No Meat, Please, I'm Vegetarian -- and Pierced . . . and Have a Shaved Head . . . and a Weird Little Patch of Hair Below My Lip
My vegetarian readers may be as interested as I was to learn that New York Times food writer Mark Bittman has a new cookbook coming out in October, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.
His more general book, How to Cook Everything, has become my favorite basic (non-vegetarian) cookbook -- far superior to the old standby Joy of Cooking (whichever version of that one you have; there are as many generations of Joy of Cooking as I understand there are of Nancy Drew mysteries). Bittman's recipes have never steered me wrong, so I'm excited to see he's devoted 1,008 pages to meat-free dishes (even though he's not vegetarian himself).
Publisher's Weekly says about the new cookbook: "Even owners of the original book will find much new to savor while benefiting from Bittman's remarkable ability to teach foundational skills and encourage innovation with them, which will help even longtime vegetarians freshen their repertory."
***
I could use some veggie empowerment, because I'm joining several people from my office for a half-day meeting/retreat next Tuesday at this restaurant, a very nice place I've never been to that specializes in Southern Low Country cuisine -- a.k.a. meat, seafood, and other animal products. There's one vegetarian entree on the menu. It looks perfectly good, but it would be nice to have more than one option.
Once again I find myself mildly annoyed at the insensitivity of colleagues about (1) what vegetarianism means (it does not mean I eat fish) or (2) the fact that there's a vegetarian on the staff in the first place (actually, there's more than one, but I'm the only one at this meeting). That would be me -- the single, gay, artsy, pierced, soul-patched, shaved-head (currently growing the hair out a bit) introvert in the corner.
Speaking of which, here's something interesting (and related): A few years ago, I published an essay that included the following passage:
One afternoon at the office lunch table, my first job out of college, the conversation turned to a client who’d been in that morning. He was in his thirties, casually dressed, irreverent, chatty, highly caffeinated. This was noticeable in a workplace of Brooks Brothers, Talbots, and Laura Ashley. He also wore a gold hoop on his left ear.
“You know what my kids tell me,” a coworker—the mother of teenagers—chirped in apparent relief. “Left is right, and right is wrong!”
I detested this woman for reasons that were only reinforced by those words. Hearing an aphorism for the proper side for a man to wear an earring on—“spring forward, fall back,” “i before e, except after c”—made me resentful, but also cautious: If I ever did submit to a piercing gun, I knew it would be on the left ear.*
Well, nearly 25 years later, after a number of years away, I now work in the very same office again. Just the other day, the very same "client" I described in that essay came up in conversation among some coworkers. (He's now a fairly prominent writer living in another city.) Once again -- nearly 25 years later -- they were off and running, talking about how "edgy" he was, what with his pierced ear and shaved head and all!
Jesus. Last time I checked, it was the 21st century.
__________
* In fact, as the essay goes on to describe, when it came time for my first pierced ear, I had the right one -- the "gay" one -- pierced. I later had the left one pierced as well, wore two earrings for a time, then one, then none, then my holes closed up. A few years later, after breaking up with my ex, I had my right one pierced again. And so it remains today, with a thin silver hoop in it.
His more general book, How to Cook Everything, has become my favorite basic (non-vegetarian) cookbook -- far superior to the old standby Joy of Cooking (whichever version of that one you have; there are as many generations of Joy of Cooking as I understand there are of Nancy Drew mysteries). Bittman's recipes have never steered me wrong, so I'm excited to see he's devoted 1,008 pages to meat-free dishes (even though he's not vegetarian himself).
Publisher's Weekly says about the new cookbook: "Even owners of the original book will find much new to savor while benefiting from Bittman's remarkable ability to teach foundational skills and encourage innovation with them, which will help even longtime vegetarians freshen their repertory."
***
I could use some veggie empowerment, because I'm joining several people from my office for a half-day meeting/retreat next Tuesday at this restaurant, a very nice place I've never been to that specializes in Southern Low Country cuisine -- a.k.a. meat, seafood, and other animal products. There's one vegetarian entree on the menu. It looks perfectly good, but it would be nice to have more than one option.
Once again I find myself mildly annoyed at the insensitivity of colleagues about (1) what vegetarianism means (it does not mean I eat fish) or (2) the fact that there's a vegetarian on the staff in the first place (actually, there's more than one, but I'm the only one at this meeting). That would be me -- the single, gay, artsy, pierced, soul-patched, shaved-head (currently growing the hair out a bit) introvert in the corner.
Speaking of which, here's something interesting (and related): A few years ago, I published an essay that included the following passage:
One afternoon at the office lunch table, my first job out of college, the conversation turned to a client who’d been in that morning. He was in his thirties, casually dressed, irreverent, chatty, highly caffeinated. This was noticeable in a workplace of Brooks Brothers, Talbots, and Laura Ashley. He also wore a gold hoop on his left ear.
“You know what my kids tell me,” a coworker—the mother of teenagers—chirped in apparent relief. “Left is right, and right is wrong!”
I detested this woman for reasons that were only reinforced by those words. Hearing an aphorism for the proper side for a man to wear an earring on—“spring forward, fall back,” “i before e, except after c”—made me resentful, but also cautious: If I ever did submit to a piercing gun, I knew it would be on the left ear.*
Well, nearly 25 years later, after a number of years away, I now work in the very same office again. Just the other day, the very same "client" I described in that essay came up in conversation among some coworkers. (He's now a fairly prominent writer living in another city.) Once again -- nearly 25 years later -- they were off and running, talking about how "edgy" he was, what with his pierced ear and shaved head and all!
Jesus. Last time I checked, it was the 21st century.
__________
* In fact, as the essay goes on to describe, when it came time for my first pierced ear, I had the right one -- the "gay" one -- pierced. I later had the left one pierced as well, wore two earrings for a time, then one, then none, then my holes closed up. A few years later, after breaking up with my ex, I had my right one pierced again. And so it remains today, with a thin silver hoop in it.
posted by Billy at 10:33 PM
3 Comments:
Oh no you didn't just slam The Joy of Cooking!!! Thanks for the cookbook head's up!
My left ear is pierced. I thought that was the "gay" ear. Gosh. Maybe that's why everyone thinks I'm straight.
*cough*
*cough*
I challenge you to find one person, gay or straight, in the next week who has just his right ear pierced.
the right-is-wrong lady probably never had an original thought or sentiment in her life much less the capacity to imagine anything other than "state sanctioned" social dogma. unfortunately she represents a large segment of the u.s. population.
Post a Comment
<< Home