Why I am a Vegetarian

[cloquewerk]

I've been a vegetarian for about 8.5 years now. Some of those years were as a vegan (or quite close to it), but I haven't knowingly touched any meat products in that time (oh except for one jello shooter once, I think, heh). It's actually only in the last couple years that I have really solidified my reasons for becoming a vegetarian, my

Comments

Re: my congratulation on 8.5 years of standing for what you belive

[cloquewerk]

Cool, in general I think it's good for us to at least occasionally step back from all the processing & industry out there and do something by ourselves, be it hunting or farming. :) I helped out a tiny bit on a community-supported farm a couple years ago, and we finally have room for a garden here, which I'm looking forward to. Probably won't have a huge yield, but I think the experience is good in and of itself, and I haven't had a garden since I was a kid.

As for cookbooks, hmmmmmm that's largely a matter of taste (heh no pun intended). I am a very big fan of Asian food, especially Indian, largely because a lot of that food was "designed" with vegetarianism in mind--as opposed to the Western vegetarian dishes adapted from meat. My current favourite cookbook (and for the last few years) is Eastern Vegetarian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey, which has recipes from Iran, India, Indonesia, China, Japan, Korea, and other such places. I think that edition is out of print, but she has similar books like World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking.

On the Western side, the Moosewood line of cookbooks are fairly popular. I also have the Millenium restaurant (a gourmet vegetarian place in San Francisco) cookbook, but it's pretty fancy, and I haven't cooked too many things from it. :)

Hope that helps...