Mayo

It seems to be my lot in life to be stranded in San Francisco. It's happened three times, now, Three GODDAMNED times!! Once in 2005 during a huge HUGE blowout fight with my freshman year boyfriend, Once in 2006 when my ride and place to stay flaked at the Palo Alto Ferry and finally Today at the San Francisco Airport when Virgin America stranded me at there. While some people are prone to vertigo or liking dogs over cats or lung disease, Sassy Mohen is prone to having MISERABLE experiences in the bay area.

To make the story short, Virgin America screwed up and screwed over a LOT of people. And after being told by multiple employees I would be home by five, Suddenly the tune change was, "Well because we're idiots and lied to you, you might not even get on a flight until 11 or later. You don't mind waiting around at the airport for 6-10 hours do you?" "BAH, just assign me a ticket for the morning and so I can go find a bed to sleep in."

This stupid experience carried through into the morning, when my supershuttle showed up, and just drove off, not bothering me to call me to say it arrived. Resulting in me chasing it down the street with a suitcase at 8AM and it just driving away. Then Supershuttle told me they could send me another one if I paid AGAIN for their mistake!! BAHHHHHHH !)(*#)(UTLKDG:HGOEIUTEOI@($(*#(*YTHOGE

My friend Seth who I was staying with said to me through my tears of frustration, "Sassy, if you expect to be treated right by private corporations in this country, you're setting yourself up for a life of disappointment." I agreed with him, called a taxi...well called mom & dad to ask for money for the 55+ dollar cab ride (thanks guys), THEN called the taxi, calmed down and went to the airport.

But that sentence kept hovering over my head, like one of those comic book bubbles. Essentially, if I expect to be not screwed over and swindled by private corporations and their employees, I will be let down...hmm, lets think about that.

This blog is about food. (yummy yummy food) and a conscious choice not to eat inappropriately harvested products. But the question I want to raise, is why is this even an issue? Why are we as a human race destroying our planet, destroying our fellow animals and destroying each other?

I'm being a bit peace, love & sunshine-y, and I'm also kind of scattered due to 36 hours of traveling. But as scary as impossible it feels to change this countries corporate greed and ethics, do we just sit back and do nothing? Now way! I actually have an idea, why don't we get a smorgasbord of people together who agree with this and go occupy somewhere until politicians start listening to us? That's totally a thing we can do in this country right?

To tie back to food and my "carbon foot print" if you will, I really am passionate about making a change in our food industry (was that apparent?) I've been told by multiple people throughout the years, "What's it matter, you're just one person." But already since I started this blog two days ago I've converted two people to join my team and will hopefully get two more, and two more, etc. etc. And their purchasing habits will have an affect on the industry and THAT'S how we can begin to change this.

The way private corporations have weeded out the farmer and taken over with their factory slaughter houses is wrong. The way they have skewed OUR food consumption and dietary needs is WRONG. Sorry congress, pizza is NOT a vegetable and yeah, thanks for handing out a faulty food pyramid to our classrooms.

And that's something I encourage you to think about the next time you go out to eat or buy your groceries, or go out to eat. You can make a difference, by not giving money and support to slaughtering animals. WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD GUYS

Okay, preachy post done. I'll get back to stupid one's about the main squeeze and my friends drinking strawberry daiquiri's tomorrow.

Egg

There's a hidden gem in the Washington Dulles Airport, and it's called Chipotle. Sure, the guac isn't as good as in Los Angeles, but I will tell you what is good... BREAKFAST BURRITOS made by CHIPOTLE. I mean, why has this franchise not made this a nation wide thing?? Why are these delicious eggs only be specific to an airport, Chipotle? Come on guys, get with your own program. (she says as she gets ready to stop eating dairy)

As the guy made my burrito, I stared at the soup of milky, fatty eggs and was disgusted. Wait, I'm sorry, that was a straight up lie, I said, "yo dude, more eggs please...yeah, even a little bit more." And you know what I did? I ate the shit out of that breakfast burrito. Sorry chickens, your pain was my glory today. Man that statement makes me miserable...and that IS the truth.

Just as Crisp and Juicy was a sacrifice to give up, Breakfast Burritos are going to be my challenge. A challenge I will totally p0wn. ...I think.

The main squeeze took me to an AMAZING cafe in Santa Monica called "Huckleberry's" and Oh. My. God. I can't even find the words to describe the glory of this place. I got the breakfast burrito de awesome and he got some dish called "Green Eggs & Ham" which was some eggs florentine dish that from the part I tried sans meat made my mouth salivate with happiness. Which leads me to a very real question...HOW THE BEJESUS AM I GOING TO STOP EATING EGGS?

My first thought is I should just eat buckets and buckets of eggs between now and Monday so the thought of an egg makes me want to die. But you know, if I can quit the chicken sandwich, I can quit the egg burrito.

I wonder, what can I get at brunch now without the egg? Luckily in Los Angeles there are TONS of places that have some hippidy dippity dish that's like sunflower-moonshine-tofu-scramble. It tastes JUST like the real thing, I promise guys! (I have no clue what it tastes like, I always get real eggs like a champ.)

And just as I think, maybe this whole thing is a stupid idea, I think about how chickens are slammed up in small cages, unable to move, see, live. Pumped with hormones so their legs grow big and fat for your chicken wings, essentially made into food consumption machines. Except wait, small snag. THEY'RE NOT MACHINES.

My friend Brett, just last night, took me up on the same humorous shitk we've been having since the 9th grade. The first time it happened being in geometry class at H-B Woodlawn. He started throwing pencils at me in jest and said, "Think about the vegetables! Think of their pain!! How can you eat all those vegetables as they suffer!!" Me, "Oh my god, You're such an ass! Give me my pencils back!! No, not by throwing th- bahhhhhh" (obviously we dated soon after, courting makes so much sense, doesn't it?)

I get it, mom & dad always told you to eat your vegetables, and lord knows we never want to listen to what mom & dad say. But let's be reasonable here:

1) Being healthy is awesome. You have more energy, look better and you know there's the whole "living longer" thing. I mean if you have a death wish by all means eat your big mac.

2) If you cook them right vegetables taste GREAT. In the LA area there's this restaurant called lemonade and they make brussel sprouts in a way that should be illegal they're so good.

3) Vegetables have little to no calories. It's like god's sneaky trick. Like, oh hey, the thing that you need to eat the most of, that WON'T get you fat and is GREAT for you, is gonna taste WAY not awesome most of the time. fugggggh. Whatever, dude, suck it up and eat your celery, put it in your bloody mary if you have to. It burns more calories to chew it then to digest!! How awesome is that! Just throw a bunch of oranges, limes, apples in that drink and you've got all the vitamins you need.

Here's the thing, eggs are freaking awesome. But the next time you go for your extra egg in that burrito, just give yourself a moment to think about the chicken. And yes, Chipotle is a horrible example because supposedly they treat their animals with heaps of love and respect, but I'm talking any of the other eggs you get from anywhere else. And yes again, I know I am also a hypocrite right now because there's about 5 unborn chicken fetus's in my stomach surrounded by mediocre guacamole and hash browns...

BUT that said, on monday I am saying no to the egg. Because I am saying no to how the chickens are treated. Put the Chicken before the Egg...if you can.

Chicken

Animals are awesome right? I mean, I totally think so. Maybe you don't agree with me, in which case you should probably click onto another tab right now. Just a suggestion.

Anywho, I love animals sooo much that I decided to stop eating them when I was 14. It was an idea that I had for quite sometime. I mean my godfather was(is still) a vegetarian, I never really liked the taste of animal carcass and my two best friends Jayne and Lisa stopped eating meat in the third grade. I really wanted to as well but my mom said "No Way. Eat your Chicken or you dont get to go on the World Wide Web, by the way is this napster thing legal?" ughhhh, whatever mom, being healthy and growing up with a correct diet is stupiddddd.

So, as I got older I thought about it more and more...I also thought about how f*cking delicious the Crisp And Juicy Chicken Restaurant is and how conveniently close it was located to my middle/high school. GAHH their grilled chicken was so goooodddddd, check it out if you ever have the chance. Here's the website. www.thischickenishellabomb.com

Ninth grade came around and I made a new friend named Murphy. Now murphy was straight up Vegan and I inquired as to why, to which he said, "I just don't think it's necessary to eat meat anymore. If I were to go out and slaughter my own deer I would, but now there's so many substitutes for it, it's ridiculous to feed into the meat factory system that our country has perpetrated." ....or something along those lines. Lets just pretend I hung out with that caliber of intellect in the ninth grade.

But what he said made a lot of sense to me, EVEN after I decided he was a weird hippie. So I started doing research on them internets that my mom so graciously allowed me to use after I ate my chicken. And holy moly, look at all these vegetarians and yummy food options. And then it happened. I was at a friends house for dinner and his mom turns to us and says, "Sassy, Jayne, you're both vegetarians right?" And I reply, "....Yup."

Now the difficult part wasn't not eating meat, the difficult part was figuring out how I was going to tell my mom. I went with the easiest solution, SAY NOTHING. Which worked GREAT until one month in when she came back from the grocery store with bags and bags and BAGS of meat. Just freaking, Meat City Town. To which I had to say, "uhm...Mom, I need to tell you something...but first, what do you think Shopper's Food Warehouse's return policy on ham is?"

We reached an agreement that I would still eat chicken & fish, which worked out great for HER until I turned 15 and entered the "fuck you" phase of adolescence, to which point I said "Fuck you" and haven't eaten meat since. (Post-script: My parents have become very supportive of my choice and shower me with morningstar & tofu when I go home now, they're pretty freaking awesome. Thanks guys, Oh and sorry for the whole, you know, "rebellion" thing :)

What's been really cool, is by being a vegetarian for so long, I've really seen the impact of the movement grow. In 11th grade the fourth of July fair in McLean added veggie burgers to the food truck, tofurkey has become a very real thing on Thanksgiving and Hell, even Burger Kind sells veggie burgers now for $2.99....not that I know that...or ever go to the one a block away from my house and order one...

It really is just awesome that practically everywhere I go to eat, there is a vegetarian and even vegan option just starred and ready for you to order!

Which leads us to now.


This is cute:

The un-ethical treatment of animals is not.

(I would have put a photo there but that's not a google search I want to make. I'll let you make your own choice of whether you want to see one)

The way animals are treated for OUR meat & dairy consumption is un-arguably REPULSIVE, and as great as that shit tastes, that shit is whack. So I'm choosing not to be a part of it.

Starting Monday January 2, I'm going vegan for a month. And I'm gonna document it. I will be posting tips, secrets, discoveries, and the fantasies I will without a doubt have about eating cheesey cheeeeeeesy quesadilla's. And yes, I promise to keep my rants about the food industries ATROCIOUS treatment of living, breathing, feeling very much alive animals to a minimum.

When I told the main squeeze about my decision to go vegan his response was "Nooooooo, you're never coming back!" Who knows, maybe I will, maybe I won't. Maybe he'll just have to find a deep deep love for hummus in his heart.

I ask that if this lifestyle/choice pisses you off, you just kindly click away. I'm not interested in some "You're a fag" fight over the internet that gets us nowhere as a human race. What I am interested in is thoughts, insights, and appropriate discussions about vegetarianism and veganism. And also to hopefully convert a few "undecideds" to this side of the fence. (BTW, already got one last night. Lisa, my dear friend that gave it up in college is now back on the team)

Thanks for reading this, and now if you excuse me I have to go finish this Cheesy McCheese a-lot tomato pesto pizza. T-Minus 3 days.