VEGETARIANISM: DAY SIX

Today, the office where I work joined together to eat lunch and celebrate two co-employees moving on to new jobs and the birthday of another.  The choice had been made, the time and day had been set.  The office was to meet at Logan’s Roadhouse, which, if is not already, should be described as a steakhouse, or at least, the McDonald’s of steakhouses.

I had to have a game plan going in which was simple, eat only vegetable sides.  I started ordering the sides when the waitress advised that a four side plate was available.  And this is the clinker, the point:  I asked her to point out where on the menu did it describe the selection.  After, some time scanning the menu, and awkwardly long time, I eventually told her to give it to me.  Logan’s Roadhouse is interested in you ordering only sides; its menu forces you to select meat.

Everyone around me chose meat plates, fish or steak or hamburgers.  I had to watch them to partake in something I had committed to avoiding at least for a month.  It probably would have been easy to cast away the experiment, to declare the whole venture silly and really not worth completing.  Such an averment would have permitted me to enjoy the full capacity of Logan’s menu. 

The harder choice, the more creativity choice, would be to choose individual items off the menu in order to satisfy my hunger, to simulate the need for meat.  I ended up choosing vegetable kabob, mushroom kabob, rice, and steamed broccoli, a plate that got me through lunch. 

This evening, I felt a twinge of missing meat, a fleeting thought passed through my mind of running quickly through a fast food drive-thru to pickup a burger and fries.  But I didn’t.  I came home instead.

Creativity seems to be the key to sticking to the plan, finding foods to simulate the feel, the texture, and the taste of meat.

Tomorrow is day seven, the end of the first week.  A week is a long time for a fruit fly.  In human time, it really is just the blink of an eye.  If I am thinking about sneaking off to eat meat now, what will next week or week three bring?