The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen

I don't normally put much out here on cooking, being the single person who's slightly on the lazy side when flying solo in the kitchen. But since I've been in Germany, I ordered this cookbook, which is pure delight for someone who's interested in, or committed to, vegetarianism. I've made enough recipes now to know they actually turn out, taste good, and are straight-forward, even including prep tips and such. I've cooked for years, and yet sometimes things like the proper way to brown mushrooms, or slow cooking onions and garlic, or how to clean and chop leeks, were things that I appreciated being noted in this book and part of the reason the recipes turn out so good. He also gives options to create food vegan or vegetarian. And the ingredients are readily available, even here in Bavaria, Germany.

I'm a committed vegetarian, on my sixth official year. Prior to the officialness, I was mostly vegetarian anyway, and it wasn't a big departure from my normal train of thought to embrace the realm completely. As I've ventured further down this road, I've read many a quote which support my thoughts. Most recently:

"Once I would have ordered bacon or sausage for this meal, but not lately. The more I had come to believe in the indestructibility of life, the less I wanted to be a part of even illusory killings. If one pig in a million might have a chance for a contemplative lifetime instead of being skrockled up for my breakfast, it was worth swearing off meat. Hot lemon pie, any day." - Richard Bach (not that I agree with lemon pie for breakfast...)

It's not my nature to force my ideas onto other people. I choose to quietly follow my values for the most part, influencing by example, rather than discussion. Choosing vegetarianism initially involved intense justification for my choices, not for the faint of heart. But in the last few years, I've noticed the acceptance from my family for my choices, and positive changes in their views and their own food choices. I do believe in my heart that not eating animals is the kindest way to life and that's really how I approach my life here on this earth.

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Vegetarian-Kitchen-Peter-Berley/dp/0060392959 Average rating: 5/5 stars

Airport Contemplations: Take 2

Sometimes I wonder, "Am I wasting my life?" What constitutes"wasting?" I am certainly living more that I ever have before- I guess that is the biggest thing. I've never been as connected to our fellow beings, our tress, our butterflies and birds and dogs and creatures as I am now.

It's the simple things, like sitting here watching people when I don't understand their words, but they're laughing and smiling, walking together, carrying their kids on their shoulders. I understand their language of humanity and love.

The thought of returning to a regular life where I rise and follow someone else's schedule, someone else's rules sounds painfully restricting right now. I can't help but think I'm getting older, but that would be happening regardless of my status in life. (Unless more grim happenings come about... Heh.)

If life is about loving, learning, and living then I should have no regrets or doubts about this time. I only hope to better understand my fellow earth-mates and share my spirit throughout the world.

"Song of the Open Road"

From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

-Walt Whitman

Finding

"When someone is seeking, it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means:  to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal."

      -from Siddhartha by Herman Hesse (an amazing and quick read full of life philosophy)

Life Philosophy

On living:
"Not somewhere - anywhere. One should just live anywhere - not have a definite place. As soon as you get a room and it is complete, you want to run from it."

"You have to be like Rodin, Michelangelo, and leave a piece of raw rock unfinished to your figure. You must leave your surroundings sketchy, unfinished, so that you are never contained, never confined, never dominated from the outside."

On love:
"He wanted so much to be free, not under the compulsion of any need for unification, or tortured by unsatisfied desire. Desire and aspiration should find their object without all this torture, as now, in a world of plenty of water, simple thirst is inconsiderable, satisfied almost unconsciously. And he wanted to be with Ursula as free as with himself, single and clear and cool, yet balanced, polarised with her. The merging, the clutching, the mingling of love was madly abhorrent to him."

"Why should we consider ourselves, men and women, as broken fragments of one whole? It is not true. We are not broken fragments of one whole. Rather we are the singling away into purity and clear being, of things that were mixed. Rather the sex is that which remains in us of the mixed, the unresolved."

-From Women in Love by DH Lawrence

My rules for life:

Laugh Easily.

Live Wildly.

Love Boldly.