Roasted Cauliflower Soup

I serendipitously stumbled across a vegan food blog via an unrelated post on the 'book. After reading through some of the posts I decided to make Call Me Cauliflowah Soup (itself adapted from the LCBO magazine).

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

1 medium head of cauliflower, divided into florets

1 medium onion (approximately 1 cup), chopped

4 tbsp olive oil

salt

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1 tbsp ginger, freshly chopped

1 tbsp hot curry paste

4 cups stock

1 tsp lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 450°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Put the cauliflower florets into a large bowl, add 2 tbsp of oil and salt. Mix until all the cauliflower is coated. Place them on the baking sheet, and roast in the oven for about 30-40 minutes (occasionally shaking the baking sheet). Add the remaining oil to a big soup pot on medium heat. When the oil is hot sauté the onion for a minute while stirring frequently. Add the ginger, garlic and curry paste for a minute. Then, add the roasted cauliflower and pour in the stock. Once the soup is at a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and add the lemon juice. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup (or let it cool down and put it in a blender).

Serves 3

I liked the soup, though the curry paste I used overwhelmed the roasted cauliflower flavour. I probably would've preferred separating out of the core of the soup and just eating the roasted cauliflower while sipping on a zesty broth. I may have to try this soup again but maybe without roasting the cauliflower and seeing what happens. Still, it was a nice soup and would probably work very well as a starter.

Restaurant: El Palenque Casa Del Mariachi

The other day, I had the most bizzare service I'd ever had in my life. I seriously considered that we were actually on Just For Laughs or something. The night began with me and my parents deciding to go out for supper and choosing a restaurant which I thought was just called "Mexican Restaurant" but actually had a longer name. We'd been there before and the food had been great but the service was lousy. Apperently it was under new management so we decided to give it a another try. That was a mistake.

We ordered some guacamole to start which was quite good (although the tortilla chips that came with it were way too salty) and then decided to order the mains. This is when the storm clouds started to gather. There was a burrito on the menu that came with cheese, beans, rice and sour cream. "That sounds good," said my mom to the waitress, "I'll have the burrito." "Beef, chicken or vegetarian?" the waitress asked. "What?" "Beef, chicken or vegetarian?" "No, no meat."

You see, at the top of the menu it had "Beef, chicken or vegetarian" listed (there may have been "pork" but I can't remember) but my parents had not seen that. To them, the question was whether they wanted meat added, which they did not as they are vegetarians like me. We all ordered the burrito (everyone having some similar degree of awkward back-and-forth while doing so) and then the burritos came. We were expecting something that would be a mix of the listed food items. This is what we got instead:

So it was a tortilla filled with mainly rice, with some boiled broccoli and such. I'm a pretty cheap date, as they say, so I just started eating it. It wasn't great, or even that good, but it was alright and I was hungry. The parents, however, were not happy and called the waitress back over. And that was when the bizarreness happened. The waitress wasn't getting at all what had happened and the situation kept on spiralling down.
"Look, we just want what we ordered."
"You got what you ordered."
"No, we didn't. The menu talked about beans, rice, cheese and sour cream. Can we have that."
"What just that."
"Yes, just that, that's why we ordered it."
"Well, this isn't Taco Bell, this is an authentic Mexican restaurant!"
"Oh really? I'm pretty sure that broccoli is not an authentic Mexican vegetable."
"Well we don't know what vegetarians eat."
"Um, not this."
"He seems to be enjoying it."
"He'll eat anything."

The actual conversation lasted probably around 10 minutes but eventually the waitress conceded and brought what they ordered. The whole thing was like a vaudeville routine at the Catskills about some rude waiter at a Jewish restaurant.

El Palenque Casa Del Mariachi
816 St Clair Ave W, Toronto

Should Vegetarians Eat Meat?

Ezra Klein has a call to arms about the unfortunate practice of restaurants making their vegetarian option some grilled vegetables. Grilled vegetables are a nice side, they are not a meal. As Klein points out, a vegetarians is not someone who just loves vegetables per se, but "is someone who doesn't eat meat."

But in a contrarian article for Slate (is there any other kind) Christopher Cox suggests another thing the vegetarians can eat other than the dreaded Grilled Vegetable Plate. That something is meat. Yes, in an article provocatively titled "It's OK for vegans to eat oysters" Cox posits that vegans and vegetarians should be able to scarf down oysters. He brings forth the two main reasons to be vegan: using animals for food is harmful to the environment and causes them to suffer. Neither of these reasons, he claims, apply to oysters. The impact of oyster farms on the environment is de minimis and oysters themselves live off of plankton. In addition, oysters have no central nervous system so they're unlikely to feel pain. Basically, oysters are just oddly shaped plants.

So, will the next Frugal Veggie post be a recipe for oysters? No. Despite Cox's argument I'm not convinced.

First up is challanging the premises of his argument. Do we know for sure that oysters are ecologically sustainable? Certainly, eating farmed oysters is better for the environment then eating, say, farmed salmon. But Cox does not really marshall a lot of proof in his article. Additionally, while it is true that oysters lack a brain they do have a nervous system. It's a bit facetious of him to compare the situation to plants, as we don't know that plants can't feel pain either. That may be so, but we do know that plants don't have nerves and oysters do have ganglia. This uncertainty is probably enough to make me not go out and eat a bunch of oysters.

But uncertainty can be solved by more investigation, and what if I delved deeper into this issues and discovered that oyster farming, say, actually helps the environment and oysters feel no pain? I guess my main concern goes back to the Klein quote above, vegetarians do not eat meat. I think the whole "not eating meat" thing is very important to my identity as a vegetarian. Look, it's arguable that a person who is otherwise a vegan but eats oysters is "better" (quote unqoute) then I, as I'm adding to environmental degredation and animal suffering with the milk I glug down and the cheese I consume. But that person isn't a vegan. It may sound like I'm just being obsessed with labels here, but labels are important. Labels give a quick and easy way for the rest of the world to know how to interact with us. Allow the term "vegetarian" to encompass eating meat and then the restaurant won't be bringing over the Grilled Vegetable Plate as a vegetarian option but will be bringing over an ethically raised steak that was killed painlessly.

Bottom line, if you're going to eat oysters – good for you. More people should eat more oysters. But if you want to do that, you're not a vegan. Call yourself, I don't know, an ethical pescetarian or a bivalvegetarian or don't attach labels (if you don't like labelling).

Of course, I'm only postponing the debate here. The really interesting stuff happens when we can grow meat in vats a la The Space Merchants (No, Margaret Attwood did not come up with this for Oryx and Crake). Every argument for oysters is amplified for vatted meat and every argument I have against it is diminished. Vegetarianism could be reduced to an aesthetic choice, which is not really a good reason for causing extra work for people at restaurants and dinner parties.

The Bread of Affliction

Every year, I celebrate passover, where for one week I have to give up leavened bread. It has been particularly annoying as the week started off with my roommate making several dozen delicious cupcakes, which I foolishly did not think of until after the holiday had started. There has also been a veritable flood of free pizza... which was even harder to pass over (I'll be here all week folks, tip your waitress).

So what do I eat instead? Matzah, which tastes like cardboard without the flavour. I'll usually have it with peanut butter (there are some Jews who do not eat peanuts on passover, but that's not how I roll) or cheese, but there are some things you can do to make it taste really awesome. In specific, here is my Mom's recipe for Matzoh Crunch (which I will spell her way, as it is her recipe).

Matzoh Crunch

3 pieces matzoh

1/2 cup butter

1/2 brown sugar

1 cup chocolate chips

Line a cookie sheet with foil and place 3 matzohs on the sheet. Melt the butter and add the brown sugar. Boil for three minutes, stirring frequently. Pour over matzoh--fairly evenly but your don't have to spread it as it spreads while baking. (don't go right to the edges)

Bake for 10 minutes--should be bubbling--if not, give it another minute. Remove from oven, sprinkle with the chocolate chips. When they melt, spread them around. Takes a couple of hours to cool, put in fridge it you need it to cool faster.