A Month of Plant Eating

Ever since I can remember I was a meat-eater. A lot of people I know are the same. Though some of them tend to discriminate against cows and pigs, most of them don't. But as we all know there is yet another strange breed of people live among us who don't actually eat meat at all! You might not believe this but there are some reported cases of them not eating meat for as long as a year or two even. I swear I'm telling the truth. This always puzzled, baffled and intrigued me. Not me telling the truth, there never was any question about that, but people not eating meat. So I wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery. How on earth can someone go on for so long without tasting meat? I mean, let's face it. There's nothing like a well prepared steak, a lamb chop or a roasted chicken right? How can you even begin to think that any plant can substitute that? I like a good fried potato or a parippu curry, but comparing that to meat is like comparing a scooter to a Mercedes.

However, like I said, I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Which in other words I wanted to see what the world looks like to these plant-eaters. It must be grey scale, boring and tasteless, I was sure. I mean, did I tell you how good the steak is? So I just threw all caution to the wind and decided to become a plant-eater for a month.

Adjusting, at first, wasn't easy. Adjusting in the sense adjusting my lifestyle. As you probably know I live in Japan, and I live alone. And despite me being quite good at cooking - take my word for it even though I myself say it - I'm too lazy for it most of the time. So the combination of not cooking and living in Japan naturally mean eating a lot of meat. Usually I eat my breakfast at a coffee shop which contains at least sausages or bacon. I don't usually have lunch, and the dinner is either eaten outside, bought from a shop or in rare cases made at home. Unless it is the rare case, this means dinner has a lot of meat too. So this left me with no option but to cook most of my meals. This, at first, was a bitch. How on earth am I going to cook so frequently? But yours truly isn't one to give up so easily. I started having breakfast at home. For dinner, instead of cooking same old Sri Lankan food every time I opted for more variety. Italian, French, Moroccan, Russian and Maldivian food were among many varieties I tried. Okay that's stretching it a bit far (Only two paras ago I said that my telling the truth was never in question. Jeez) but I really did prepare different food, particularly Italian style. Then after a few days it was all part of my daily routine. Cooking wasn't a pain in the arse anymore. In fact, I started loving it so much I started improvising even. And I made through that month without even realizing it!

At first I thought I would not stand a chance, that I wouldn't last a week. Even if I did last a month by some miracle, I thought I'd run to a MacDonald's just when the clock hits midnight and gobble down dozen Big Macs. Well, it's been two days since the end of the month and I'm still to eat meat! Never did I think there would come a day I say this, but I actually enjoyed being vegetarian! When prepared well veggies taste as good, you feel guilt free since no more fatty stuff and unless you eat at fancy restaurants home cooked meals are always fresh and better. So much so that I started eating way too much I think I'm putting on again. Simply, you don't really need to eat dead animals it seems.

Cooking 101

For the first 27 years of my existence I knew only three things to cook. Or rather three ways of cooking one thing; boiled eggs, omelets and bull's eye. Then I came to Japan and survived on Jap food for a week. But any food prepared without using a few spoon fulls of rocket fuel isn't really food. Thus I set my hands upon the fine art of cooking Sri Lankan dishes.

Now my mom being the wise woman she is (despite being scary at times - especially when it comes to marriage related stuff), not only did she think it was good to send a bucket load of spices and all the other cooking ingredients with me, she also saw it necessary to write me a little 'how to' booklet of cooking and put it in my bag. So then I was fully armed with everything I needed I set to work. Now, my mom was all wise and good, but she forgot that she's a woman and I'm not. So, the whole booklet was full of phrases like "add a little salt", "heat the pan a bit" or "boil appropriately" or similar instructions. Now I don't know what these mean to women but I sure as hell know that they sound to men as comprehensive as calculus is for baboons. We know what it means when you say "add one tea spoon of salt". It's clear isn't it; you get a tea spoon, you pour salt powder into it once and add the thing into whatever it is being cooked. Or if you say boil for four minutes, then that makes sense. But what is "little" or "a bit"? Those words should be banned in cooking instructions and should be subjected to severe penalties.

Anyway, five minutes into my cooking adventures I was baffled as I could get, and I was sure nearby restaurant was going to get another order. But, yours truly isn't a man who gives up so easily. I did the only sensible thing I could; picked up the phone and rang mom. We went through the whole cook book, this time me noting down amounts and times exactly though it took more than a good few minutes for the process to complete. Simply because my mom continually failed to understand why I fail to understand what a "little bit of salt" means. Women, I tell you.

As you may have already guessed, albeit my determination the first meal was far from being edible so had to throw it away with much sadness and an empty stomach. But I took the advice of Thomas Edison, who was unsuccessful for about thousand times before finally coming up the perfect way to make a light bulb, that he did not fail thousand times but discovered thousand ways not to make a light bulb. It paid off, because soon I was OK and later quite good at making my rice and curry. However I'm glad that I did not have to wait thousand times like the poor dude or I would have starved to death or killed myself. Such is the fine art of cooking.

Cleaning & Cooking

Yesterday I managed to clean my room. Don't say what's the big deal, because it is a big deal for me, you know. I think mom would be totally proud of me for this more than even if I won a Nobel Prize or something. No exaggeration. Only problem is that now it's so clean I feel a bit out of place... like I don't belong there. Now there aren't any T-Shirts on the floor, nor there are any books on the bed, everything is where it is supposed to be. I just remember the days when I was back home in Paradise. Back then, nothing was in it's place in my room, everything was scattered all over. But also, it wasn't total chaos - more like organized chaos, if you know what I mean. Because though nothing was neatly organized, I knew where exactly everything was. It's just I couldn't be bothered with putting things in place and organizing. But this always drove mom mad. So every once in a while she would clean my room, organize everything and make is look so cool. Only, after she that I wouldn't know what is where anymore and we used to have a lot of arguments over this many many times. She would go on and on and on about how irresponsible I am, how un-organized I am, and that someday my wife would kick me out of the house! Seriously! But I would say I just have to find a chick a little bit messier than me, and voila! Problem solved! She just went nuts over this all the time.

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Alright. I need some help. Specially from those ladies. I need to know how to cook 'haalmasso'. By the way, what do you call that in English? Anyway, I need to both fry them and also to make that curry. Damn it's so fucking tasty isn't it? So, please do tell. But please, I need specific instructions. You see, we men are designed to follow simple instructions precisely. "Add a little salt" wouldn't work. We get confused about the amount of little, you see. Just say how much, so that I get what you mean! Deep fry it or not. For how long. All that instructions. Seriously, guys, and girls, not joking here. If someone know - I bet you do - just drop a comment.

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For those who already don't know, crapinfo - oops, sorry, I meant to say cricinfo, has changed it's look and a bit of a restructuring as well. Looks different and things are a bit hard to find. So, until people get used to this new look there will be a lot of bitching and moaning and whining - you know the usual stuff when there is a change. Just like when FB changed their appearance. But life goes on, so, umm.... well that it!

Happy week fellas!