Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Farewell to the Flesh

Today is Mardi Gras, or as people more than a two hour drive away from the coast call it, Tuesday.

As I hinted in the salsifried gumbo post, I have been making plans to give up meat for Lent, so tomorrow I begin my forty day foray into vegetarianism. To keep with the spirit of the day, I didn't party, wear beads, or anything super fun, but I did have a farewell to the flesh dinner:


A roast beef sandwich on my homemade rosemary buttermilk bread, with horseradish dijon mustard, arugula, heirloom tomato, red onion, and smoked Swiss Grüyere, washed down with a Chilean merlot.

As good as it was, I'm actually looking forward to this. I'm sure it will be difficult at times, but cooking 40 days without meat should force my hand and give me an excuse to go down culinary paths that might otherwise be less traveled. I'll probably be making a lot of South Indian food until the weekend, when I can get a good grocery shopping trip done.

Wish me luck!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

For the next 40 days, you are dead to me.

Chuck said...

So you think! Soon you'll be seeing some wonderful veggie dishes and it'll plant a little seed in your brain. If anything, it should help to inspire ideas, whether you're vegetarian or not.

Unknown said...

I think I'll have idea's like, "That would be great! ...if only there was a little meat involved."

Chuck said...

Nothing wrong with that. As long as you take something as inspiration, that's all you really need anyway.

I encourage you to deconstruct any vegetarian dish I end up making and thinking about how you'd make something you enjoy, even if you change it up to add meat. Getting ideas is more important to me than following a recipe anyway.