bergerka

Well, frankly, and I'm emphatically not a vegetarian (as I believe was revealed more than adequately by the amount of pork I consumed yesterday), I think that if there is NOT such a common assumption, there ought to be. I would consider--and this is just my opinion, obviously--bringing meat into a vegetarian restaurant as rudeness on a level with bringing pork into a kosher restaurant, or wearing a fur coat to a PETA meeting. I think we're talking more a manners than a morals or rules question here, if you take my meaning. These are all lifestyle choices we're talking about here. If you decide that keeping kosher is a necessary part of your religious beliefs, and you go to a kosher restaurant, it seems to me a perfectly reasonable expectation that the other patrons won't be asking the restaurant to heat up their pig-on-a-stick baby food (mmm, pig on a stick). If you decide that excluding meat and meat products from your life is a necessity, ethical or otherwise, and you go to a restaurant that specifically identifies itself as vegetarian, i.e. neither preparing nor serving meat products, then (IMO! IMO!) it seems to me perfectly reasonable that other patrons NOT be allowed to bring edible meat products into the restaurant, and indeed one would think a parent would have thought of that before and brought the organic corn and green bean mush, or whatever, instead. It isn't the same thing, I don't think, as walking into a restaurant that does serve meat and insisting that the other patrons eat only veggies--after all, you are in a place that is by its very description dedicated to your particular lifestyle choice. Besides, don't you you need to get that leg of lamb home and refrigerate it? In the specific case detailed here, I do wonder what the woman's objection to meat is, since she obviously has no problem feeding it to her baby, but now I digress... I'm not even going to get into the leather handbag and shoe discussion, as the only argument I can think of is the really really lame one that, well, leather shoes aren't intended to be edible, hence no one thinks of them (told you it was lame ). I've always found leather handbags too tough and stringy for my taste--I much prefer the cloth ones. Denim bags have a particularly nice texture, although they require copious amounts of salt. K, who to the best of her knowledge has never been to a vegetarian restaurant.

I'm with Hest88. I don't see the ambiguity here. If you can find ONE menu item containing meat in ONE restaurant that ADVERTISES itself as vegetarian--I will concede that point. Not otherwise. I think advertising a restaurant as vegetarian is just a bit different than a person who says "I'm a vegetarian" and then orders the chicken tenders or the fish sticks or whatever. Oh and the woman from the original post? Idiot. JMHO. K

at one point, they were in front of me, and started whispering, giggling, and pointing at me. They must have noticed the "Available, willing and cheap" sign I'd attached to your back... *ducks and runs* and I just noticed that I forgot to mention Joe, Donna and the kick-ass cool convertible we rode to & from in!!!! Mea maxima culpa, y'all. THANK YOU--you two are FUN! K

Wow. THANK YOU THANK YOU Jonathan & Nina & kids & cows & chickens & cats (hi, C'nedra...I hope I spelled your name right) & dogs...what a lovely day! It was so nice to put faces to names and meet you all, terrific group, no? Fink, your pig meat rocks my world. You are the COOLEST. Can we do it again sometime??? K Edited to add that the jello mold was an absolute work of art. And to correct the spelling of kitty cat's name.

One small caveat here, y'all. What Sam considers "just right" is more than likely to be so spicy it sends the rest of the civilized world into paroxysms of agony. Just so you know. The scary part is that I'm not really kidding. His tolerance for spicy food is rather legendary. K

I'm going back and forth between admiring that GORGEOUS bird and laughing my ass off at the mental picture of trying to get the damned eagle to do its thing. These are phenomenal posts. Thank you. K

totally can't disagree there--white chocolate is naaaaasty. Ok, you can have most of my milk chocolate, then. How about that? I reserve the right to the occasional slip, though. K

That's ok, I'll eat yours and you can have my white chocolate. How's that sound? K

Sorry to kick this back to the top, but dudes...I got a Swiffer this weekend. I didn't buy the WetJet, but I did pick up some wet swiffer pad thingies in addition to the dry ones that come with it. Best. Kitchen floor. Cleaning. Tool. Ever. And it got a trial by fire, since we had a dinner party Sunday night (messy one, too--homemade pizzas and numerous bottles of wine, not to mention some RAWTHER delicious port). So I need to add that to my list of post-party cleaning necessities. Swiff your way to freedom. K

Just finished a scoop of Ben & Jerry's Coconut Almond Fudge Chunk on a sugar cone. Damn B&J for putting a store on my block, damn them, damn them! I hereby make them solely responsible for my waistline! K

Just had a drink made with lavender-infused vodka, lemon juice, lime juice, simple syrup and white vermouth. and I'm about to partake of a chorizo frittata. MMMMM. K

Turkey sausage (not my preference, but it's the only kind they had in patty form), scrambled egg & cheese on an everything bagel. And coffee, half "french roast," half "vanilla hazelnut" (they were out of "southern pecan" with milk & sugar. K

wait. There's something wrong with ketchup on a hot dog? Say it isn't so, please. K, who also likes ketchup on her hot dogs, as well as mustard, chili and raw onions. And cheese. But not relish. Ick.

Anchovies. Not only are they both fishy AND oily, they make the entire apartment reek for days when Sam cooks them. I can taste even a teeny-tiny bit in food, and it makes me want to hurl. *york* Ugh. Ugh Ugh Ugh. I have to eat bacon cheeseburgers and fries for DAYS to even out the offense to the food gods--and do you know what seven days of that does to my waistline????? I also can't stand salmon. Used to hate avocado until I had a really fantastic guacamole about five years ago...now I can't get enough of 'em. K

Just finished two helpings of buckwheat pancakes, one with tons of butter and maple syrup and one with peach preserves. And coffee. The ferrets just demolished some chicken wings (cooked, not raw, although they love the raw stuff too)--after 2.5 solid hours of play, they were HUNGRY! K

Soba, I think breakfast burritos are totally underrated, and I wish someone near the ol' day job here would sell them (and take on the responsibility for my waistline in the process). I remember when my aunt was re-tooling her cooking style, because her two young sons had just been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and the breakfast burrito became a total staple for them. A few years ago, when they wrote a couple of books that were published by the American Diabetes Association, they included several excellent BB recipes...I'll find them at home and post 'em if anyone's interested (I'm pretty darned sure I can get permission to do that if I need to, since they're my cousins and all). This is a great blog--I'm just put Veselka in my palm pilot and will need to plan a trip there soon, I think. Thanks, Soba! K

I will move out if you feed the ferrets frozen baby chicks. Just so you know. Meat comes in the grocery store, shrinkwrapped. Yes, it DOES TOO. Now back to your regularly scheduled thread. K

I feel so out of the loop, I never lived in a dorm. The first year of college, I lived at home (I don't wanna discuss that), so the food was my mom's cooking, very nice. After that I shared an apartment...first with my best friend (to whom I have since apologized for my then-lousy playing-well-with-others skills...the first time she visited us in NYC and saw me do dishes, she wanted to know when I'd been replaced by a pod person), then with an accounting major and an architecture major. Our food consisted of a lot of mac & cheese, pizza, burgers & fries, and yes, occasionally hamburger helper *cringe* although we did occasionally make nice ham & cheese or turkey & cheese sandwiches to take in for lunch or on a picnic (we did 20-mile bike rides on the weekends). Gad, I ate out a lot in college, come to think of it--good thing I used my bicycle to get around or I'd have ended up at around 250 pounds. And I just wanna BE an opera singer, not LOOK like one. K

Ok, I didn't think anyone could make a Snickers sound bad...but that...there are no words. My southwest Kansas nightmare is my ex-mother-in-law's savory jello salad. Who the hell puts avocado in a jello salad? Who the hell eats that stuff in the first place? I realize there's always room for jello, but a big bundt-pan shaped jello mold the color of those 70's avocado green appliances always showed up at her (otherwise pretty good) Thanksgiving dinners, and we ALL had to have some or she got insulted and sulked the rest of the day. I don't know what else was in it, but it was kinda salty. It DID have mandarin oranges, too. K

excuse me, SEZ YOU. I'm about to have to go track down a piece of pound cake or a cupcake or something, before I kill someone. K

That's what I thought. So a kosher guest showing up to a nonkosher dinner party would be a nonissue. If the kosher guest shows up and knows you aren't kosher, he/she ain't keepin' kosher that night. K

I know this was a couple of weeks back and is OT, but I have a serious question--if one's keeping kosher, is it actually OK to eat in the home of someone who doesn't? If the food is prepared in the home of the nonkosher person and not brought in from an outside, kosher establishment? I have the funny feeling that it isn't ok. I have a pretty clear memory of our former neighbors--two adorable Orthodox Jewish boys--asking me for my honey cake recipe, and when I offered to make them one, they very sweetly and graciously told me that they greatly appreciated the offer, but couldn't eat food that hadn't been prepared in a kosher kitchen. Anyway, back to the topic--our "guest from hell" who actually showed up was a last-minute addition to our formal, multi-course Thanksgiving dinner (described by Sam earlier in the thread)--one of our dear friends who was on the original guest list called a day or two before the fact and asked if she could bring her roommate, since his boyfriend was out of town and he had no local family and no one to spend the holiday with. Well, the guy absolutely monopolized the conversation--all he did was talk about himself and get into a shouting match with another guest about whether or not the NY times music critics had been bought off by the Met! No one could concentrate on the (fantastic) food or the (otherwise wonderful) company. Last time we say yes to a last-minute guest at a formal occasion, I can tell you... K

ehh, don't worry about him. He gets annoyed when the checkout girl in North Carolina starts a conversation with him (he thinks she's talking on her cell phone, like they do at the West Side Market). I'm KIDDING! Everyone relax. BREATHE! I'm somewhat shocked to hear about the behavior of the waitstaff at Babbo--as Sam mentioned, we've always had lovely luck with them (and then there was the time that the waitress for the table next to ours was an old college buddy of mine from AZ, THAT was something!). As the one in charge of making our reservations, though, I have to agree--the hosts and whoever is answering the phones there have always been just inexcusably rude. I keep wanting to throw a glass of ice water on them, or send them to charm school. K, originally from the SOUTHWEST. That's the SOUTHWEST.

I love In-N-Out and Pollo Loco...does Taco Cabana have more than 50 locations? We used to get big ol' plates of food and 99-cent margaritas before choir when I was in college. Nothing like going to choir a little tanked...it improves the experience considerably. K

A my-ex bagel from Lennie's (jalapenos in it!) with plain cream cheese, sea salt and a little pepper, and a glass of Fresca. And there's even a Jets game on. I love Sundays. K