'Gay' is not an insult

It doesn't matter if you don't mean 'gay' as in same sex attracted 'gay' when you use it too insult everyone and everything. Or if you do identify yourself as gay and just copy everyone else using it as insult. It's still not insult and shouldn't be used as one.

Nausea during or after exercise?

Since I'm a sharing caring type of gal and I struggled (it took longer than 2 minutes) to find the answer with my own Google search I thought I would share with you the address of the best website I eventually found on the subject. It is a mountain biking website but it was the most useful for me.

I'm still not sure what caused the nausea after my bike ride but one tiny little ginger candy seemed to help a lot.

Happy List

I feel as if my last few posts have been all kind of negative, and while I love to vent I also like to write about happy stuff. So here is it my current happy list:

* chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate
* acupuncture
* my bike
* dvds- especially tv series dvds like gilmore girls
* arranging my birthday day picnic
* new food accessories including a butterfly vegetable cutter (see pic below, yes i'm a food nerd and proud)
* bonding with my little sister for the first time in a long while
* exploratory walks with Mr T to different locations
* catching up my brother who seems to be 'deeply in love'
* engaging and/or reflecting and just feeling inspired by stuff in the online world (eg: great feminist posts by amazing women, or cute food pics on flickr)
* catching up with friends
* my new adorable puy (french green) lentil package thanks to honey (see below)



Btw, does anyone remember the happy lists blog/site that used to be around?

No more drinking for me

I wanted to post about how I have vowed to give up drinking, but it's my birthday in 2 weeks so I might postpone the actual giving up for a fortnight.

I've been thinking about it for a while. At first I thought that being vegan and not drinking alcohol people are going to think I am the strangest person on earth but then I realised that's pretty much what I do now and it doesn't get that many weird reactions.

I go out all the time without drinking, and really don't understand the need to have a drink to relax or have fun. When I do drink even a tiny bit I just get sleepy and my stomach always seems to react afterwards. So why should I bother at all?

It's just not for me. How very 'un-Australian' of me.

Me=Bad

I've been thinking all week that I will post about women's issues particularly issues about women's rights around the world or events for international women's day but there I go just posting about food again.

It's been pretty quite in the event front except for North cote social club hosting a special night with all female musicians called 'play like a girl'. But that's too late now. :-(

So instead I can direct to you other great blogs:
Richie writes a great response here about privilege in the same line as Andrea's post at Official Shrub.

Another great unrelated post over at Feminist, unmodified on a comment on 'young feminists' versus 'feminists of previous generations'.

The initial comment about femininity has been kind of niggling away at me. Mr T and I got into a kind of unusual argument the other day. He was arguing that he doesn't understand why I bother with traditional hair removal (I shave my underarms, legs, and pluck my eyebrows). While I agree with him that it's not fair that women are expected to remove all of that hair while men are not expected to. Whatever way you look at it, is unnecessary and well just not fair. Why is it gross on a woman but not a man? While I understand this inequality, I am so socially conditioned that I can't break through with leaving hair because I hate the idea of someone thinking of me as 'gross' and well I have heard those terms too often in response to female underarm or leg hair. Don't get me wrong when I see other women with underarm hair or whatever I am not grossed out instead I want to say 'good on you'. I just can't seem to do it myself. Mr T said 'if he was a female he simply wouldn't remove the hair' to which I was quite annoyed with because it is simply unfair for him to make that remark as a man. It's like me saying 'If I was Asian I would argue with my parents' or 'If I was in a relationship with another woman I would show public displays of affection everywhere'. It's very easy to sit there from another side and argue 'if....' but let's face it you really don't know what it's like til you have experienced it and dominant culture is quite powerful.

Ok it's not much for a women's day post but better than nothing.

Eating at a restaurant that doesn't serve meat, surely not!

I'm lucky enough to have lots of friends, family members and acquaintances who enjoy dining at veg restaurants. Some even ask me 'when are you having another mock meat night?' or 'when are we going to ...(insert restaurant name) again?'.

But I have a few acquaintances who never seem pleased with anything really at veg restaurants. Now I in no way think that all veg restaurants are great. In fact I am the first to admit that vegie bar for example doesn't have the most amazing veg food, yet I go there often because it is convenient, quick, kind of cheap and you know what you are getting, plus there is a fair bit of variety. Other times I go to a veg restuarant that is so average with my omnivore friends and I feel like saying 'please don't judge veg food based on this, this is just not a great restaurant'. But I really don't understand never liking any dishes at any veg restaurants.

I ate meat and the rest for over 20 years and not that long ago and occasionally dined at veg restaurants as a meat eater. For me veg restaurants were a positive influence. Veg restaurants helped me to see that veg food can be great unlike other restaurants in which the only options were kind of bland and boring: a green salad(I still hate plain green salads), or pasta with standard tomato based sauce and vegies were the only options. I think I also started to realise that I felt a little bit better after eating veg rather than meat. I just don't get it because well I felt that often the meals I would eat at veg restaurants were superior in terms of imagination and flavour.

Maybe it is just personal tastes, but I had similar tastes when I started dining at veg restaurants as a meat eater. I used to eat chicken parmigiana and all the rest of things that people love. I didn't feel like I was missing out, instead I felt like I was eating more variety. I can't help and be skeptical and think that part of the reluctance to enjoy any veg meals really is some sort of defensive tactic against scary and strange 'vegetarianism'. Because let's face it one of the biggest reasons people will not stop eating meat is taste. If veg food tastes great and they don't feel like they are missing out on their meat, what argument do they have left? Yes there are other reasons but the biggest seem to stem from taste: 'I couldn't live without meat', or 'I couldn't give up my steak'. Any other way you look at it people can and do survive quite sucessively without consuming meat and god knows there are lots of arguments against eating it (health, environmental, animal rights, etc).

What do you think?

Did veg restaurants have a positive influence on you turning veg?

Vegan muffins without sugar and salt can taste great.

These are the full meal muffins from shmooed food and they are easy to make and quite healthy. Even Mr T loves them and he hates blackstrap molasses. My only recommendation is to leave out the rasins/currants.

They are great for breakfast on the run.

Listen up Brunswick vegans

There is great and cheap vegan food in the last place you would expect it.

Thanks to aduki I read about Tabet's bakery at 607 sydney rd (opposite the police station and close to the iga). It's this tiny dodgy looking 'bakery' which sells all sorts of meaty stuff like burgers and fried fish but also sells vegan food. Accidental vegan food I guess, but still vegan. Tonight we tried their 'oregano pizza with salad' which basically consists of zatar ( a paste of thyme, sumac, sesame seeds, oregano and more) tomato, and onion on a Lebanese style pizza base and their spinach pie which is a lot like the Lebanese spinach and cheese pides you find everywhere but without the cheese and very tasty.

And both items are only $2.50.

Thanks Aduki, I would have never thought of checking the place for vegan food.