The Coronavirus Diaries, 13th March 2021

We’re Zooming again tonight but this time everyone is self-catering. I am having scrambled tofu with mushrooms, leeks, spinach, garlic and brown rice. Pudding will be blueberries and plain, unsweetened soya yoghurt. I’d like to have eaten before we meet up, but I was reading the last John le Carré lent to me by Michèle and I didn’t realise it was so late.

The new veganism is still bothering me. I am the only vegan among my friends. I cook them vegan food that doesn’t pretend to be anything else and they like it. I remain unconvinced their reaction would be positive if I were to present them with fake meat, even if I liked it. I do have some fake cheese at the moment. I quite like the fake smoked cheese, and I definitely like the soft cheeses. Except I don’t really think of them as cheese. The current cheese is different. Fake Red Leicester. It is, I have discovered, just perfect in a toasted sandwich.

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The Coronavirus Diaries, 4th August 2020

I’ve never used marrow, vegetable marrow that is (obviously given my tastes bone marrow would never be on the menu chez IsobelandCat, though I remember my black Labrador Tessa used to have tins of a product called Pal which claimed it was enriched with marrowbone jelly) in curry before tonight. It was good, very good. Marrow is a bland vegetable which soaked up the curry flavours like a sponge and shared them nicely with its fellow vegetables. I had seconds, but then exerted my self-control and the rest is in a plastic container which will go into the freezer once it’s cooled down enough. The rest of the marrow will come with me to das Boot tomorrow and probably form part of another curry, maybe a green one this time. It’s a smallish chunk. I gave half the marrow to B&J and used half the remainder tonight. The mathematicians among you will have worked out that leaves a quarter.

I love curry. Like soup it’s a great chance to use up vegetables that are kicking around the fridge – squishy tomatoes, mushrooms that have passed their best, those last bits of cauliflower, the forgotten potato, the last of the carrots, a stick of celery that would otherwise go into the compost. Fresh ginger, a mix of spices, lentils, chilli flakes and hey presto you have a wonderful and fragrantly delicious meal. I added a large handful of fresh spinach tonight when it was nearly done. Yum and cheap as chips.

Eat vegan, eat tasty

I really should have known better, but sometimes a bargain seems a bargain, even though as I put it in my basket I calculate how many meals I could make from scratch for the same price. So when I visited a branch of Tesco hoping to buy some spring greens I should have looked at the vegan macaroni cheese Reduced in p[rice), noted that it exists, and left it on the shelf. Maybe had I found those spring greens I might have done. I can buy spring greens in my local branch of Morrison’s, but the ones Tesco and Sainsbury’s sell are much greener, fresher, younger. But there were no spring greens and I was curious, I admit it, about the vegan macaroni cheese, or mac and cheese as it is increasingly called in supermarkets. (I was confused by this name for some time, wrongly assuming it was something to do with the hamburger chain, but it seems a passing fad to sex up a old, familiar, and much loved supper standby).
Well, I shan’t be buying it again. There’s bland, and then several degrees down the scale is Tesco’s vegan macaroni cheese. Fortunately I had some whole grain mustard at the ready and a tasty (home assembled) salad of watercress, spinach, pomegranate seeds, tomatoes, black olives, spring onion and avocado.

Captain’s Log 3rd October 2018

I am at das Boot with the First Mate (MasterB has been promoted). We are both  in the rear cabin, I’m on the director’s chair looking out at the quiet marina, MasterB is purring on the pink fleecy blanket at the end of the bed.

In the field beside us the calves are grazing with their mothers. I got off to photograph some of them. They are so very pretty. One or two were curious but shy. I like to think their mothers recognise me as the woman who uproots sticky weed from my side of the barbed wire fence to give them. Certainly they seem unconcerned by my presence, and do nothing to warn their calves not to speak to me.

Ninety Per Cent Vegan

“So what’s the other ten per cent?” asked Cousin’s Husband, “Do you eat sausages?”
I don’t think it was a serious question, and certainly he was quickly shushed by others in the room, but given the attitudes of some vegans, my other ten per cent might just as well be a love of rare steak.
It’s not though, it’s vegetarian. The odd bit of dairy, usually in the form of a hidden ingredient, still creeps into my meals. Then there are the eggs from hens kept as pets. I don’t have them very often, but they are there. A lot of my food is made from the same ingredients it always was, but used in different ways. I never used to eat butter beans in salads, or tofu in sandwiches. I didn’t have tahini spread on toast in the morning topped with fresh fruit, or with tomatoes, capers and olives. But the tahini, the tomatoes, the olives, the fresh fruit, the tofu, the butter beans were all staples.
The capers? I used to love capers, then suddenly, inexplicably, went off them. I haven’t eaten them in years. Then a neighbour brought some to our Equaliteas event, and since then I have eaten loads of them.
As I have said before, I don’t know that I shall ever be fully vegan. It is more of a lifestyle than vegetarianism. To reach nirvana all animal products including wool, leather and honey need to be excised. I still have quite a bit of honey inherited from Aunt. As I don’t eat it often, that statement will probably be true for some time to come. Equally most of my footwear is leather and unlikely to wear out overnight. Despite the best efforts of the moths (London has suffered a moth invasion this year) I still have some woollen jumpers. Now I am wondering about silk. I guess that might be on the forbidden list too. Maybe I am only eighty or eighty-five per cent vegan.

Vegfest 2017: Reality

Interest in fake cheese

I arrived at Olympia around two, and at first sight my worst fears seemed to be realised – long queues of people, many wearing t shirts with vegan slogans, at a food stall selling meals out of mock meat. I had my own lunch with me, and it looked a lot nicer than most of the stuff other people were eating.

Looking at the list of exhibitors I was surprised to see a number of animal charities including Cats’ Protection and Mayhew, and very pleased to see Veggie Pets were there. Ever since I visited Edgar’s Mission in Australia last year I have been keen to find out how possible it is to feed a cat a healthy vegetarian diet. It turns out that taurine, something cats need to be well is now made synthetically and that meat and fish based cat foods use this man made product.

The stall had lots of products for dogs, not so many for cats. Just two types of biscuit. I bought samples for MasterB to try, knowing I would be back again on Sunday and could get a big bag if he liked them. It seems I can buy tinned food online. Well how about that?

A Hit With a Pig

Closing the car door, I realised I was giving off a fairly strong smell of pig. It's not a bad smell, but it is fairly distinctive; earthy with an overtone of muddy straw. Fortunately Vicki was probably similarly aromatic. Anyway, she didn't seem to mind, and after all it was she who had organised our trip to Edgar's Mission and a spot of pig cuddling.

Not only cuddlesome pigs, but a gorgeous dog called Ruby who was sent to be shot because she was a failure as a farm dog, hopeless at herding stock, and far keener to interact with humans.

Do you feel a bit of a theme developing here? Last week Gem/Jem, now Ruby. Though the first would be my childhood's black Labrador Tessa, the gun dog who wouldn't retrieve, whose days were at one point similarly numbered.