Vegan in Eugene

• Breakfast: A banana
• Lunch: A Hot and Jazzy Bowl from Cafe Yumm! I ordered it vegan, so it came without the cheese and sour cream, etc.
• Dinner: Pad King from Ta Ra Rin in Eugene
• Snacks: I had about 4 bites of Marionberry sorbet from an ice cream shop
• Drinks: water, coffee, beer

That’s a vegan day if you ask me. It’s possible there was fish sauce in the Thai food, I didn’t ask. Because I really don’t care.

Celine had a concert in Eugene today, so we headed down a bit early for her rehearsal. That meant I had a lot of time to hang out in Eugene on my own, so I went and ate at Cafe Yumm! and spent some time hanging out in the computer lab. The concert itself was great, and Celine had a solo in one of the pieces (and she was awesome!!). After the show, we went to dinner with a friend of ours from Nashville who also moved out here to Eugene. She’s been here a bit longer than us (just over a year), and it was great to reconnect with her out here. All in all, an excellent day.

Saturday – Silver Falls

• Breakfast: Banana (this was a mistake, as you’ll see in my lunch entry)
• Lunch: the All-American hamburger and homemade fries at the Covered Bridge Cafe in Stayton, OR
• Dinner: Leftover brussels sprouts and brown rice
• Drinks: Water and coffee

Yeah, that was real deal hamburger, and it’s basically because I wasn’t very smart about my day when it came to food. Mainly because we took off on a hiking adventure on the spur of the moment, and food was the last thing on our minds.

Around 11 this morning, Celine stated that she’d like to have an adventure today. This was basically a ploy to avoid school work, but I readily agreed, and before long we were packing up for a hiking trip to Silver Falls. Sure, it was overcast and the forecast was for drizzly rain, but at some point you just have to deal with it up here. So we hopped into the car with our hats and coats and water bottles and drove to the park.

It was getting there that put us in a bad lunching position. The park is only about 30 miles from us, but it’s through windy roads and small towns, and we didn’t consider the fact that we’d need to eat lunch until we were in those small towns. Thus, we ended up at the Covered Bridge Cafe, which was quaint and awesome and reminded me of my uncle’s restaurant back in Eden when I was a kid. However, their vegan options were, shall we say, limited. Basically, I could have had a salad with no dressing or a plain baked potato, and I was too hungry to settle for that. Thus, the burger and homemade chips, both of which were amazing, and both of which gave that, “hey, I just ate fried meat” feeling.

But it passed quickly, and we continued on the park and started our hike. And it was quite a lovely one:

It’s truly amazing to me that we are basically half an hour from scenery like this. And if we’d driven the other way for just a bit longer, we’d have been at the beach. Pretty cool. Anyway, here’s another view of the South Falls at the park:

Not sure that it shows well in this picture, but the trail actually goes behind the falls, so you can get a full 360 degree view of it. It’s pretty amazing, as well as wet and a little cold! One last view from the base of the falls:

We then headed to the Lower South Falls, which weren’t as tall but were wider, and the path behind those falls was much closer to the waterfall itself. We didn’t get any great shots of Lower South Falls (we brought the camera, but no extra batteries, so it was dying on us), but Celine got this great shot from behind the Lower South Falls:

Pretty cool to be behind a wall of water. All in all, it was a great day to be outside in the cool Oregon air, and we enjoyed the hike. As you may know, the only problem with hiking to the bottom of a waterfall is that you eventually have to hike back up to the top, so we had a pretty strenuous climb at the end before we left (for us, anyway!). It left is appropriately worn out from our day of adventure.

To complete our day, we finally got a picture of our favorite sign in Salem on the way back into town, which I am happy to share with you:

Yeah, I’m still immature enough to think that’s hilarious. We actually pulled into the parking lot to take this picture, we have no shame.

Friday’s food

• Breakfast: Oatmeal with cranberries and brown sugar (we were out of nuts!)
• Lunch: I had the Veggie Monster sandwich (6 inch on wheat) from East Side Deli. I did keep the mayo and honey mustard on there, so not totally vegan.
• Dinner: We went to Ram, which was delicious but not particularly healthy. We split some onion rings and then I had their Tumbleweed Burger with their veggie patty and homemade fries. The burger had some sort of mayo sauce on it, and their veggie patty uses a bit of cheese as a binder, so definitely not vegan.
• Snacks: Handful of nuts, pita chips (from a bag this time, not homemade)
• Drinks: Water coffee, 3 beers and a liquor drink

That sounds like a lot of alcohol, but it was very spread out. I had one to end the day at work, then much later at dinner had a beer and the liquor drink (which was pretty weak if I do say so myself), and then a late night beer before bed (we were up until almost 2). So it was pretty spread out and only succeeded in giving me a headache.

I think yesterday’s dinner was a great example of how you can eat vegetarian (and really, not very far from vegan) and still be incredibly unhealthy. Everything on my plate last night was fried, and I felt pretty disgusting after eating there. It gave me a very clear vision of how you could be an unhealthy vegan, and that is not my end goal here. So, less fried food.

Okay, I’ve got another post coming, complete with pictures for Saturday.

Chickpea cutlets

• Breakfast: A banana, and then some cauliflower mid-morning. Weird breakfast, I know.
• Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some veggies, pita chips and hummus
• Dinner: Brown rice, brussels sprouts with a almond butter sauce and chickpea cutlets from the Veganomicon cookbook. We put almond butter sauce on that as well.
• Snacks: hummus and veggies and pita chips
• Drinks: Water and coffee

That’s two vegan days in a row. Lots of good food today too. I didn’t love the chickpea cutlets, I just thought they were a little bland. However, Celine liked them quite a bit so we may make them again the future. But in general, I’m just against the idea of fake meat. I don’t know if chickpea cutlets really qualify since they don’t have a stupid fake meat name (tofurkey, for instance), but at this point, I’d usually rather just eat a vegetable or a piece of tofu. I don’t see any reason to try and make something that’s not chicken look like chicken, and I certainly see no reason to try to make it taste like chicken. It’s always a complete failure anyway, so why not just call it what it is?

At least these things were called chickpeas so we knew what we were getting. They just needed more seasoning and I think they’d be fine.

A good day

• Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried cranberries, pecans and brown sugar
• Lunch: A barbeque tofu sandwich (yeah, they make those in Portland) and some greens cooked with no meat from Russell Street Barbeque
• Dinner: Baby Bok Choy with Crispy Shallots and Toasted Sesame Seeds from the Veganomicon cookbook and brown rice
• Snacks: Handful of nuts, two or three handfuls of popcorn, hummus and veggies and pita chips
• Drinks: Water, coffee

Hey, a successful day! The barbeque tofu was different, but pretty delicious. Certainly not a substitute for actual pig, but it was good for what it was. The bok choy recipe tonight wasn’t bad, but it was kind of bland. I think we’d use either more soy sauce or a little salt next time around, and it could have benefited from some red pepper flakes as well. Anything to give it a little more kick.

After last night’s fish dinner, I’ve realized that I can really tell a difference when I eat fried food. Nothing fried today, and I feel much better than I did last night, so I think fried food will be a much lower priority for me moving forward. I’m sure that’s a good thing in almost every way (except for the way that includes onion rings and jalapeno poppers).

That’s really all I’ve got tonight. A good day of eating, and now for a good night’s sleep.

Mo’s

• Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried cranberries, pecans and brown sugar
• Lunch: A big ol’ salad
• Dinner: We went to Mo’s. I had some onion rings, some clam chowder, a seafood combo plate (cod, shrimp and clam strips, all fried) and steamed green beans.
• Snacks: Veggies and hummus

Sigh.

So, Celine called me from Eugene yesterday afternoon. She had a friend in town to audition for the flute program at Oregon, and they had decided it would be fun to drive out to the coast. They asked if I wanted to meet them out there for dinner, and that sounded like a great idea to me.

As you can imagine, the places out there are all about fish, and Mo’s was all about chowder and fried fish. This is supposedly the best clam chowder anywhere, so I decided to try it. Turns out it’s not all that great (even our waiter admitted it), and the fried fish dinner, while pretty tasty, made me feel completely disgusting after I ate it. Maybe I should read my own blog, huh?

Since we are living in a coastal state where delicious seafood is abundant, I’d already decided that I would occasionally eat fish. Fresh seafood is not something that you get in Tennessee, and even though fish is meat, it’s much better for you than other types of meat. That is, unless you batter it and deep fry it and cover it in tartar sauce. So, I think I’ll amend my exception here to say that I will occasionally eat fresh fish cooked well.

This diet continues to be a learning experience. I’m determined to have a no meat, no cheating sort of day today. Please hold me to that.

The Original again

• Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried cranberries, walnuts and brown sugar
• Lunch: A chickpea and quinoa burger and a side salad from The Original. My co-worker Molly wanted to go there for her birthday lunch! As a result, I also had a couple of fries from the poutine (okay, maybe more like a few, but still not that many) and one bite of her birthday dessert, a chocolate cake with coconut and almonds called an Almond Joy cake. Very ORIGINAL, Original.
• Dinner: The Thai Veggie Peanut Bowl from Venti’s with tofu and some sweet potato fries.
• Drinks: Water, coffee, beer

I am sleepy, so that’s all you get. Goodnight, internet.

Finally

• Breakfast: Steel cut oats with dried cranberries, brown sugar and walnuts
• Lunch: A dish called Indo Udon and some edamame at Soba. The Udon had veggies, fried tofu and noodles in a “spicy sauce”
• Dinner: A huge salad and hummus with pita chips and fresh veggies (carrot, celery, cauliflower)
• Drink: Water, coffee, wine

I also had one bite of Celine’s chicken teryiaki, which was delicious and my only non-vegan item of the day. But my menu for the day is not the big news. The big news is:

THE STONE HAS LEFT BUILDING

Yep, last night I finally passed my kidney stone. I’ll spare you any and all disgusting details, but I will tell you these two things:

1. Actually passing the stone was not painful at all. In fact, I was surprised to see it, I felt no pain.
2. It is truly astounding that something that small could cause so much agony.

Seriously, it’s tiny. The doctor said it was 3mm, and while it looks a little larger than that (5mm by my measurement, but it depends on which dimension you measure, I guess), we are talking millimeters here. Less than half a centimeter, and it was easily the most painful thing I’ve ever felt in my life.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, that’s what I say. This kidney stone will not be missed, and I can’t wait to hand it over to my doctor (they analyze them, apparently). It’s good to feel like this ordeal is done.

Nothing much else to report from Oregon. Hope you’re all doing well.

Cooking shows

• Breakfast: Steel cut oats with dried cranberries and walnuts and brown sugar
• Lunch: More vegan pizza
• Dinner: Black bean burger (vegan this time), a salad and a few tater tots
• Snacks: Cauliflower and hummus, and one cookie (yeah, it had eggs and chocolate in it)
• Drink: Water, coffee

So, here’s something I’ve noticed since becoming a vegan/vegetarian/whatever I am. Celine and I both have an affinity for cooking shows. We have a handful of favorites (Julia and Jacques on PBS, Cook’s Country and America’s Test Kitchen on PBS, and for me, Good Eats on Food Network – Alton will always have a place in my heart, no matter how pretentious he gets), and the Food Network is on our TV whenever we can’t decide what to watch. Everything on the Food Network has gotten to be a little too much like a kindergarten class for our tastes lately, but the PBS shows are still fantastic, and we DVR them so we can spend our weekend mornings watching Julia Child deglaze a pan or Christopher Kimball in his bow tie speak patronizingly to his cooks in the test kitchen. It’s a nice way to spend a morning.

But the insulting attitude of the Food Network hosts is not what I’ve noticed, nor the weirdness of Kimball’s attire. What I’ve noticed is that there are absolutely no shows that focus on vegetarian cooking, and certainly none that focus on vegan cooking. What’s more, there are very few that ever focus on vegetables at all, even for one show. Every cooking show I’ve seen since I started eating this way has focused on a meat dish, so much so that it’s become obvious that this is the standard format of the show. They do usually make a side dish of some sort of vegetable, but even that dish often contains meat, or it’s something equally unhealthy, like macaroni and cheese or some sort of creamy potato dish.

With so much emphasis on healthful eating these days, it’s amazing to me that there aren’t more cooking shows that talk about cooking healthful meals. Indeed, many of the Food Network shows talk about this regularly, but the food they are actually preparing is hardly health food. Is it better for you than a fast food burger? Sure, but that’s a pretty low bar. In many cases, I think the Food Network especially is guilty of promoting the idea of a healthy meal, when in reality the meal isn’t all that good for you.

There are some notable exceptions, of course. None of these folks cook vegetarian, but they at least promote cooking in a more healthful way. Our favorite is Jamie Oliver, who had a fantastic show on Food Network called Jamie at Home. The show was filmed at his home (thus the title), and he had a huge garden from which he picked most of the foods he cooked. He did cook meat as well, but it was always local and ethically raised meat, and he talked about this aspect quite a lot. We bought the cookbook related to the show, and it’s a great find. I’d highly recommend any of his books, actually.

When did this awesome show air on the Food Network? Once a week, at 8AM on Friday. That is, until they stopped showing it entirely. Apparently, in England they make cooking shows about a cookbook (we sort of do the opposite here). So the show is there to promote the cookbook, which means the show itself has a limited number of episodes. I guess once Food Network had run through those a couple of times, they took it off the air.

Food Network also has Ellie Krieger and Aida Mollenkamp, and they both focus on healthy recipes. However, I can’t even find their shows in the lineup anymore, so maybe they aren’t on the network any longer.

Julia Child and the Test Kitchen folks make no bones about their cooking. They are going for delicious, not necessarily healthy, and they are completely honest about that, which I can respect. The Food Network is not so honest about it though, and that is starting to rub me the wrong way. And with such power at their command in the world of cooking shows, would it kill them to have just one cook that focused on healthful meals? I think part of the problem is that people don’t think they can eat something that’s delicious and healthy, and that’s just not true.

But you wouldn’t know it from watching cooking shows, that’s for sure.

Just food

• Breakfast: Kashi bar (still fighting my steak hangover)
• Lunch: Vegan pizza from Pizza Hut (a Veggie Lover’s with no olives or cheese)
• Dinner: Broccoli and tofu stir fry in a peanut sauce. This had a little egg in it, which was used to dredge the tofu so we could coat it in cornmeal for frying, but otherwise vegan. Brown rice.
• Water, coffee, wine

Back to eating healthy today, and I do feel better. I spent the day working from home with a cat on my lap too, which certainly doesn’t hurt.