Ah, Paris! Veganized chèvre chaud

Paris is in fact everything they say it is. The city is just as beautiful as they say, the Eiffel Tower is just as impressive, the bike culture is just as awesome, the food is just as good, the waiters are just as surly. It's fantastic. Paris was my first vacation outside of North America, and I would go back again in a second. It's true: seeing places around the world changes your perspective on home, in ways both fantastic and slightly bubble-bursting. (Yes, bubble-bursting: see the afore-mentioned comment on bike culture. And then ponder North American bike culture.)

The highlight of many vacations is the food. And for Paris this is especially true. Yes, you pay through the nose for everything (unless you learn to shoot espresso while standing up) but everything is fantastic. I went to Paris with my mother, and also with a friend who met up with friends of hers who were in Paris at the same time. She came back from their lunch reporting her friends had said they hadn't had any good food since being in Paris. The three of us shook our heads in disbelief: we hadn't had one BAD meal since coming to Paris. Crepes, salads, gorgeous crusty baguette everywhere—these were food memories that would stay with us long after flying back home.

But after becoming vegan, I started to think all those memories of good food would remain memories, since the French load every single meal up with cheese and ham (and sometimes chopped egg for good measure). I was especially sad about losing one of my favourite meal, chèvre chaud. Literally “hot goat's cheese”, chèvre chaud is a simple salad, with some kind of dressing and the simple-yet-delicious toasted bread and goat cheese on top. It's one of those meals that prove the old axiom: a fantastic dish is often made up of simple ingredients, and becomes more than the sum of its parts.

I wasn't even thinking about veganizing this dish, since vegan cheeses are rarely fantastic, and as a vegan, cheese dishes are something I have learned to modify but never replicate. So when I was at work on Friday, thinking about what I could eat as my pre-gym snack, the thought of my cashew “goat cheese” on toast did occur to me as an option. But only when I started craving the greens I had in the fridge did I realize that greens + cashew goat cheese on toast = vegan chèvre chaud.

And yes, it was delicious. It was almost like being back in Paris, except there were no surly waiters in sight!

Recipes for vegan cashew cheese abound: I'm sure google can help you there. I recommend crusty bread or chewy whole-grain bread, with a simple dressing. And please use green greens (not white, limp lettuce), for maximal texture as well as nutrition—baby arugula or spinach would be a wise choice. Slice off a bit off cashew cheese, put on top of toast, and put under the broiler until warmed. At this point, the last step is to dream of Paris.

Evolving Triangles

Well. Isn't it quite the punny/witty amuse-bouche-for-the-brain title I've got here. (And quite the inflated ego, incidentally.) I was going to go with "thosearepearls" but this guy already has it. Oh snap. That's okay--at least he references T. S. Eliot in his blog, which is one of that particular quote's two allusions. (The other is The Tempest [scroll halfway down for the speech] by good old Billy Shakes. But didn't we all just already know that, with our useless degrees in Eglish lit.) However, he hasn't posted since August, and has only posted three times ever. Sigh--such a waste of a good allusion, but more on that later.

Why Evolved Triangle? Because of the yoga pose, first and foremost: I have been doing yoga for ten years and still love it. It's the one pose that made me fall the first time I tried it, and it's one that gave me immense satisfaction when I could finally do it properly, with my hand on the ground.

Also, I like the notion of evolution--through trial and error, and time (and giant amounts of patience), we eventually get better. I like the blending of the concepts of science and yoga. I like how it fits with how I conceive of veganism--because one of the things people say is that humans 'evolved' to eat meat. I've seen arguments that go both ways, but to me it comes down to our moral evolution--we have highly evolved brains that allow us to choose what we eat.

To link the title into strict fitness as well (not just yoga, a blend of physical and mental most of the time), I'd have to say I think the triangle kinda looks like me now, after a year's consistent work at the gym--my shoulders have certainly become wider since I started weight training. It was one of the most dramatic changes I saw in my body, aside from the weight loss itself. (More on that later too.)

Finally, it does raise other spiritual implications as well. Firstly, the quote, "If triangles had a god, he would have three sides." Which I've always liked--we may have been made in god's image, but that sure as hell goes both ways. And in Wicca, there is the Triple Goddess, and the triangle is her symbol.

So, there it is. A breakdown of my ever-so-precious blog title. The next one will be about about food and VeganMoFo, I promise!