meat and the art of co-existing
Tuesday, July 28 
Every summer I look forward to planting a big garden, which makes sense when you consider the fact that I’m a vegetarian — except for bacon, pepperoni and pulled pork. Yeah, I know that’s weird. Shawn says not eating meat except for bacon, pepperoni and pulled pork is like never touching a drop of alcohol, except for the occasional whiskey bender. Whatever. I’m not self-righteous about my preferences; you can eat Bambi, Lassie, and your neighbor’s cat in one sitting for all I care. I’ve been avoiding meat all my life, since I was young and perfected the art of sneaking a slab of meat into my pocket and excusing myself from the dinner table to flush it down the toilet.
This might not seem like too big of a deal, except that Shawn is an avid hunter and enthusiastic meat eater. So enthusiastic that once my lean husband was processing game and making it into sausage over the course of a week, and didn’t eat anything but sausage the entire time. He happened to have a cholesterol test that week, and got called back into the clinic because they’d never seen anyone as young and fit as him with such a dangerously high number. “Could eating sausage inflate my reading?” he asked them. Well probably no, not this high, they told him. “What about if I ate nothing but sausage for an entire week?” Yeah, that might do the job.
So anyway, I take a tiny bit of comfort in knowing that maybe I’m adding a few years to Shawn’s life by upping his veggie servings. Last week I took baby carrots, baby squash, snap peas, broccoli and onions and drizzled them with olive oil and tossed them with sea salt and pepper. I put them under the broiler and gave them an occasional shake until golden brown on both sides. Then I mixed them with angel hair pasta, grated Parmesan, chopped basil and finished them with a drizzle of warm olive oil with garlic. (Shawn loved it.)
First attempt at a garden in the back yard of the "fixer upper," May 2009.
Same garden two months later, July 2009.
While keeping my house clean is a lost cause, my garden is immaculate. I was wondering about this difference the other day and realized it’s because when I putz around the garden with my coffee in the morning or glass of wine at night, the males in my house do not immediately set about undoing my work. I don’t weed and tidy up the carrots just to find a set of dirty socks deposited there, or top-dress my tomatoes to turn around for a second and find sticky Popsicle wrappers strewn about. Truth be told, the garden feeds and rewards my inner control freak.
And while Shawn has come to accept my quirks and willingly prepares meat for himself and the boys, I still smirk at his occasional rebellions to veggie-land. Last month I went away for a weekend soccer tournament with the boys, and when I came home, Shawn said he wasn’t feeling well.
“What’d you eat?” I asked him.
A tiny, sheepish smile played on his face, then he said, “I went to Heebs and shopped after you left.”
“What’d you get there?”
“Umm, well, I got a rib eye.”
“And what else?
“Some Coke.”
“Anything else?”
A bag of Oreos and some beer,” he admitted.
“You ate rib eye, Coke, a bag of Oreos and beer for dinner?” I said, laughing by now.
“Well no. I ate half for dinner and finished the rest this morning for breakfast. And now I feel kind of bloated.”
Ya think?
Reader Comments (1)
Hii Meg,
I thought I remembered that it was Brussel Sprouts in your pocket. must have had a real meal in there.......Loving your stories GM