A Man Undone

I think I hit the wall sometime three nights ago when I decided to hit up a local vegan place in my continuing quest for the perfect vegan lunch. As usual, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, so rather than make a rational decision based on observation and past experience, I went for the "gimme everything you got" approach. It has served me well in the past. I mean, the odds should have been in my favor. It shouldn't be any problem to find at least one dish to enjoy among a sampler of 12 vegan meals.

I was wrong. Way wrong.

To my horror, this sampler basically contained 12 different types of coleslaw. Nasty, bitter greens that had no business being served as food. It was the first time in a long time that I ate angrily, grinding my teeth past the gums and into the marrow of my jaw bone.

But I would not be defeated. I decided to treat myself to a special dinner to make up for my earlier failure. Fried BBQ tofu sounded easy enough, and close enough to the real thing to get me through the night. I worked diligently to create the perfect bridge between my world and the vegan world, gently frying each tender cube of tofu until a perfect golden brown, before slathering it with a hot and tangy vegan BBQ sauce of my own design. I assumed my reward for all the hard work would be that first, hard-earned bite.

According to my buddy Wikipedia, tofu is "a food of Chinese origin, made by coagulating soy milk, and then pressing the resulting curds into blocks." But it might as well be donkey shit of ass origin made by coagulating feces, and then pressing the resulting shit into blocks. Even covered in sauce, there was no denying the true nature of the beast.

There are only three reasons I didn't die in the days following this disaster.

1. I discovered the magic of Whole Foods, a supermarket with a large selection of vegan products and a food bar overflowing with vegan mainstays like indian food and veggie burgers.

2. Pride. I am literally too proud to die.

3. Kiri's aunt gazed upon my fragile husk and showed me mercy. On Saturday she invited Kiri, Stef, and I over for a vegan feast and it pretty much saved my life. A night before, I had stooped so low as to try to use the tofu drippings from the BBQ night to flavor some vegan bacon I'd bought on my first night as a vegan. The results were nightmarish. I have nothing but the highest praise for Miss Jewell and her kin and thank them from the bottom of my meaty heart for hosting our decent into madness.

Tonight is the end of this experiment and, as promised, I will be spending it at fette sau. If you happen to be walking in Brooklyn and you hear the vile laughter of a devil unleashed by carnal desire and raucous gluttony, know that I have finallly found peace.