h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Z, I think there are probably more vegetarians on the coasts than in my area. We're pretty traditional around here. I do know a few, but they are very much 'holier-than-thou' types. And younger people here are more likely to be vegetarian than us old folks.

I've flirted with the idea for years. I'm sure it would improve F's coronary artery problems. But it would be so different than the way I'm used to eating, that I don't know if I could pull it off. And I don't see how I'd ever lose weight if I ate even more carbohydrates than I do now. We eat three or four vegetarian meals a week, but that's as far as I've gotten.

Three wood sprites begin to circle Foom-Fu-Lalloo in a last bid to finish the holidays with a glorious display of lights around the tree brought into the Atelier earlier this week. They sprinkle its boughs with irridescent glittering jewels of twinkling lights as they spin round about the holiday tree.

#1: happy holidays to all!
#2: and a joyous new year!
#3: may your lives be blessed!

In a swirl of pixie dust and shimmering lights all three wood sprites converge on the top of the tree. They coalesce into one bright scintillating ball of light that highlights the decorations already in place. Rays of multicolored light shine forth and touch the various corners of the Atelier and give it an ethereal glow that beckons everyone present to reach out in friendship to their fellow Salonistas.

#1: god bless us!
#2: every one!
#3: amen!

Well, thanks, I think. I've yet to see Quorn here, but couldn't eat it anyway, since I'm alergic to mushrooms. I was a veghead for about 4 years, and let me tell you...when you're alergic to mushrooms, it's hard to find things you can eat! I became particularly fond of the morningstar farms products. They make a veggie corn dog that my daughter prefers to real corn dogs (and at 1/3 the fat, and none of the cholesterol, I don't mind that a bit), and their crumbles are quite good, and the STBX, the meat fiend, can't tell them from ground beef in chili.

Ben, if the house you grew up in is your innermost self, then if you don't dream about it, does that mean you don't have, or don't want to confront, your innermost self?

well, traditional lemonade is nothing other than water, lemon juice and sugar. no carbonation whatsoever. in fact, in the part of the US i live in there are no name brand carbonated lemonades - the closest thing is minute maid's lemonade, made by coke, which has no carbonation and very little lemon if you ask me.

I am ratty because I am not smoking, though not actually craving because of wearing a patch). The Stepson wanted to by cigarettes, (ie bum cash off me to pay for them), so we decided to go to Tescos because I could do with some onions and icecream. The queues were worse than pre-Christmas, so I said 'f**k this' and sent him off to the petrol station with my last tenner.

He wants to go out, but I hate noisy bars, and am too broke as it is. There is f**k all on tv tonight, and we have run out of videos and dvds. I am worse at New Year than I am at Christmas, but it usually isn't so obvious, because it is more socially acceptable to do it on your own, and you often get invited to parties.

I feel mean: there is nothing on tv, I don't want to go out, and I am in a bad temper. For a wonder, the Stepson is setting down with a book, but my copy of "Republican Party Reptile" which he wanted to borrow has gone AWOL, which is also very annoying.

All I am fit for is to be left on my own to recover, but that isn't an option.

B

Well, I dream about it when I need to, but not when I don't, I guess. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. I tend to let my dreams get on with it.

Hypatia - I hesitate to ask who "they" might be, who would be annoyed by you doing more and better professionally. This could be heavy stuff. Why not explore it more in the Never Starting?

B

I'm not one for celebrating New Year's Eve either. The times I've gone out on New Year's have been miserable, I'd much rather just stay home.

http://www.quorn.com/ It seems they sell it in the co-op downtown. I'll have to give it a try.

it isn't very popular in the us, but i'd love to try it. quorn

Btw, in theory I have added Caer, Lil, MR and Titania to my contacts lists on MSN, AIM and Y!

My contact details are on my old U-Page.

B

H isn't very fond of Quorn, as Z says, it does taste rather like meat, and to meat eaters it doesn't taste quite 'right'. But it saves me having to cook seperate meals occasionally and if it is in chili or curry, no one notices too much.

I seem to remember reading that a number of poeple in the US had suffered reactions to eating Quaorn and that it was withdrawn from the market until it was labeled more clearly as being derived from fungal protein, or words to that effect.

I have had Quorn once, given to me by a veggie h2g2er actually. It was OK, but not really that impressive. I sort of like tofu if cooked correctly. But for all that, I am too much of a carnivore to give meat up.

I don't like Quorn. As Caer says, it's too meat-like for veggies and not enough like meat for carnivores.

Just now I'm marinading a bit of a in pomegranate juice for my New Year's Eve meal.

I did a stir fry with quorn about a year ago, but it was awful due to the fact that I burned the ginger and the garlic. I keep meaning to try it again some day. I cooked with tofu Saturday night--I drained a package of extra-firm, patted it dry, sliced it into four even segments, marinated it, lightly coated it in a egg batter and fried it. It tasted like chicken.

[GDZ]

Tofu is easy to make badly. I cannot cook with it *yet*. I might try something like what you did FG. It sounds good.

Quorn

The texture is all wrong, so much so that I start to wonder if there is something wrong with this 'meat'. Then I remember it isn't meat. I get confused, I throw it all away and make myself a bacon sandwich instead.

Come to think of it I don't like any of the meat replacement products out there. I don't really get why you would want to take a vegetable and process it to immitate meat. Think of it the other way around, what it if we used steak to make fake carrots. That would be just plain silly - and so is Quorn.

Z - when you said blew up, do you mean BANG big explosion, or high pressure jet of lemonade from small hole?

I have only had quorn in premade food, quorn-chicken-steaks and the like. It was no better and not much worse than real premade-chicken-steaks.

Marv and I have been testing my IM connection. It seems that though I have added some folks, I cannot see them even if they are online. This may be a Trillian thing, or it may be a New Year thing, or it may be a Ben thing.

I need tea....

B

Well the main purpose is for people who are cooking for vegies but aren't used to vegi cooking themselves so they can just do the mean they would have done anyway and shove in a meat replacement.

There are vegiburgers that don't taste of meat, and they are just buger shaped things but taste of something else, so they are more a new sort of dish that has been devised, if you like it you like it, as a dish it's self not because it's a meat replacement. I often use stuffing where others would use meat, such as if I'm making toad in the hole. Or if I'm making a roast dinner and need something to have the trimmings with.

GD it was quite a big explosion, for some reason the lemonade managed to get from one side of the room to the other, I have no idea how it happened - not seen anything like that before.

Lemonade of Mass Destruction?



B

Be carefull, we don't want the shrub to find out about that Z!