Kitchen

[house_cat]

I know that some traditional eaters think we are vocal about pushing our vegetarian agenda, but honestly, in real life, I go out of my way to keep my beliefs private. The last thing I want when attending a social event is for the hostess to go to special trouble to accommodate my preferences or be embarrassed because he/she didn't know about them.

When ordering in restaurants with people who don't know me well, I'm hesitant to inquire about the ingredients or food preparation because that opens the floodgates and an inevitable Q&A period. While I don't mind explaining my point of view, I don't think the dinner table, when everyone is about to eat, is the place to do it.

Then there are the reformers to deal with, those people like my mom who think I can be tempted back into sensibility. When I go home to visit she has my dad prepare one of my favorite meals from the old days, complete with meat... a very sweet and appreciated gesture, but it puts me in a terribly awkward situation when I can't eat it. This happens every time, when I explain she'll say, "I know you don't eat meat, but it's chicken" or "Daddy bought the ham you love from the deli... what? You don't eat cold cuts, either?"

Lastly, is there a gracious way to turn down food that you can't/won't eat without making a federal case of it? For instance, I'm a teacher and students bring me homemade treats all the time and want to stand there and watch me taste them. I make excuses like, "I'm saving it for later" and so on, but I don't like to get into the details of my diet with them. At a friend's house the other night, everyone was packing up leftover desserts and they were pushing me to take some. I said, "Oh, thanks, but I can't eat that, it would be wasteful." The hostess kept packing it and said, "Bring it to your husband and your son" and she packed me a box. I felt it would have been rude to say, "They won't eat it either", so I took it and it was wasted.

Has anyone else had similar experiences?