One Suitcase: Four Stories review

In Italian culture, family and close friends always enter the house from the back door. The thinking behind this being that the back door leads to the kitchen and the kitchen is where everything happens. So, in Barking Spider Visual Theatre's latest production, One Suitcase: Four Stories, it's only fitting that we are taken round the Northcote Town Hall and enter from the back entrance.

Our host, Linda Catalano, welcomes us with open arms into her 'kitchen', and by looking at the set design by Tristan Shelley, you would think it was a real kitchen that has been in use for years and filled with many stories to tell. We take our seat at one of the five dinner tables with six other people and immediately, we all have a sense of familiarity with each other and conversation and jokes flow. Such is the power of good food! 

30 Days of Vegetarian: Day 27 - Tivall

Mock schnitzel

Coming in to the home stretch. For dinner, I have sampled another mock-meat company; Tivall - founded in 1985, is the world's leader in ready-made vegetarian food products. In their website it states: 

"Tivall products are specifically designed to be a complete source of protein and to provide all the amino acids necessary for a healthy meat-free diet. They contain natural sources of egg protein, soya protein and wheat protein."

Having learnt to be a little sceptical of the healthiness of vegetarian meals, I have done some research and from what I can see egg and wheat protein are good for you as the support each other in storing and using protein. I know about soy but again, it's not like I am having massive amounts of it. So I think this might be a good one, but again, in moderation.

Also got a response from Grill'd regarding my Vitamin C question. What do people think? Is this all above board or are they just talking it up to make it seem like it's that great? How much vitamin C can you actually get from a few slices of tomato and tomato relish?

30 Days of Vegetarian: Day 17 - Bad Food Day

Firstly, I have not had meat today but I have had a horrible day of food and eating loads of crap. Breakfast was two pieces of toast with honey. Lunch was back to the falafel salad which again, nice and filling.

I had all these grand plans of coming home from work and cooking tofu for the first time ever. Did a grocery shop and everything. And then when i came home, I ended up eating three packets of life savers, packet of liquorice and a packet of crisps. I have not moved from my bed in three hours! Bah, so many good intentions! I need a chef!

Whilst I was walking past the butchers, I did look at all that meat and think of all the animals that had been killed for it and the conditions in which they would have been killed. Just kept walking past it and got myself my mock schnitzel instead!

I have however  bought quinoa, nuts and flaxseed and B12 vitamins so it feels like I will be keeping this thing going just a little bit longer than 30 days!

Also watched this clip of Ellen talking about being vegan and although I'm not that extreme I stand by exactly what she say...

30 Days of Vegetarian: Day 13 - Bullseye!

So this goes where and then I...

Today involved my first social outing with the Vegetarian Victoria group and it was a two hour archery session in Kew. It's funny, I started feeling a bit nervous as I approached as I knew absolutely no one. It felt like being the new kid at school and figuring out which table you should sit at. Fortunately, everyone was very friendly and there was a mixture of vegetarians, vegans and the in-betweens with various years practising. Needless to say, I was the baby of the group.

The archery was a lot of fun. Managed to score four bullseyes. Of course, I shot about 70-80 times so not a great ratio. Few arrow burns and sore fingers but fun overall. I found the irony of a bunch of vegetarians aiming for a bullseye worth a giggle or two.

I did manage to get a few tips on places to eat at and stuff, and a very useful website called Happy Cow which shows you all the vegan/vegetarian friendly restaurants wherever you are. Quite a few of the people there swore by it so have downloaded the app and will be using it over the next few weeks and see how we go!

Dinner tonight was Florentine Tortellini with spinach and garlic. Quick and easy and although not pleasing to the eye, it was very filling and delicious.

Meat cravings have been minimal. It's funny, the amount of times I had declared no more junk food in the past and literally two days later, I would be back at KFC. I take it a step further and say no meat and I have no problems doing it - maybe it's the fact I've gone public with it and there is a lot more invested. Either way, I am beginning feel better so that's a positive.

30 Days of Vegetarian: Day 11 - Temple Grandin

Going on a friend's recommendation, I watched Temple Grandin (movie) last night. Temple Grandin is a doctor of animal science at Colorado State University. She also has autism (when Dustin Hoffman was researching his role in Rainman, Temple is who he spoke with). In a time when autism was still 'the great unknown' Temple was able to use the anxieties of feeling threatened by her everyday surroundings to create better welfare for animals.

She believed that the worst thing you can do to an animal is to make it feel afraid and how animals use their emotions, including how they use them to predict the future. She used all the above to introduce designs for sweeping, curved corrals which intended to reduce stress in animals being led to slaughter.

Temple has received some criticism about her work, especially as the animals are still killed for their meat. But let's be honest, brutally honest; these animals will be killed. As much as people would like it, I do not believe we will ever reach a time when everyone stops eating meat or stops wearing leather. But to be able to help lower the anxieties these animals have and attempt at giving them a better "life" is the next best thing. And no one seems to have done more to help this cause than Temple.

If anyone is interested more about this inspiring woman and the work she has done on livestock behaviour, design of facilities and human slaughter of animals, click here.

30 Days of Vegetarian: Day 4 - Variety is the Spice of Life

Today was a pretty standard day...apart from going to bed at 5am after watching Paranormal Activity 3 (not recommended) and waking up 11:30am. I had nothing to eat all day except a banana and a muesli bar. Which makes me wonder, I don't have a good diet in general. I don't eat three meals and three snacks a day. I usually have two meals and that's it. If I'm not eating properly then not eating meat and and getting protein and the rest of it must have some negative effects on me. I head back to work on Monday so hopefully early morning routine will sort me out.

For dinner I met a friend visiting from Sydney, who as it turns out, is a big meat fan. We headed to Brunswick St for a bite and I thought I would try and get him to go to the amazing Vegie Bar, which I have been to numerous times as a non-vegetarian and always had great food and service (except this one time, but that's not for here). Sadly, he was hell-bent on steak so we ended up at Cafe Nova where I ordered some fries and the nachos with black beans, salsa, guacamole and cheese. These were the only items on the menu that were meat free (apart from a salad but I needed something more filling). It made me question two things;

At least I know what black beans look like now

a) Is it common or usual for vegetarians to have to sacrifice eating good, tasty food because of their diet? Why is it so hard for people to not eat meat for one evening?  It's almost like being a vegetarian (and a vegan) is looked upon with disdain by our superior meat eaters. And I am not saying that was my experience with my mate, but it did raise the question.

b) I thought vegetarians were so much better catered for in restaurants and cafes. I thought we had just as much variety and choice than our meat eating counterparts? Is there a special menu we need to ask for? Can any meal on the menu be made without meat, do we just have to request it? Do chefs hate us for being picky?

30 Days of Vegetarian: Day 2 - Swedish Temptations

My friend and I organised to pop my Ikea cherry - she needed extra shelving so we agreed to make an outing and also have lunch there; where I have long been told about Ikea's amazing Swedish meatballs.
Unfortunately this was decided upon last week, - BV (Before Vegetarianism) - so I was unable to sample them, which I was quite gutted about. I had to ask what was on offer for vegetarians as I almost ended up having some fish dish in error and even though there isn't a wide variety of food there, it was disappointing that there was only one vegetarian option...so I settled for pasta with vegetable sauce and a slice of "daim" chocolate cake (the best chocolate bar in the world in my opinion). Ironically, that and my bottle of water was the same price as my garden salad from yesterday!

Ikea cafe - 1 point
Port Melbourne Cafe - 0 points

                    

                              No to swedish meatballs :(

Yes to vegie sauce pasta :)

On a side-note, that cross and tick were the first time I have ever done anything like that in Photoshop before and it took me forever to figure out! Really not as technologically savvy as I thought I was!

It was way too hot today to go supermarket so dinner was pasta and ready made vegetable sauce. Spotting a trend? But I have gone online and found some really interesting vegetarian recipes from Eating Well that I am looking forward to creating. They seem quick and easy and there's even a few foods I have never heard of before; what's an arugula? 

Have gone online looking for any vegetarian related events or groups, and there isn't much. There seems to be a lot of vegan groups but not sure if there is any "hostility" between the two. haha. Even finding a vegetarian cooking class has been hard and still have not been able to find out. There is a vegetarian singles night coming up but I doubt it would cater to a gay audience...but maybe I'll go for a laugh, you never know right?