This Is Not A Democracy

God. I am back. It's been a nightmare only being able to get online on my phone. I never check LJ from there because the screen is so tiny and if you try to post you have to do it in a box an inch square.


We are now in the new house! Hurrah! It is much bigger than the old place, although I do feel a bit lost with all the space. We now own a big, squishy green sofa and a blue armchair, too. Since we've been here, it has snowed more than I've ever seen in the space of a year. Getting to work tomorrow is going to be more than a little bit ridiculous. No matter which way I walk, it'll be uphill.

Work is exactly the same as it was a few weeks ago. They keep telling me I'm amazing but I have still seen no payrise or official promotion. :\ I did get a bonus for "going above and beyond" when I arranged the company Christmas party, which was nice.

Christmas sucked because I had a reaction to the smoke cloak issued by the intruder alarm at work - and then I got a cold on top of it. New Year was weak because my plans went tits up. Not a great start to the year, but I did make up for it with lunch with Matthew and Wild Things Weekend with the girls.



Wild Things Weekend involved myself, shiny_starlight, supercasio and fadefromblack, food, zombie escape plans being taken very seriously, confusing Matthew with unsolicited texts about not wearing red shirts in the event of a crisis, awesome food at the best buffet restaurant you will ever go to (honestly, it's like a palace of nom), lots of goofing around and feeling sick from over eating on the beach and then... Where the Wild Things Are.

Now, I'm not going to spoil this, but I do have to ask, "Who the fuck thought this was suitable for children?" It's fucked up! At one point I thought the kids in front of me would start screaming, it was so dark and creepy. It was also insanely depressing and had an air of a film that had significant scenes missing - like bits had been edited out for rating approval. So fucking weird. I would like to see a Director's Cut of this one, because I feel like so much is unclear.

But anyway - that's the update. How have you all been?

Julie and I made Blue Velvet cupcakes. NOM NOM NOM.

Does anyone want to come to the farmer's market at Ally Pally this Sunday?

Vegetarianism, then: something I never really thought I'd gravitate to. To any extent.

However, I've lately made the choice first to restrict the meat I eat to ethically farmed sources, and more recently, I've stopped buying meat products from the supermarket altogether. Don't get me wrong, I love meat and seafood, I really do (especially the seafood) - there is absolutely no squick behind this decision. I'm doing this because of the way the animals are farmed and the greed of the meat industry itself; there is an on-going pressure to force down meat prices so they are virtually unsustainable for the farmers and inhumane for the animals. I've chosen not to personally buy into that and help promote farming on such an enormous scale, which is ultimately detrimental to the farmers producing the end product anyway. (A recent programme here in the UK revealed that the average chicken farmer selling mass-farmed roasting chickens which would be sold for around £2.50 in the supermarkets would only receive 3p per chicken.)

So, I've started trying out the vegetarian substitutes (Quorn escalopes are not my favourite :|) and figuring out for myself what exactly I'm going to exclude from my diet, devising my own set of rules for acceptability.

I have no problem with eating meat from small farms, where the animals are at least treated with a certain respect and the sale of the produce is generally fairer on the farmer (on-site farm shops=major bonus), but living in London, as I do, finding and affording such products seems to be relatively impossible. The fact that I'll be moving to Hove in East Sussex, with Julie, will probably aid this to some extent as the south coast is lined by countryside and not surrounded by mile after mile of concrete.

I would love to have the same self-sufficiency and respect for food sources promoted by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (one of our country's main proponents of eating with conscience), but my chances of ever owning a small holding are slim, and frankly, I'm too lazy - so I'm going to have to do this as a lowly city dweller.

So my main rules will have to be:

- if it had a face, I'm not buying it from a supermarket (unless it's a jammy biscuit);
- if it had a face, but I can be sure of the source and know that it was generally ethically farmed, I will consider buying from respectable local suppliers;
- if it contains egg (such as mayonnaise) it must be from free range (thank you Hellmanns)
- where dairy is concerned, soya products are always preferrable, however, vegetarian-approved cheese is also acceptable if necessary (I haven't explored the cheese issue, as yet, but I already use soya milk rather than dairy and have done for some time).

As I already mentioned, shellfish - especially oysters and prawns - are my favourite foods. They're a peculiarly ambiguous category, because they don't have a face but they do seem to have greater cognitive activity than say, a potato. For this reason, I'm going to categorise them under meat; which means no 'fresh' packs from the supermarket. I generally only eat oysters at restaurants anyway (which creates my next issue) but prawns I will usually eat at least once a week; it'll be a strange change to my diet to rule them out.

On the matter of restaurants, is it okay to eat meat or fish at restaurants, as I haven't purchased the original product myself? I suppose it's similar to the argument presented by edgiko on the matter of vegans purchasing second-hand leather: it's acceptable because the individual has not directly contributed to the original demand for the product.

I think this is one to test when I next eat out at a restaurant and see what I can find out from the staff and weigh it up in my conscience then...

The thing is, I am not calling myself a vegetarian - I want to make that clear, because I don't want to steal the thunder of the people who do dedicate their lives to the lifestyle, as I have a lot of respect for them (unless they call themselves 'pescatarians' or 'vegetarians who eat fish' in which case they can fuck off and die) and I don't want to be a hypocrite.

The ultimate concern here, is to not actively contribute to the meat industry - human beings are designed to consume meat, that's how we've evolved, but we did not evolve because of factory farming.

So, this is kind of a big thing for me, so I've actually decided to blog the process and record my experiences of exploring vegetarian products, recipes and finding respectable sources.

If anyone is interested, it's over at wordpress, under Not If It Had A Face... (and lordgroovius made it a feed! notifithadaface)

So, when we were in the US, Julie and I had this amazing, amazing bread in the Cheesecake Factory, which was dark, dark brown and had oats on top.

Does anyone know what kind of bread that is?

*proud* I'm making my first-ever biscuits!

Maple and almond.

Might ice them. Still thinking about it. Go me.

Good God, I still feel utterly shit.

I was off on Wednesday, left at 2.30 yesterday (I only came in because of month end invoicing) and I'm only in today because we have a team meeting.

Since Tuesday I have consumed the following:

A cheese crepe
Half a bowl of pea and mint soup (note: bright green soup=Exorcist effect)
A small white roll (plain, with the soup)
A panini
Some crisps.

SINCE TUESDAY.

That's how ill I am. It is not good.

Tomorrow, glaelia is coming over for shopping, an appearance at Coffee, dinner and a piss up. This will be an interesting experiment. And possibly very unglamorous.