Everything in America comes with cheese

... even, sometimes, when you explicitly ask if that thing has anything else on or with it, besides the listed ingredients.  Apparently, cheese is not a thing, it is a given.

I went home for Thanksgiving this year.  It was beautiful and frantic and jam-packed with people-seeing and food-eating, as well as boyfriend-introducing (mine; everyone else has husbands, come on!), and it was also my first time back in the States as a vegan.

(By the way, I'm going to breeze right past my normal paragraph of the flaky, manifold reasons I haven't written in so long, so feel free to insert your favorite excuses here!)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I gave up dairy completely about a year and a half ago, and I gave up all the other animal-y stuff earlier this year... minus a brief lapse when I was filming in Algeria and newly vegan and bad at planning.  Okay, and before that when I started dating my boyfriend and to trick him into eventually becoming vegan with me, I ate some burgers in his presence.  That's a lie.  Having never been a big meat eater, I suddenly had a couple of burger cravings when I gave it all up.  So yeah, I ate one or two.  Not in one sitting.  But not anymore!  And now he -- who used to routinely eat several chicken breasts and a steak in a single 12-hour period -- is vegetarian and mostly vegan too. And we say "Ugh, gross," together when we see commercials featuring meat counters and Christmas roasts.  Awwww!

Due to my awesome planning and/or impromtu, jet-lagged cook-a-thon, Thanksgiving was the least challenging food day of my trip home.  I made this beauty (click pic below for amazing PPK recipe), as well as a gluten-free nut roast, sweet potato bread, coconut pie, pumpkin pie, and non-butter versions of the usual TG staples: stuffing and mashed potatoes.

Seitan Roast Stuffed With Shiitakes and Leeks, pic by Isa Chandra

Am I bragging?  A little bit.  I made a lot of delicious food.  (I could not have done any of it without Isa Chandra, whose website I plugged above, and whose new book we just bought.  You should too.) When it came to grotesque overeating, including feelings of ecstasy (so much food!), panic (oh god, so much food!), desperation (must... eat... all... the food...), and finally overwhelming lethargy and immobility (whyyyyyyyyyyy), I was not going to be excluded.  I had to make sure there was enough to share, but also to ensure my eventual surrender to the couch.

Special thanks to my dad for stocking his kitchen with vegan goodies and fully turning it over to me for two days of prep, my mom for hosting an awesome Thanksgiving meal (traditional jigsaw puzzle included), and my sister for only getting a little bit cranky with me right at the end of a three-hour stretch of sharing my mom's kitchen whilst I did my "last minute" prep, which ended up being a lot more comprehensive than expected and very much in her way.

Thanksgiving was a success!  I had leftovers for almost a week; the boyfriend, having arrived the night before, survived the firestorm that was meeting lots of strangers and being force-fed portions even larger than the already extra-large American standard on 8 hours of jet lag; we completed not one but two 500-piece jigsaw puzzles.  Nobody was mean or weird about the vegan thing.

I guess if I had spent the entirety of my vacation cooking for myself, I wouldn't have run into any problems, but I took a couple of days out of the kitchen when we went up to Seattle to visit friends.  (I was not in any way confined to or trapped in the kitchen, I just really like cooking.  It makes me feel in control.  That's normal, right?)

Becoming a vegan in London was pretty easy.  I had already overcome the cheese cravings (cheese is addictive, no joke), and that was by biggest hurdle.  Some cupboard staples were pesky to find at first, but once I found which stores stocked them, I was set.  The rest was mostly reading the ingredients listed on the back of food every time, deciding I probably shouldn't be buying things with so many ingredients anyway, and obsessively schooling myself in the art of baking without eggs.

I've always assumed, nay, gloated that America (at least in the big, lefty cities) is a good five to ten years ahead of the UK when it comes to the availability of organic/gf/vegan foods.  All that bragging came to bite me in the ass.

Before hitting Seattle or even the suburban town I grew up in, I experienced one of the worst vegan food deserts I've experienced yet: the airport.  Specifically, the Vancouver airport.  Vancouver!  Canada!  Isn't it supposed to be a bastion of liberalism and the promise of what American could be if only it tried?  The only suitable food I could find on my 4-hour layover was a pack of potato chips and a container of pre-chopped carrots, celery, cauliflower and broccoli, sans the ranch dip it was accompanied by.  From Cinnabon/Burger King.  Airports are the worst. 

I expected more from Seattle.  I understand that most restaurants are not vegan (though we did go to a particularly delicious one with my step-bro and his hubby called Plum Bistro), but I guess I thought I wouldn't have to do as much explaining and qualifying with my food orders. 

We went out to eat twice with the friends we were staying with: once for breakfast (favourite meal) and once for a late afternoon session of drinks and Dominion-indoctrination.  Oh my god, have you played Dominion?  You need to. 

I usually specifically ask about dairy, I don't know why I didn't in these cases.  Maybe I was feeling some renewed anxiety about asking lots of "fussy" questions in a different environment.  Damn it, I'm totally becoming English, all reserved and overly apologetic.  In the first instance, I ordered and potato-y, vegatable-y breakfast with a side of black beans.  Exercising caution, I asked if the beans were cooked in anything (i.e. butter), or if they're just plain.  I was assured they were plain.  When they arrived, they were covered in cheese.

Similarly, a platter of pita and dips ordered later in the day for our game marathon -- all non-dairy, based on their menu description -- was delivered with cheese crumbled all over the top.  I sent my orders back rather sheepishly each time, but why?  I had no reason to be embarrassed.  I was going by the information provided, not the secret law of cheese, which is that it is everywhere.  

The ubiquity of dairy aside, going home for Thanksgiving was totally worth it.  It remains my favourite holiday.  I wish it wasn't founded in hypocrisy and offensive cartoons featuring mice pilgrims and mice Native Americans getting along despite their cultural differences.

I'm glad we have it, though.  I'm glad I have a family who celebrates it so openly and generously.  I'm glad my English boyfriend got to experience it for the first time in a real, live, American home.  I'm thankful for Thanksgiving.

I'm the doctor!

I was roused from my internet stupor Saturday afternoon by the following text message* from our neighbors K and the OGD (Other Good Doctor): 

"Hey, our friends we were supposed to see tonight were at a mansion party last night and aren't up for anything, so now we've got all this food and wine and only you, me and [the OGD] to eat/drink it."

I can't say that I found anything to complain about in her misfortune.  I have never turned down a challenge involving excessive food and drink, and in this case, the fewer the merrier (er, drunker); plus, plans for Saturday night!  Awesome.

I realized it was already 2:30 and hopped on the DART down to Dun Laoghaire (pronouned Dun Leary, silly Irish language) to catch a puppet show I had been reading about at what seems to be the only puppet theatre in the area.  I was pretty excited about it, imagining Bread and Puppet-/In the Heart of the Beast-style antics.  I had read about the founder and lead artist of the Lambert Puppet Theatre and he seemed like an interesting guy.  They had staged puppet adaptations of Oscar Wilde!

The place was flooded with kids.  I was the only one there without a small brood in tow; in fact, I was the only one there solo.  I tried to exude Artist! as an explanation of my presence to the surrounding families, but I think Weirdo! was the more probable read.  When Lambert himself came out and started an Abbott and Costello-style routine with a stuffed dog, I knew I was at the wrong show.  The kid behind me (two, too young) was kicking, and the kid next to me (ditto, ditto) was covering what kid one couldn't hit from the side.  I stuck it out for the Billy Goats Gruff (just ask me to sing the Trip, Trop song!), but skipped out at intermission, missing out on the Three (Tree! - Irish) Little Pigs.  So, I kind of accidentally found myself at a show for preschoolers, but I did pick up a pamphlet on the International Puppet Festival - Ireland 2009.  The brochure looks sweet--acts from Russia, Spain, the Czech Republic, France and Italy--and the festival is much more in line with what I was looking for.  One of them in a Spanish puppet adaptation of The Miser, only "it is no longer money that everyone covets, but water."  The puppets are made out of faucets and stuff!  I'll definitely be there for that one.

Free of the tots, I hopped back on the DART and headed home, then across the courtyard towards the promise of wine and company.  What I got was champagne (fancy), cheese (French), wine (check), dinner (penne bolognese), more wine (check, check), drunk (duh), a TV (more later) and a rousing game of Operation.  Yeah, this one.

Doctors love money!

Predictably and (hopefully) due to my level of inebriation, I completely failed.  The OGD was ridiculously good.  Apparently there's something about being a real doctor (dexterity, nimble fingers, concentration under pressure) that carries over to extracting ice cream cones, pencils and butterflies from a red-nosed, buzzing man.  K also kicked my butt.  I can only presume this is because she owns the game and (therefore) practices constantly.  I got the wrench-- $100, a poor showing.

A second game was vetoed (that final butterfly really took it out of all of us), and we all piled onto the fold-out couch to watch Spinal Tap, which I barely managed to stay awake for.  It was 11pm.  I thought about pulling a similar stunt as earlier in the day and skipping out half-way through, but a combination of pure laziness and pride (bruised by my recent defeat) kept me glued to the couch and my eyes (mostly) open.  Plus I wanted the OGD to carry over the promised extra TV (again, pure laziness), and I thought there would be a higher chance of that happening if I stuck it out.  The movie ended and the OGD's proposal of an outing was mutually shot down by the women; just the same, he did bring over the TV (which is sitting on a chair, untouched and unplugged), for which I was grateful.  

Sunday was a bit quieter (a little more hung-over-er) with the GD arriving home from work in the a.m.  Apparently my drunk dial(s) had not been too disruptive, but I did effectively get the Operation jingle stuck in his head all night (I did not sing it, he just made the association).  At least it was thematically appropriate.

In other news, I continue to be under-worked and under-paid.  I have some rehearsals starting up next week (I'm and extra!), at which point I'll just be regular-worked and under- not paid.  In the meantime,  I'm thinking I should buy Don't Break The Ice, practice at least an hour a day and then invite K and the OGD over for dinner.  Best to have some wine on hand, as well.

*I accidentally deleted the original message; this is a close approximation.

I broke the internet.

Yeah, so if it wasn't working for you about two hours ago, that was me. In my ceaseless efforts to configure the house wifi to my computer (or the other way around), I unwitting did something awful last night and the box went dead. No more blinking red lights, no more recognition of ethernet, nothing. My host father (a very jolly Frenchman) may have actually growled at me. Like, I told him what I had done (so not my fault), he proceeded to go about remedying the problem, and then this guttural sound rumbled at me from the next room. It sounded a lot like, "But what did you do Anne?!" (In not so jolly French.)

In the end, he just exchanged the box for a new one, asked dude at the store how I should configure my computer, and abracadabra! I have wifi. So, the moral of the story is, it was totally worth it break the Orange Livebox. Plus I paid so much penance yesterday by being dupped into a five-hour lunch.

Yes. Five hours. My host mom was all like, "Oh, Anne, we are going to eat lunch a friend's house on Sunday. Do you want to come?" and I was all like, "Oh yeah, sure, I love lunch, it's a delicious, short meal!" Slight dramatization. So we (host mom, dad, sis, bro) get there, and there is a young husband and wife and a small child. The kids all play and the men and women talk to each other respectively. I sit at the end of the counter (where we are eating appetizers, round one of meal) and stare dully at the food. At a certain point, the husband and wife realize I speak French and ask me complicated questions about the subprime housing crisis. Fun.

So, an hour and a half later, we start the real meal. We eat meat, rice, bread. Dude of the house asks me if Walmart is really open 24 hours. I say I think so, but I don't like them because of their sexist hiring policies and union bans. Then we have cheese/salad round. Omg, I love French cheese. Like, I might die of 400 clogged arteries in France, but I will die so happy. Anyhow, I thought we were done. I was just biding my time. And thus we rolled into hour four.

Coffee and desert was proposed and then served. Delicious banana cake. No objections. Surely we were done. No. No no no. This is the part where we go outside and admire the yard and the countryside for an hour while the kids play on the swingset! Well, not quite an hour, but we got there at 12:15 and finally left at 5:30. Sunday Lunch: my first lesson in French culture.

So we finally went home after a (thankfully brief, only 30 minute) stop at host father's sister's house. And then I broke the internet. So maybe it wasn't pennance. Maybe it was revenge.