You Can't Get Laid With Quinoa

Apparently a few "friends" have seen that I'm a lumpy mass and are recommending that I give up meat. My inbox has been filled with well meant yet fucking gross looking recipes. The layered quinoa casserole is something special to behold let me tell you, it looks really great, like layers of different colored, anemic bug eggs.

Now I've eaten quinoa before. More than once. It tasted like shit every time. Really really spitefully healthy shit. Quinoa does not even try to taste good. Or look good or make itself easy to prepare. You have to soak it, season it, cook it, cajole it, buy more stuff for it and tell it you will call it tomorrow, just to get a mediocre pile of blah. After all that hype. It is the Kanye of food. 

You can feel good about eating quinoa because somewhere in the third world people make a decent honest living cultivating quinoa. They export it in fair trade agreements to us so they can buy healthy nutritious food that actually tastes good instead of that quinoa garbage white people eat.

Alright, I have no idea where or how its cultivated. The jig is up and I don't care. Because its yucky.

Don't get all huffy now, I am sure quinoa is sitting around talking shit about me too. Fucking cunt says I look like bug eggs does she, I'll show her, I'll show up at office pot lucks a ha ha ha ha.....

All I am saying is that quinoa is gross and if living a meat free existence was so wonderful millions of vegan dollars would not be spent every year trying to make a meat free alternative to bacon.

It is so sad, the best meat free dishes are mock-meat dishes. Even then the most oft heard compliment is  "Oh Wow, that is actually not too bad" There are reasons why people are always shocked when a veggie feast is actually good. Most of the time they are served a pale imitation of what they really wanted to eat. As a great wise man (Homer J. Simpson) once said "You don't win friends with salad"  No good sir, you most certainly do not.

For one thing I don`t think the western palate is used to the subtle (bland) flavors and textures (crunch or mush no in between) of grains and legumes and there is a distinct fear of the salad. It does not help we have no vegetarian tradition to fall back on. Not counting the Irish potato diet, which lets face it, turned out poorly and I think prejudiced us against relying too heavily on vegetables.

That is why these weird casseroles and limp leaves in murky liquid are not ever going to catch on in the average household. No matter how good they are they are unappealing to prepare, look at and consume. Tri colour bug eggs & fake bacon. You're not doing it right.

I like the way the Asians do vegetarian. They season the shit out of it. Or say fuck it and use chicken or fish stock to add flavor. Curries chili and coconut milk (and chicken or fish) add a robustness to meatless dishes that make them seem much heartier and satisfying. Rice helps too by being both a plant (grain, whatever) AND delicious and seems much less likely to turn on us like that bastard potato.

Tofu is fermented soy bean curd and (go figure) horrible stuff on its own. Food that smells like bong water. What the hell? But, marinated and fried or in a hot and sour soup SO GOOD. Really. I'm not even being a little bit sarcastic there. Seriously. I will eat the shit out of marinated tofu.

I fully plan on making more effort to add more options to my diet and will be making veggie chili, burritos, bolognese sauce and lasagna. DELICIOUS!! I uses ingredients from space for most of those. Well, not space but I think NASA was involved in the creation of TVP aka textured vegetable protein. I don't really want to know because it is probably just grated fucking quinoa. I do not have a clue what it is but it looks like dehydrated ground beef and adds a similar texture to sauces and chilies. It tastes like, surprise surprise, nothing.

What you will not see  is me trying to pass off a giant marinated mushroom cap as a burger or steak. Its a giant mushroom that wont even make you hallucinate. A bun can't change that. Saying its the beef of the vegetables is not fooling anyone. Everyone knows the something of something isn't anything good.

ex. Toronto as the New York of Canada.... just sayin.

I must also say I do love a good lentil. Navy beans, yummy, I think of them as the gay bean.  (starts hum/muttering) In the Navy... you can find a gay bar....In the Navy... we will make you a star...

..................... wanders off to bake a ham....