It’s Monday evening and dinner turned out to be a beef stew. I hadn’t planned for it, but when I looked into the fridge … there was the leftover tri tip roast staring back at me. In retrospect, the roast was kinda big for only two people so I should have known I’d be eating red meat for a few days.

Maybe it’s the weather which inspires me to make heavy, comforting foods — it seems to be my theme this past week. Maybe it’s that my parents have been visiting us since December and I know there visit is nearing an end. Maybe, I’m secretly craving and seeking out the heavy meat and potato dishes of childhood. When I was young, not a day went by without fluffy white bread, meat, potato, and some sort of veg (optional, of course … I did not like veggies as a kid).

And, the fact I eat meat at all has a history of its own that I tend to forget about. In high school I protested the slaughter of animals on our farm and declared, “I will not eat meat!”. My mother consulted the family doctor, since such a declaration had not been made in those parts. He told her the phase would pass and I would be fine, assuming I took vitamin supplement.

I took the vitamins and avoided meat for nearly two years until college. I returned to my meat eating ways once I left my parents house, but I had made my point and was ready to move on. It wasn’t until grad school that my veggie ways returned, more for health reasons this time. I became a strict vegan this time and the effects were noticeable. I felt more energetic and healthy. Oddly, this wave of vegan-ism occurred while I went to school in Texas (yeeeehaw, ya’ll!).

It wasn’t until I moved to California that I dropped the it for a second time. Most people come to California to be vegetarians, not the other way around. I’m not sure when the urge will strike me again — for now, at least tonight, I will be having my veggies in a rich and hearty beef stew.

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