Well hello there, dear reader!
It’s been over a month since I went 100% vegetarian and so far so good! I am trying to get myself to enjoy eating more beans, so that’s been interesting. I made this very simple canned black bean recipe a few nights ago and I absolutely really enjoyed it – I will definitely be making it again.
I had my first take-out order of vegetarian food on my friend naima’s birthday: vegetable fried rice and avocado sushi from this local Japanese joint called Yamasaki Teriyaki. I always love fried rice so it’s a given i enjoyed that. the avocado sushi was also good, but idk – i’ll probably order it again but once 2022 hits i’m back to my eel & avocado rolls!
I have also recently become a more informed grocery shopper – i learned that if i time the local transit bus just right, i can get to the mall in 30 minutes (same as taking a $20 uber, except for just $1.75) and shop at target or walmart for so much cheaper, instead of our more expensive local grocery store. i love being in cars/moving vehicles so the extended trip time is not a probem for me. when i was a kid my tete (aunt) used to call me “peturu” (petrol) because if a car was driving out of our home, i had to be in it! and what else would i be doing besides binging my favourite comedies in my pyjamas all day anyway in these corona times.
Yeah, so that’s about it. There isn’t really much to report on the vegetarian life side of things.
In other news, I got my second dose of the covid-19 vaccine today (woohoo)!! They say the side effects of the second dose tend to be worse than for the first dose so lets just wait and see. After my first dose I just had a sore arm, like, really sore – i struggled to sleep at night, and the whole situation wasn’t helped by the fact that i tend to lie on my side in order to fall asleep (after which i’ll roll over and either sleep on my back or on my tummy – not that you care much about this minute detail of my life anyway, lol). the pain went away after ~48 hours and that was it for me on the side effects page. i know there’s a lot of concern about the vaccine and fears about getting it, and if you are concerned about it please feel free to reach out to me – it took a lot of thought (and prayer) for me to decide to get the vaccine, so at the very least i can just share my reasoning and how i finally came to my decision. Trust me, summer 2020 me would *not* believe that just half a year later i would be fully vaccinated, lol.
More other news… my college dean just recently alerted me to the fact that i now have an IMDB page (lol!!!), and so does my good friend Sarah Geach. Now Sarah has *so many* creative outlets, so i’ll just drop two here – this one and this one. She’s a gem <3. The movie we are both a part of is a documentary on the late Pauli Murray, the namesake our residential college, and we took part in a discussion on her life and work once and the film producers were around to film that! Then other smaller news: I got a new backpack this last weekend that has made me realise how horrible for my back the old one was, heh!
I am hoping that the podcast will make it’s 2021 debut sometime this month, but who knows. I know consistency is a thing, but i never want the podcast to become a burden for me so episodes will come out when i want them to come out hahaha.
Without further ado, i’ll answer the regular questions (plus one new question):
How has the experience been so far? nothing has changed from last week, really. so far so good, but once 2022 hits i’m eating meat again. i have been surprised, though, by how constricted vegetarian options are. to me it seemed as though so many people were vegetarian that there would be more options at restaurants and stuff but not quite. not that there aren’t many options, i was just expecting more. either i overestimated the vegetarian market coming into this, or the suppliers underestimate vegetarian demand.
Protein: still enjoying my yoghurts. i’m hoping my new friendship with beans will also help a lot here. tbh i’ve been far less obsessed with my protein intake over the last two weeks than i was when i wrote the last post. that might just be because i’m settling into a routine and i more instinctively rather than consciously look for high protein food when i shop/cook.
Could I see myself remaining vegetarian past December 2021? No, thank you. Next.
[updated question] Favourite recipe since last post: y’all, i made myself such a *yummy* beyond burger yesterday. if you aren’t aware, beyond burgers are these imitation burgers which are plant based – but don’t let “plant-based” fool you, they are about as unhealthy as regular burgers lol. i made the patty, fried some onions, added a few slices of iceberg lettuce and tomato, and made a little bit of this sauce (sans the bbq sauce), then slapped all this on two halves of a toasted english muffin. hmm… it was actually “finger-licking good”.
[new unrelated question] song recommendation of the day: this question has just been born out of the fact that i love this song and it’s been playing in my mind for the last few hours. it’s called I Hope You Dance, and it is by Mandisa, an incredibly encouraging artist whom I was actually introduced to in high school by Sarah Geach’s mom. Everytime I listen to it I imagine it as a letter I have written to my future (currently faceless) daughter that she is reading. i magine mandisa herself might have had a similar vision.
As always, hmu if you have thoughts/comments/suggestions.
Until next time, amigos!
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xx QueenJoy
CANDID SHAR'N 