Summer Projects
May. 7th, 2008 07:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asterrocEvery summer I take on a few projects for work, personal enrichment, or goals I keep putting off. I guess the latter are kinda like instead of New Year's resolutions. For example, Summer 1999 (between Junior and Senior years of college) I spent in Tucson, AZ, and I resolved to (1) learn to drive, (2) play the guitar, and (3) learn Chem 101. At the end of the summer I had my AZ driver's license, played guitar better than I probably ever have since, and didn't learn Chem but convinced myself I didn't really need to do so. What can I say, I grew up in NYC where not only do you not need to drive, it's against the law to drive on a learner's permit under age 17. And I still hate chem.
Here's a scoop on these goals/projects/enrichments this summer, and a call for suggestions on one specifically.
It's this last one that I want help with. Throughout my past history I've been a meatatarian (remember we are all biologically omnivores so people who remove animals from their diet are vegetarians, not herbivores, so a person who voluntarily removes plants from their diet cannot be a carnivore and therefore must be a meatatarian instead), but recently I've been trying to change that somewhat (primarily for health reasons - if Ican't won't exercise, at least I can eat right - and partially for environmental reasons). Even though I greatly prefer high meat content meals, one of my mottos is "I'll try most things once," so I'm always willing to try meat substitutes.
There are two reasons I like meat: (1) I don't like the texture of vegetables as much, and (2) I don't like the flavor as much. Meat substitutes get around the first - it's mostly the crunchyness that I don't like (though I like overcooked veggies even less) - but for me they most emphatically do not not NOT get around the second. Meat has a savory taste to it (umami) that exists in some mushroom dishes (such as portabella burgers, or stuffed mushrooms), all chickpea dishes, very faintly in tofu, and of course in milk, eggs, and cheese (though to a lesser extent than in beef, chicken, or fish).
I have tried garden burgers of a few brands and the texture was never satisfying (though I cannot remember what precisely was wrong with them, nor the brands I've had). Not-dogs (tofu-dogs) only taste like hot-dogs when burned, though the texture comes close. Quorn-based chili is excellent, much like a good tofu chili, but it lacks the savoriness of meat and is very clearly NOT meat to me. I have never once tasted a meat substitute where my first thought was anything other than either "wow, that's terrible," or "it's okay, but it's notmeat."
So what I'm looking for from y'all is other types of meat-substitutes to try. I want them to be SAVORY, I want to be able to purchase them in one-meal quantities (so if T$ or I don't like it after the first meal, we don't have to eat it again), and I want to be able to get them at a store I won't have to drive 50 miles to get to (i.e., Stop'n'Shop, Big Y, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, local co-op).
Go!
Here's a scoop on these goals/projects/enrichments this summer, and a call for suggestions on one specifically.
- Learn pedagogy for online course teaching, and hopefully develop the actual course too. (Work)
- Relearn/practice Physics II - everything from SHO to Thermo, Giancoli Ch 11-20. (Work/Enrichment)
- Road trip to Florida (Enrichment)
- Finally change over that electricity bill to renewable (Goal)
- Eat vegetarian once a week, by attempting to find a meat substitute that actually tastes like meat. (Goal)
It's this last one that I want help with. Throughout my past history I've been a meatatarian (remember we are all biologically omnivores so people who remove animals from their diet are vegetarians, not herbivores, so a person who voluntarily removes plants from their diet cannot be a carnivore and therefore must be a meatatarian instead), but recently I've been trying to change that somewhat (primarily for health reasons - if I
There are two reasons I like meat: (1) I don't like the texture of vegetables as much, and (2) I don't like the flavor as much. Meat substitutes get around the first - it's mostly the crunchyness that I don't like (though I like overcooked veggies even less) - but for me they most emphatically do not not NOT get around the second. Meat has a savory taste to it (umami) that exists in some mushroom dishes (such as portabella burgers, or stuffed mushrooms), all chickpea dishes, very faintly in tofu, and of course in milk, eggs, and cheese (though to a lesser extent than in beef, chicken, or fish).
I have tried garden burgers of a few brands and the texture was never satisfying (though I cannot remember what precisely was wrong with them, nor the brands I've had). Not-dogs (tofu-dogs) only taste like hot-dogs when burned, though the texture comes close. Quorn-based chili is excellent, much like a good tofu chili, but it lacks the savoriness of meat and is very clearly NOT meat to me. I have never once tasted a meat substitute where my first thought was anything other than either "wow, that's terrible," or "it's okay, but it's notmeat."
So what I'm looking for from y'all is other types of meat-substitutes to try. I want them to be SAVORY, I want to be able to purchase them in one-meal quantities (so if T$ or I don't like it after the first meal, we don't have to eat it again), and I want to be able to get them at a store I won't have to drive 50 miles to get to (i.e., Stop'n'Shop, Big Y, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, local co-op).
Go!
