Meeting Meat

Since I've been living with my parents, I've begun to cook a lot. Most days, I don't work and they do, so I cook dinner for them. I enjoy cooking and experimenting with new recipes. Cooking for other people has been a good lesson for me because when I cook for just myself, I often end up throwing things together and calling it a meal. Cooking for others has also pushed me into new areas. Not every one wants to eat lentils and goat cheese for dinner -- though add some red onions and cilantro and people might reconsider. Occasionally, I have to let my own personal preferences go in consideration of other diners. Thus, I have been shoved into cooking a food group I've been leaving out: meat.

I keep a mostly vegetarian diet, a "flexitarian" diet. There's a book about it. Look it up. When I cook for myself, I never buy or cook meat of any kind, even fish. If other people cook meat for me, I feel bad refusing their hospitality, so I eat it. When I cook for other people, I often cook vegetarian meals. Many people don't miss the meat for one meal. After tricking my parents into eating vegetarian for over a week straight, my mom admitted she hadn't missed the meat at all. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that my dad missed his meat. He never said so, but I suspect it.

On top of that, there was a feature in Real Simple Magazine in October that was a month of easy dinners. I wanted to try it. I followed the first week: salmon, pork chops, roast beef paninis, and chicken included. I ate the salmon, and cooked other options for myself for the rest. Sometimes the meat tempts me, mostly out of curiosity -- did I make something good? However, the process of cooking meat... not so tantalizing. In fact, it makes me gag. Although I've (mostly) overcome the bloody sight of meat, the drippage and the stink of meat still disgusts me. I'm paranoid of getting raw meat juice on the counter or in the sink and spreading fleshy bacteria all over. While the completely cooked meat smells okay, there's a certain point mid-cooking that smells rank to me. Bluck.

Even though I don't really like cooking meat, I think it's good life skill. I might need to know how to cook meat someday. For instance, if I were stranded in the wilderness and got lucky enough to hunt an animal, I would need to cook it for survival. Plus, what if I fall in love with a meat eater someday? I hear compromise is important for marriage and making "meat eater" a deal breaker severely limits the selection of eligible bachelors (which already seems rather small).

There are plenty of ethical and health reasons to go vegetarian, all of which influenced my decision to reduce my consumption of meat in the first place. But, sometimes serving meat is the best way to serve people, so I'll make it... occasionally... when other people pay... if I can tell they really, really want it.