Anyway, to give a re-cap of what's happened in the intervening months: I survived vegetarianism! Sure, it was only one month, but to hear some of my friends, you would've thought I volunteered to amputate an arm. I suppose now is the time to yak about some lessons learned, but in keeping with my truth-telling streak, I'm going to come clean and say, I didn't learn much. I already eat a diet with a lot of vegetables, never having been one who needed meat at every meal. I often ate vegetarian meals just because I simply preferred it. The month-long vegetarianism experiment basically proved what I had already known about myself, which is it isn't that hard for me to be a vegetarian. However, I like meat and the way it can be prepared, and I don't see a need to deprive myself of it so I'm back to being an omnivore. I wasn't eating vegetarian for moral reasons, not even health reasons, so there wasn't anything compelling me to stay veggie. Ah, a lack of moral conviction. That's totally my tagline.
Another thing that happened to me was that I lost steam in the kitchen a bit. I was heavy into trying new recipes last year, baking and shit (wtf, I'm actually baking?), and when the new year broke, I was plain tuckered out. I spent some time at home with my parents, where I didn't venture much into the kitchen (my mother's domain), and when I finally I came back, I think I lost some of my mojo. However, it seems to be trickling back, spurred by looking at pictures of food and thinking, I want to eat that and I can totally make that. The latter is only sometimes true.
So here's something that I made recently: Grilled Salmon over Rice. I don't really cook fish much, and so surprisingly, this turned out quite edible unlike my previous attempt, which I will not think of again. I originally wanted to make tuna tataki, but the Asian market, that I drove 20 minutes to just get fresh fish, did not have any. I know. What in sashimi hell is going on? I would not be deterred. I wanted fish on rice, and daggumit, I will have it! So it was a quick ball-change to salmon, though it could not be raw since I didn't want to spend the money on sashimi grade fish. Grilled it was, and it was excellent. It's mixed with masago, layered with daikon sticks and radish sprouts (yes, I like my radish), and sprinkled with green onions. A gentle hand with soy sauce over it, and it made a light and delish Monday night dinner. All that was missing was miso soup, but it was already 10 PM and I just didn't have time to whip that out as well.
You like?
