6.20.2008

30 Days, Sandwich, and Red Pepper Curry

Days off. How we love them. But apparently I get so excited that I don't sleep the night before...5 am came and I was still online, but for good reasons. Helping a friend with a paper and philosophically debating with another friend on animal welfare, consumerism, capitalism, and other related ideas. He is a heavy meat-eater, but respects my beliefs.

After I got some sort of sleep, I decided to make what I was calling a HOT! A Hummus, Onion, Cucumber sandwich...then why hot? Because I apparently do not know what a cucumber is called. My dad finally questioned my logic with my name. So I decided to just stick with BLT, making even more sense. Just hummus on toasted whole-grain bread with cucumber, dill, season salt, and fried onion bits. Cucumber and dill is probably one of my favorite lunches.

And somehow the debate from the night before lead into my watching of the show 30 days. If you haven't heard, Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) has a reality series where one extreme will go to the opposite end for 30 days. He has done living on minimum wage, living with handicaps, and more. But this episode I was told about by the Vegblog. A deer hunter from the Carolinas would be heading to LA to live with a demonstration planner for PETA and her vegan, animal rights activist family. I was extremely worried about the show, I just hoped that it wouldn't put our cause into a bad light or make it out to be some kind of joke. It turned out to be an amazing 45 minutes of television. The hunter went with a closed mind, but he was able to open up while he experienced demonstrations for KFC, UCLA animal experimentation, and Burberry fur industry. He also ate fully vegan and worked at Animal Acres. My major issue with the episode is that for a few points I was agreeing with the hunter, he was extremely frustrated with people just continually being a broken record and not give him the hard facts. He said he would just have uped and left if he had to live with the founder of Animal Acres. I know it probably was frustrating having to work with someone you knew was going against your cause, but she continually tried to reason with him by bringing up Nazi Germany and slavery in our nation. I had a hard time seeing through this argument, as Im all about the facts, the science, the psychology, and economic sides. I know nobody will listen to me if I just go on about emotion. But if I can prove with my schooling that a vegan lifestyle is healthy or that all animals have developed sensory system, or even refute that a fucking plant has feelings...well then I think I will effect more people and get through further. The show was extremely emotional, I cried not once, not twice, nope not even just three, four times. I HIGHLY recommend watching the program. You can watch it on hulu, for free, and legal, beginning June 25th. There are little tidbits of the program already up.

I really want my mom to watch it with me, I think that if she sees first hand the events that took place just in 30 days, not too many months ago, she might take some interest in what I believe in and stop wanting to be ignorant. It hurts that after almost a decade of trying to talk about what is important to me I stil cannot get through to her. She doesnt want to hear about it and becomes disinterested and just shows to me that she doesnt want any part. Tonight I tried to talk about the episode and how great it was, but it was all just 'oh? hmmm' 's. My sister's friend is vegan and has been talking to my sister about some of the major issues with factory farms, my sister relayed that to my mom, and she listened! My dad is even worse. Anything I make, anything I bake he just turns away from it. I have a feeling if nobody tol
d him they were vegan, he would eat 30. But with my vegan brownies, my mom loved them, tried to get him to try one, no do. I just don't get it. On the program the PETA employee was able to turn her whole family into vegans. I know that probably will never happen with my family, but I wish they could see the health benefits, want to see the horrors that I am aware, or even just take some interest in what I believe and care about. I try telling my mom that I want to make a difference in farm animals lives, she makes it obvious that she doesnt agree with my desires. She just told me I keep changing my mind. But I am only changing my mind because I know my calling, my passion, my life is within the animal rights realm.

Anyways, watch 30 days! You will love it. And if you are unable to watch it at Hulu and want a copy, I can try and figure out my DVD recorder and send it to you. It was that awesome.

I did promise that I would be cooking today since I had the day off. Though, my mom comes home and says she is making dinner for us all. She has this recipe she wants to try and it can easily be veganized. It came from the Chicago Tribune a few days ago, it is called Saucy curried chicken, but mine was obviously with good 'ol tofu. The recipe calls for honey, but we used sugar water and calls for yogurt, but I didn't have any soy yogurt so cream cheese whipped into a bit of soy milk did the trick. Laid out on a bed of orzo and topped with fresh mint and a plate of salad; this meal was delicious. It looked easy to make and could easily be tampered for a spicy or mild mood. Very delicious. So thank you mom for making dinner!

Tomorrow back to work, so no cooking. But I will be doing the last bits of packing and getting ready for my big move.

5 comments:

LK Sisters said...

Always love cucumbers with hummus!

Thanks for visiting our blog! As for the pancakes, you could probably use 2 cups of flour (any mixture of flours - oat flour, spelt flour, whole wheat pastry flour, buckwheat works well in pancakes). And then add some baking powder or baking soda (1 - 1 1/2 Tb?) and a little salt (1/4 tsp?). Or just follow your favorite pancake recipe and just add the chai seeds and nuts and use chai tea and soymilk. Hope that helps!

Bob's Red Mill also has a buckwheat pancake mix, a cornmeal pancake mix, and a high fiber pancake mix (all vegan) that you may want to look for at the store!

zenpawn said...

Morgan Spurlock is the man! I blogged about this show too, and it caused quite a stir in the comments. I was pleasantly surprised with how open-minded the hunter ended up being.

Alicia said...

I think I have the solution to your problem... Hummus, onion and... tomatoes! HOT! hehehe

Lisa (Show Me Vegan) said...

I have that show recorded and plan to watch it soon. Not looking forward to the crying part though!

Christo Gonzales said...

nice sandwich......