I messed up.

So you remember how I gave up meat for lent? Well, I've been doing pretty well, sticking to my on-Sundays-only policy.

Except this week I got to the dining hall after a long, hard practice. I'd already noshed on carrots and hummus in my room (because I didn't think I could make it the 30 yards to the dining hall without nourishment), but I was still starving.

All they had was eggplant and zucchini. Ok, it was ALL they had, but the options were:
salad with a weird raspberry dressing
pasta with really terrible marinara sauce
eggplant+tomato towers (I really don't like eggplant at all)
zucchini (I HATE zucchini)
zucchini (yes, that's right, they had two zucchini dishes)
chicken
beef stir fry
rice

I just didn't have the energy to be creative, so I decided to grab some rice and pick the veggies out of the beef stir fry. The veggies looked delightfully oily, crisp, fresh, nutritious and delicious. The beef just looked oily.

But then I just didn't have the energy to pick around the minuscule pieces of beef.. so I decided I'd just pick around them at the table.

But then I started picking them out and realized just how monstrous a task that was.. so I decided to just eat them. They weren't very good, or very satisfying.. I just didn't have the energy to avoid them.

The whole thing was fairly representative of my experience so far. I haven't missed meat much at all, but eating has become just enough more difficult that it can be frustrating. It's especially difficult in a dining hall, where not eating meat eliminates a large number of options. It's trying to have to pass up delicious vegetables because they've been mixed with meat, or to not eat a salad because they've added bacon or chicken.

Do you have any dietary restrictions? How do you deal with them when others are cooking for you?
Let me know by leavin a comment or emailing me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com. 


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