Your Vegan Mom

Desmond and Felix on the Subject of Hunting and Vegetarianism

We're reading the Little House books right now, and it's fascinating to see how my vegan kids make sense of Pa being a trapper.  Here's a conversation from the back seat while we went to pick up their pa from the office.  

4 year-old: I’m a hunter riding on a horse.

7 year-old: Do you kill animals?

4yo: Or course not.  (Indignant.)  I’m a vegetarian.

7yo: What do you hunt?

4yo: What do vegetarians eat again?

7yo: They eat cow stuff...milk...cheese...and they eat eggs...and vegan stuff.

4yo: Ok.  I hunt cheese.

7yo: You can’t hunt cheese.

4yo: ..that people drop!  I look for cheese that people accidentally drop. 

The Rice Plate, or Sharing Lunch with a Four-Year-Old

While Paul was working out of town (for 6 weeks!  Did we talk about this?), this was the go-to lunch for Felix and me.  I would make a big pot of rice at the beginning of the week, and then I could stick all this on a plate for us to share when he came home from school.  It's totally conducive to the addition of leftovers - in particular slivers of fried tofu.  You grab a piece of seaweed, spread it with some gochujang (unless you're four), pinch up some rice, top with avocado, dip the sticky rice ends in toasted sesame seeds and eat.  Or eat it any way you like.  It's finger food or fork food - the perfect sort of meal to keep a kid interested while you chat about his day at preschool.  And it's totally simple and delicious to boot.  

On the topic of rice, the insert for my beloved wedding present rice cooker is looking a bit scratched up after 10 years of constant use, so I've been employing this method of rice cooking with good results, though I prefer it cooked for 5 minutes longer here where soft and sticky is preferable to light and fluffy.

And related to nothing at all, but I want to talk about it anyway, Wheeler del Torro's new cookbook just showed up in the mail, (along with a copy to share with one of you guys) and I had to force myself to put it down so that I can savor it like a novel this weekend.  It looks really good.  We'll discuss further.  

What's for lunch at your house?