The problem with vegetarianism…
👋🏽 folks,
What a strange world we find ourselves in. And yet, every morning, the sun rises as if we are supposed to get up and get on with our days, and most days, I can do at least a little of that. All things considered, I think that’s something to be grateful for.
New to Tenderly since I last wrote…
Everything has sucked lately, so I’ve been keeping track of the things that don’t — like tamale ladies, adoptable cats in libraries, cats who think they are dogs, cats fitting into things, cats…
And another thing that doesn’t suck: this very important dog photobooth.
Alicia Kennedy’s latest Vintage Veg column covers the influential Madhur Jaffrey’s 1981 vegetarian cookbook, World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking, a book that’s breathtakingly impressive in scope and notably dated in the broad brush with which it paints all “Eastern” food — still, for a Western audience just learning to cook with spices other than salt and pepper, it must have been a revelation. A perfectly era-evocative quote therein:
“Over the past decade, as my vegetarian friends and I have sat around nibbling on radishes smeared with sweet butter or dining more elegantly on asparagus soufflés, we have been elated at the thought of vegetarianism finally coming of age in this country. But with this elation, many vegetarian cooks have expressed an awareness of the limitations of their repertoire.”
And since we’re on the topic of vegetarianism, I might as well get to that provocative subject line: Macken Murphy’s latest, The Problem with Vegetarianism. As anyone familiar with us might guess, the issue at hand is not with the idea of abstaining from eating animals, but with the idea that such a gesture is ethically significant if you are motivated by animal cruelty. Because, as Macken writes, “Dairy and eggs torture and kill animals just as surely and deliberately as the meat industry, often in greater quantities and worse ways.”
Badger the horse was headed to slaughter export when he was rescued, finding sanctuary at Kindred Community Farm Sanctuary. Unfortunately, Badger represents just a tiny portion of Canada’s horse meat export industry, which animal activists have long been working to shut down. Meanwhile, Badger is a daily reminder of the value of animals individual lives as he comforts frontline healthcare workers who can find healing in the “mirroring” of emotions that horses can exhibit.
Cats and people, paired by a portrait photographer to bring out the individuality in each one. 😻😻
TENDERLY READS
What we’re reading when we’re not writing (or eating)
- A handy reminder to log off from our friends at Forge
- Petting and talking to cows makes them happy, and they prefer live human voices to recorded ones from The Counter in “animal behavior” news that is not surprising but still somehow made me cry…
- Important: Archaeologists discover 2,000-year-old cat figure in Peru from CNN
- Rediscovering Detroit’s Roots Through Indigenous Food from Civil Eats. “Since the inception of this country, nature has always been subjugated. We’re trying to peel that stuff back and get back to the things that made this place so beautiful and healthy.”
- The best kind of meal plan is one that is not really a plan at all from Eater
- “The most recent data show that there are roughly four alarmed citizens for every one American dismissing the science of climate change.” Grist on new climate change polling showing that denial has been replaced by fear. Progress?
- Pour one out for my number one takeout spot and Austin’s most enduring vegetarian restaurant, Mother’s, closing after 40 years of serving Austinites like me baked tofu covered in tamari-bbq sauce and
HT MAKE SUNFLOWER PESTO
Great with pasta, on toast, in rice, or spooned into your mouth via chip
Recipe by Sarah Ridgeway
- ½ cup parsley, roughly chopped
- 2 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- ½ cup sunflower seeds
- 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 2½ tablespoons lemon juice. Fresh is best, but bottled is fine too.
- Place sunflower seeds on a baking sheet and toast in the oven at 325ºF for about 5 minutes. Give them a stir and then return to the oven for an additional 3 minutes or until lightly toasted. Allow to cool.
- Put all ingredients into a food processor and process until a paste begins to form, scraping down the sides once or twice as you go.
- Store in a glass jar in the refrigerator.
