Ms. Balderdash & Mr. Blatherskite

As I assume you know, since you're here, I periodically decide to give the blog a new chance, and repeatedly claim that I will lower the bar for what I write about and how I write about it, so as to make it easier to actually write something, and thereby raise the frequency of posts. You are hereby warned that this is a lowering. I don't really have anything particularly interesting to share, but, in the spirit of age, I will write anyway, giving my personal and unique contribution to the great ocean of uninteresting information that is the world wide web.

It's 14:14 on a Thursday, I'm too restless to do anything useful in the apartment, and too bored and shiftless to leave the apartment. I've just had a rather decent lunch/dinner (lunch sort of is dinner here, one of the cultural differences I have come to appreciate and consider bringing back to Norway with me) of wholegrain arepa, my favourite kind of avocado (sadly not found in Norway - another thing I'd like to bring back. How much trouble do you think I'd be in if US airport security found avocado seeds in my baggage?), a bit on the green side, but the other half will be perfect tomorrow, tuna and kepa onion in almond milk with garam masala, and a mixture of barley with undefined vegetables and spices, dug out from the dying freezer. For dessert: papaya with almond milk and cinnamon. 

I have probably not been in possession of a fridge containing fewer ingredients than at this moment since my first months of living alone as a student. Because of the wildly fluctuating temperatures in this most basic of kitchen aids, we can't really buy large amounts of anything perishable, and are working on finishing the contents of the freezer before they turn into a health risk. Consequently, the fridge still holds a rather respectable collection of vinegar, mustards, sauces and pickles, but otherwise the shelves are occupied by the leftovers of today's lunch, a pot of chocolate icing, a few drying cloves of garlic, a couple of eggs, half a papaya, half an avocado, half an onion, and, languishing at the bottom of the vegetable drawer, one lonely carrot. (The carrot was meant to be part of a juice or a stew, but during the weekend, the licuadora (also known as a blender, I believe, an absolutely ubiquitous appliance here, and yet another thing to adopt) decided to stop working, and the vegetable grater I had finally remembered to purchase was left at the checkout at the supermarket, so the carrot stays where it is for now.)

Anyway, given my limited options, I was quite happy with my own cooking, which, to be quite honest, I usually am. After all, I rarely cook something I'm not going to eat myself, and if I'm going to eat it, why would I use ingredients, combinations or methods I don't like. Besides, I generally love food. I love eating food, cooking food, thinking about food, and reading about food. My latest food-related reading project, It Must Have Been Something I Ate, is proving to be of above average entertainment value, and has led me to decide that gourmand is a nicer label than food snob. And also, that I need to go to Italy again. To eat.

On a related (at least in my mind) note, I bring you the revolutionary news - serendipitously discovered whilst conducting some highly complex and rigorously scientific online research - that you have very likely been eating mandarins - or rather, I assume, clementines - in the wrong manner your whole life:

And with that, I think I have just about run out of flapdoodle for today. I will do my utmost to keep you in the loop whenever I discover some fact that might revolutionize your eating habits (or lives in general) and there might be more coming on the food reading theme, but I refuse to make any promises.

The Great Experiment

After living here a few weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that, in Medellin, finding food that is suitable for an egg and dairy intolerant meat and deep-fry sceptic, who likes her seafood fresh, her fruits without sugar and her coffee black, pure and strong, simply isn’t enough of a challenge for me. I’ve therefore come up with a brilliant plan to make life just a bit more complicated for myself for a while …

Becoming a vegetarian is not something I have ever really considered seriously, and I still don’t find the idea of me giving up pinnakjøt, trout or crayfish neither tempting nor likely. However, over the last few years, I have gradually cut down on my meat intake, and the vegetable portion of my diet has grown correspondingly larger. Partly as a result of my own and E’s food intolerances, I’ve also developed more of an interest in food: what it contains, where it comes from, how to cook it, what it does to us, etc. I’ve also thought quite a bit about eating more vegetarian food. It’s mostly a matter of habit, I think: we’re so used to building our dinners around meat or fish, but there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to cook tasty food without meat now and then.

I heard about Meatless Mondays a while ago, and thought it was a good idea, but never got around to implementing it. Also, in Norway, where I usually cook for several people, everyone’s food wishes and needs have to be taken into account, limiting the craziness I can get up to (E and H may object to the claim that I avoid craziness in the kitchen, but I honestly do restrain myself …).

At the moment, however, I am cooking just for me. I also have to approach the whole issue of cooking slightly differently, since I don’t have the equipment and ingredients I am used to. It’s the perfect opportunity to explore and experiment. So I made a decision: rather than eating vegetarian – which in practice, because of my egg and dairy intolerance, means vegan – one day a week, I’m going all out, completely vegan for a month. Instead of Meatless Mondays, I’m doing Meatless March.

     Why? Why not.

In part, it’s the challenge, I suppose. I want to see if I can do it, and how hard it will be. Another reason is to force myself to cook vegan food. I always mean to, but as long as nothing’s forcing me, I tend to stick to more familiar approaches. And finally, most importantly, it’s a health thing. I want to see what happens to my rather troublesome stomach if I limit it to pure plant-foods for a while. Missionaries of a vegan diet claim it will solve all your problems and cure all your ills. I have a deep mistrust of all kinds of missionaries, but I am curious, none the less. I love fresh and well-prepared vegetables, I’d really like to learn to cook more bean and lentil based dishes, and Colombia is Heaven when it comes to fruit, all of which provides a good starting point. I already find meat heavy and hard to digest, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be all right without it for a while. I fear the challenge is going to be fish and seafood. I’ve never contemplated giving those up before, and come April I’ll be stuffing my face with whatever I can get my hands on, but the truth is that Medellín is not fish country anyway, and the quality of the seafood found in supermarkets here is not necessarily the best. So … time will show. That’s the point of experiments.

And before any of you consider commenting or writing to tell me this is madness and not to be stupid: I have already been told. Nobody here quite seems to understand why I want to do this, and some are actively trying to get me to “just taste” or “just make a little exception”. However, I am quite determined (for now, at least) to do this, and to do it without exceptions or breaks. Since an important point is to investigate the effects of a purely plant-based diet, there will be NO EXCEPTIONS – that is, if I can help it and don’t buckle before the month is up. I do realize that I am making myself even more difficult in restaurants, and therefore to go out and eat with, but as long as I’m willing to pay full price for a (considerably) reduced dish (or if I could convince people to go to proper restaurants now and then, rather than the chain variety where everything is pre-prepared in some central factory), there should be a salad or something for me. It will give me an excuse (as if I needed one) to try out some new restaurants as well – I already have my eye on a couple of Medellín’s vegetarian ones.