“Corrupting Veggie”

Veggie got his name as a kid when his school friends got a whiff of his seitan sandwiches with soy cheese and a side of rice balls in the lunch room. Deprived of luxuries like animal fat and bbq’d skin, Veggie’s childhood vegetarianism has made him not only skip the bacon tray at all-you-can-eat breakfast bars, but actually dis-like the unfamiliar texture of fillet mignon and coq au vin.

When I was 10 my mother asked me what I’d like for my birthday dinner. “Pork chops and apple sauce,” I replied.
When I was 11 my mother asked me what I’d like for my birthday dinner. “Pork chops and apple sauce,” I said again.
When I was 12....I think you get the picture. I grew up on steak, game birds, and coq au vin. By the time I hit high school my favorite dish on the menu was fillet mignon with Bearnaise sauce. My mother was (perhaps still is) a baconaholic, and my older brothers were in no way subtle about there distaste for vegetarianism.

Despite our extreme differences in culinary taste, Veggie and I survived the early days of relationship by just not eating. Ha, yeah right. After less than a year of dating, he converted me, and quite willingly in fact, I abandoned game, foul, and cow, and took to eating carrot sticks and edamame. Three years, and many carnivorous cravings later, I came back to the dark side and there I shall stay.

So now it’s his turn.

Last weekend I made him eat New England Boiled Dinner...that’s corned beef brisket with cabbage, carrots, potatoes and beets that is FIVE HOURS in the making. Yeah, you better eat that meat and LIKE IT. Yeah. Ok. Glad we got that out of the way.

For the sake of my culinary sanity, I must have beef in the house! I must roast a turkey for Thanksgiving!! The bacon cannot be abandoned by the BLT!!! I don’t know how to make one, but one day we will eat POT ROAST! Amen.

Oh, and one last thing:
Real men grill steak and eat it.