from hooves and snouts, there’s absolutely no nutritional value to redeem them. Still, they’re chewy and delicious and don’t remind me the least bit of death.

The other seemingly innocuous “food” that has been working its way into my conscience lately is refined sugar. This, obviously goes hand in hand with the gummies, being probably the first on the list of maybe five ingredients, closely followed by the previously mentioned hooves and snouts, and a variety of chemicals re-named “natural and artificial colors and flavors.”

The problem with sugar is that some of it is filtered through yet more cow bones in order to make it white. Yeah, I said some of it. Whether or not the cow bone filtered sugar and the otherwise filtered sugar are kept separately, mixed all together, or what, I have no idea. After all, I’m getting my information from Wikipedia and a book written by an almost-vegan.

Look, gummies I’m pretty sure I can give up (in time … maybe … don’t be so pushy!) but sugar? And this doesn’t just include white sugar, but also most brown sugar, which is just white sugar mixed with molasses. I just don’t know.

I’ve already reduced the sugar I put in my coffee down to almost nothing, and don’t tend to add it to much of anything else. But when birthdays, holidays and bake sales come around, you can probably bet on me making something that has white sugar in it. And again, I just don’t have that same guilt I would looking at a chicken leg or a pork chop.

So tell me, vegetarians, where do you draw the line?

It was my own fault for not thinking outside the box that I wasn’t having good vegetarian Mexican food. A couple of months ago, while my mom (who is also making her way towards vegetarianism) was visiting, I was racking my brain for something for us to have for dinner. I didn’t feel like going to the store, but the vegetarian options were slim pickings. I remembered I had some black bean chili in the freezer, and decided to go with that. It had been relegated to the back of the freezer and almost forgotten about, because as a chili on it’s own it wasn’t really spectacular. But we had some tortillas and salsa lying around, so I thought what the hell? Everything is better with salsa.

I was really surprised, because what was a pretty boring and unsatisfying dish turned into some amazing vegetarian burritos, especially when doctored up with the salsa, lots of shredded lettuce and some freshly made sour cream. A few days later, we had the rest of the chili, only this time mixed with rice in taco shells, and it was even better than any beef or chicken taco I’d ever had.

Unfortunately, that chili takes a long time to make because it’s made from dried beans, but now that I know the awesomeness of vegetarian Mexican food, I’ve started to experiment a little bit and the results have all been good. Most recently I made black bean, mushroom and corn tacos, simply sauteed with some taco seasoning and a dollop of sour cream and salsa mixed in at the end. I don’t usually think of mushrooms for Mexican food, but they were threatening to go bad if I didn’t use them, so I threw them in, and it was pretty damn good.

This is why I get so excited about vegetarianism. When I was eating a lot of meat, I pretty much stuck to the same few things, over and over again. Cutting out meat has forced helped me get creative in the kitchen and expand my culinary horizons, something I’ve always wanted to do, but wasn’t quite sure how. As it turns out, it’s not only pretty simple, but it also makes cooking (and eating!) more fun.

Once, my sister in law was visiting and we were grilling chickens that she had marinated. She actually dipped her finger into that raw chicken marinade and put it in her mouth. I had to look in the other direction as I was screeching, “Dooooon’t!” She was flabbergasted that I would react that way. “What? I just wanted to see if it had enough salt.”

I recently did something I haven’t done in quite some time — buy whole chickens and cut them up myself. The reason I do this? It’s much cheaper than buying a package of just thighs, drumsticks, etc. The next day, when I went to cut them up though… ugh. Let’s just say, it’s not fun.

I wasn’t always such a wuss about raw meat, but I guess I am now. Like Kona’s boyfriend Luke ripping the membrane off the baby back ribs he was making, I felt a similar wave of disgust and misgiving as I stood at the kitchen counter, cutting through the skin, bone, flesh and tendons of those chickens.

Maybe if it were only that, it wouldn’t be so bad, but the fact is, if you want to cut up a chicken and not mangle it, you have to disjoint the limbs by twisting them in opposite directions before you separate them, which makes a nauseating popping sound, as well as the sensation of the joint itself dislocating in your hands.

I couldn’t help but think to myself, if it were just a dead chicken, with its head and feet still on and its feathers unplucked, would I be able to pop all its joints out of their sockets and cut it up the way I’m doing now? No, I don’t think I could. So, that’s it. I’m giving myself a free pass to be less economical in this one instance (because guys, I am a total cheapskate, and proud of it) and buy pre-cut chicken pieces from now on. After all, I think I’ve earned it from all the money I’ve saved by not eating meat so far.

One of the dishes that I least liked the idea of giving up was homemade beef stew. The funny thing is, it was also one of the easiest to give up. This is because my husband doesn’t like it much, and my kid, well, she could care less as long as she still gets to eat chocolate and drink milk. So, I just don’t make it, and I’m not tempted to eat it.

Still, it was more out of pride than anything else that I didn’t want to stop making it. It took me a long time and many tries before I was successful. I don’t have a crockpot or a pressure cooker, so for me to make a great stew I had to master browning the beef in batches without burning the fat in the pan, how much liquid to add, how to keep it at a simmer for however many hours it took without it boiling too hard or not hard enough. Once I had it down pat, I go and decide I’m going to stop eating the main ingredient. Clearly, I am insane.

The recipe I linked to at the beginning of the post is the one that I finally used to make one hell of a stew. Of course, I had to change some things. I always made it without onions — are you surprised? It doesn’t need them as long as you use broth, but if you use water you probably want them in there. Also, I’m not a huge fan of rosemary so I left that out too. And even though sometimes I would add potatoes like the recipe calls for, I would just as often leave them out, and serve it with rice or pasta instead.

If you’re going to eat meat, you might as well do yourself a favor and make this stew, at least once. I think you’ll agree, it’s just about the best stew ever. There is no way I would ever even consider trying to attempt some vegetarian version of this, because I know it would just disappoint me. I’d much rather just forget it ever existed.

I don’t know why it is, but some people seem to take vegetarianism as a personal affront to their own cooking skills. The ridiculousness of this is obvious to only me in these cases. I know roasted pork tenderloin is delicious, because I’ve had it before. Hydrogenated fats are delicious too, or at least a lot of the food they’re in is, and I don’t eat that stuff either. So what’s the big deal?

For the most part, I don’t have a problem with this kind of thinking, because the occasions are rare that we go to eat at someone else’s house. Right now though, my husband’s uncle is on his yearly visit from France and we almost always eat at his house two or three times during his stay. He’s already got it in his head that there’s something wrong with me because I won’t eat onions, even if he hides them under the cheese on a pizza. So, if he gets so worked up over onions, I can only imagine what is going to happen when I tell him I’m not going to eat the roast baby pig, or steak, or whatever.

The real problem, though, is going to be when my mother in law comes to stay for the summer. See, our neighbors are her best friends, and when she was here last summer, we ate lunch there several times a week. At this point, I had already “given up” beef and pork, but because it hadn’t been very long, and I just wanted to have fun and not offend anyone, I just ate whatever they made, and yeah, it was good stuff. But almost every dish they made was either (you guessed it) beef or pork.

Here in Portugal, vegetarianism is almost unheard of. This is because it really wasn’t all that long ago, and for some it’s definitely still the case, that you ate what was available to you and didn’t get picky, because you didn’t have a choice, and you made good use of your resources. So, someone who chooses not to eat it because of some silly thing like animal rights is, basically, an ingrate.

So, all you vegetarians, help me out here. How do I tell these people, “Sorry, I know I ate stew last time I was here, but that’s not going to be the case anymore?” Have you ever had to do this? I’m not going vegetarian to be all self-righteous and suffocate everyone with my dogma, but is there even a way to not do that? I’d like to think that there is, but I just haven’t thought of it yet.

So, I’m sure you want to know, what has meat ever done that’s so wrong? Well, nothing really. There a few reasons why I’m trekking down the crunchy granola path to vegetarianism, and most of them have to do with people.

First on that list of people is myself. See, if you were to call me a bleeding heart, that would be a gross understatement. My heart is a veritable waterfall of gushing blood for any and every living thing. I was cleaning a window the other day, and there was an itty bitty spider right where I was about to spray the cleaner, so I picked him up and put him somewhere he wouldn’t die bathed in chemicals. You get the idea.

I have a big problem with the way the majority of animals raised for food are treated while they’re alive, which is basically like they’re already dead. That said, even livestock allowed to graze peacefully in an open meadow still has to be led into the slaughterhouse before it ends up on my plate as steak,  and that just doesn’t make me feel any better about it. Because what it really all comes down to is dogs.

In some parts of the world, people eat dogs. And yes, cats too. And the thing you’ll probably think is funny is, I’m alright with that. Now before you go all Brigitte Bardot and say that people that eat dogs and cats are barbarians, just think about it for a minute. To me, it seems kind of silly to judge people for eating one animal while gobbling down another. So if this makes any sense, I’m going vegetarian because (among other more rational reasons) I wouldn’t want to eat a dog.

Still, I don’t believe that everyone should be a vegetarian. I had an interesting conversation with my brother the other day, about my reasons for wanting to give up meat. He’s spending a year in Korea, so of course we talked about the dog meat thing, but also about whether or not humans were ever meant to eat meat at all. He enlightened me with a little tidbit he learned (via the Discovery channel), that “meat is what gave us our enormous brains, which allows us to wax philosophical on eating the stuff.”

The theory here is that when early man started to eat large amounts of animal protein, his brain got a jumpstart of sorts and developed at breakneck speed, making us the people we are today. I’m not inclined to disagree with that theory, although I’ve looked all over the freakin’ interwebs and can’t find one official story on it — just a bunch of postings in various forums.

Some people were obviously meant to eat meat. Fellow Clacker Jeff hunts for his own meat, which in my mind is a noble thing. A lot of people I know here in Portugal raise chickens, rabbits, pigs, sheep and goats for their own consumption. And if I weren’t absolutely revolted by the idea of shooting a deer or slitting a rabbit’s throat, cutting its head off, skinning it, disemboweling it, and so on, it might’ve been an option.

Keith and Deb might not hunt (as far as I know!) but they sure as hell love them some raw fish, something I have actually tried and found it to be, well, not delicious. So since I’m incapable of being self-sufficient, and the idea of eating raw or even partially cooked meat or fish gives me the skeeves, I’m pretty sure the best option for me is to just not eat it.

So, for all you carnivores, I’m going to use this column to pass on the recipes that I’ll no longer be eating for you to enjoy. I’ll start with the ones I’ve already given up, because this break-up has already gone on so long, why not drag it out a little further? After that, each recipe I post will be sworn off my plate (although not my husband’s or my daughter’s), until there are none left, and meat and I will be over for good. Then, I’m going to have to think up a new idea for a new column. But in the meantime, I’ll be here reminiscing, and also probably ranting a little bit. Sound like a plan?