A Minnesotan's Guide to Alternative living, Vol. 1
Oh my gosh you guys. You have no idea how glad I am to see you right now. You wouldn't know it since I only tend to post blog entries about once every two to nine months, but I've been involuntarily off grid for the past couple of weeks.
It all started when my boss decided to clean out her office. You know that scene in Mary Poppins where she keeps pulling coat racks and umbrellas and, like golden retrievers out of her tote bag? I was reminded of that scene when I arrived at work the Monday following my boss's cleaning spree. I had so many questions to which the answer could only be, shrug..."magic?"For example: "where did that stack of two-by-fours in the kitchen come from?" Or, "why is there a broken desk I have never seen before in the middle of the lawn?" For the most part, I applauded my boss's efforts to turn her office into a viable workspace. However, I was less thrilled with her cleaning-fever induced decision scrap the ancient desktop computer in her office that linked my upstairs computer to the internet.
At home, we had internet but I had recently broken my third computer power cord. So, I had been using an old one that shot sparks whenever it moved. Yeah, yeah, I know: "Blah blah fire-hazard, blah blah high risk of electrocution blah." But what was I supposed to do? Go to the library to illegally stream episodes of Holland's Next Top Model? Please.
One fateful Saturday morning though, I was out of luck for real. If this was a cheesy sitcom, now would be that part where we would side-swipe to a little montage about how I instantly went through the five stages of grief over the death of my cord and subsequent loss of access to the internet. It'd be cute and you'd chuckle. But, I'm to lazy to look up what the five stages of grief are, so I'll just tell you that I shook the limp little cord a lot, hoping it would spark back to life and cried, "Why? WHYYYYY??? OH GOD NO!" like I was Meryl Streep and the Academy was watching. Eventually, I accepted my lot and ordered a super sketchy five dollar replacement cord that was probably made out of lead paint chips and squirrel fur.
Then, there was nothing to do but wait for it to arrive. Well, that and, like, read books with pages and talk to people's faces using my face, but I won't bore you with that. I will say, though, that my Luddite-ian experience got me thinking about alternative lifestyle choices in general. I have often blogged about the universal growing pains of becoming an adult -- learning how to clean bathrooms...learning how to feed ourselves...learning to make sure we pack underwear when we go on choir tours (What? I know you guys totally all have super sweet "no-underwear-vacation" stories in your back pockets. I'm just the only one brave enough to share mine). But, I realize that I haven't said much about the life choices I've made that aren't exactly "mainstream."
That's partially because I don't really consider myself an "alternative" gal. I come from a place where the closest we get to buying into new-wave trends is offering gluten-free and whole-wheat wafer options at communion on Sundays. Hell, I still feel a little overwhelmed when people try to hug me during "share the peace" at East Coast church services. And yet, here I am in Baltimore ("Oh. Baltimore. So, on a scale of 'Hairspray' to 'The Wire," exactly how murdery is the block where you live?"-- most middle aged people, on Baltimore) I work as a professional volunteer, with housemates who do things like meditate and abstain from eating animal products and have dreadlocks. I suppose, though I may still feel pretty ordinary, my baseline for what exactly is "normal" has become a little skewed. Some non-Minnesota weird has definitely rubbed off on me.
Beforehand, LVC tried very hard to convince me that their program would expose me to all different kinds of people. They asked phone interview questions that sounded like set-ups for racist Jokes ("You're living in a house with one Lutheran, one Bhuddhist, one Wiccan who believes that every rock has a spirit and a name, and one person who centers herself through martial Arts..."). But I thought, "nice try, LVC. I've read your statistics. Four out of Five of your members members are white Lutheran girls taking a "year off" after being awarded liberal arts degrees somewhere in the Midwest. LVC is about as diverse as a Barenakid Ladies concert." I envisioned me and my future housemates swapping jell-o salad recipes and sharing our favorite parts of Luther's small catechism for spirituality nights. In reality, my experience was more like Real World: The Intentional Simplicity season. I was the token Minnesota Lutheran living with a free spirited Californian, a German Catholic, an East Coast vegan, and a girl who centered herself spiritually through hunting wild game. Suffice it to say, we challenged (and inspired) each other way beyond fighting over who's mom had the best tater-tot hot-dish recipe.
Together, we learned a lot about intentional and sustainable living. Thanks to them and to my new, even more diverse group of housemates this year, I've developed some new habits. But, I don't want to give you the impression that, the next time you see me, I'll be sporting a neck tattoo of the recycling arrows and asking you to call me "Blue Urban Sky." I've changed in my own cautious Minnesota way.
I feel like there's a lot of stuff on the internet written by super impassioned millenial hippies trying to convert people to their dumpster-diving, humanure-using ways (please, if you don't already know what "humanure" is, don't look it up. Trust me. It will only upset you). There is also a lot stuff from apathetic anti-idealists who like to break up the monotony of editing software manuals by posting aloof-yet-scathing vlog entries about how stupid impassioned millennial hippies are. There isn't a whole lot written from people at my point in the journey, which is somewhere between the two extremes, leaning towards the former. To be fair, that's probably because essays about how "meh, alright" things are don't tend to make for very compelling reading. Or, it could be because no one's ever thought to write those essays before. I might be a visionary who is about usher the whole internet away from the "hot or not" model and into a new era of the "pretty good or don't much care for it" model.
Either way, I'm going to go ahead and start giving you my conservative perspectives on the alternative habits I've been exposed to, whether you want to hear them or not. (See? I am one step ahead of you, apathetic anti-idealists. I preemptively don't care that you don't care. We are now swirling in a vortex of apathy.)
This week: Restricted diets
On the very first day of LVC orientation, my new housemates and I made small talk with safe questions like, "where are you from?" and what "kind of food do you like to eat?" I think I might have asked whether anyone was vegetarian. Across the table, I saw my new housemate Morgan grow suddenly quiet.
After a moment she burst, "guys, I have to tell you something."
I didn't have time get past "transgender" and "convicted larcenist" on my mental list of secrets Morgan might divulge because, without missing a beat, Alison asked, "are you a vegan?"
"Yes!" Morgan cried, "yes, I'm a vegan."
My housemates all nodded acceptingly. I did too, but inside I was thinking, "crap. Now how am I going to make these people like me." Because we all know that my friend-making tool kit is stocked with about thirty recipes for cupcakes, laughing disproportionately hard at jokes that are only moderately funny...and not much else.
Where I come from, vegans are in the same exotic category as cabs you don't have to call 24 hours in advance, Belgian nannies and "fusion" restaurants where you sit on the floor and eat without utensils. That is to say, I assumed they existed because I'd heard about them on TV, but I didn't think I'd ever end up getting personal with any of them. Growing up, I only ever had one vegetarian friend. She was also a Unitarian and had five cats -- so she was an outlier. Or, as I called her at the time, "my weird friend". (Potato, potahto.) I'd only even seen one real live vegan. She sang with me in choir. All I remember about her was that she had a blue streak in her hair which, in Minnesota, gave her a quirky/edginess rating of like a seven-and-a-half. (Converted into East Coast units, that's about the equivalent of having a-symmetrical bangs and French Bulldog named Charlotte Bronte.)
I didn't know much about the real logistics of Veganism. My housemates didn't either, so it's a good thing we were willing students with a patient teacher. We prodded Morgan with all our stupid questions, including but not limited to: "Almond butter doesn't have, like actual butter in it, does it?" "So you're vegan...but you can eat shrimp, right?" and, "Is it true that drinking too much soy milk will make dudes grow boobs?" (The answers to questions a, b, and c, by the way, are: "no," "no for the third time" and, "sigh. no" in that order.)
We also poured through Morgan's vegan cookbooks. I initially approached them with caution since, as a rule, I don't trust words that contain inappropriate Zs (See: "skillz," and "lolz."). They usually flag a reality-dodge. When they show up in the supermarket they're trying to say, "this product has a touch of whimzy." But, what they're really saying is, "if we use an actual food-related word to describe this stuff, we'll get sued by the FDA" (See: vegan/Kraft Company favorite "cheez.") Eventually though, I let my guard down enough to try a recipe for brownie banana pudding cake out of Vegan with a Vengence. After that there was no turning back.
In our studies, we quickly learned a few important lessons. First, we learned that there are many "normal" things vegans can eat besides lettuce. Many of our favorite soups, pastas, stir fry's and salads from home were already vegan or almost vegan to begin with. Second, we learned that some non-normal vegan foods are very tasty. Sure, there are some things I've tasted on my tour of the Garden of Vegan that I haven't quite been able to stomach. For instance, Tempeh still tastes like fermented birdseed to me. And seitan kinda has a chickeny texture...If, you know, chicken had a texture less like meat and more like a half-dried up glue stick. But, chili-glazed tofu is legitimately delicious. And Cashew cheez is actually pretty good. I've even come around to dusting my popcorn with a substance that looks like flaked fish food and is suspiciously vaguely called "nutritional yeast" (or, if you're my housemate Alison, "magic vegan dust").
All in all, living in community with a vegan turned out to be educational, rewarding, and a lot easier than I thought it would be. And that's good because, as it turns out, last year was just a warm up. When my new housemate Ryan told me he didn't eat gluten, I didn't blink an eye. I was feeling pretty cocky after last year's vegantation. (that's "vegan orientation."...What, are those non-threateningly alternative looking ladies on the cover of How it all Vegan the only ones who can use vegan non-words?) Soon though, he also stopped eating dairy, along with another housemate. Most recently Ryan has gone off soy as well. At this point, I feel like I'm in some sort of cooking video game where I have to level up every time things start to get too easy.
It's cool, though. I love to cook for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest is that I like to make people happy. (Fine, or "like me." Again! Potato, potahto! Get off my back!) On any given day people with major dietary restrictions are crossing their fingers that they can find something to eat that won't make them sick. So, it's especially gratifying to make things for just for them that are edible AND delicious. I'm willing to keep learning.
Also, once I figure out how to make lasagna free of the eight most common allergens, I'll be able to run for president.
Stay tuned for Vol. 2 soon! I thought about going on to the next subject in this entry, but I've been testing your patience with the length of these posts for a while. Hopefully the next one will be prompt and brief!
It all started when my boss decided to clean out her office. You know that scene in Mary Poppins where she keeps pulling coat racks and umbrellas and, like golden retrievers out of her tote bag? I was reminded of that scene when I arrived at work the Monday following my boss's cleaning spree. I had so many questions to which the answer could only be, shrug..."magic?"For example: "where did that stack of two-by-fours in the kitchen come from?" Or, "why is there a broken desk I have never seen before in the middle of the lawn?" For the most part, I applauded my boss's efforts to turn her office into a viable workspace. However, I was less thrilled with her cleaning-fever induced decision scrap the ancient desktop computer in her office that linked my upstairs computer to the internet.
At home, we had internet but I had recently broken my third computer power cord. So, I had been using an old one that shot sparks whenever it moved. Yeah, yeah, I know: "Blah blah fire-hazard, blah blah high risk of electrocution blah." But what was I supposed to do? Go to the library to illegally stream episodes of Holland's Next Top Model? Please.
One fateful Saturday morning though, I was out of luck for real. If this was a cheesy sitcom, now would be that part where we would side-swipe to a little montage about how I instantly went through the five stages of grief over the death of my cord and subsequent loss of access to the internet. It'd be cute and you'd chuckle. But, I'm to lazy to look up what the five stages of grief are, so I'll just tell you that I shook the limp little cord a lot, hoping it would spark back to life and cried, "Why? WHYYYYY??? OH GOD NO!" like I was Meryl Streep and the Academy was watching. Eventually, I accepted my lot and ordered a super sketchy five dollar replacement cord that was probably made out of lead paint chips and squirrel fur.
Then, there was nothing to do but wait for it to arrive. Well, that and, like, read books with pages and talk to people's faces using my face, but I won't bore you with that. I will say, though, that my Luddite-ian experience got me thinking about alternative lifestyle choices in general. I have often blogged about the universal growing pains of becoming an adult -- learning how to clean bathrooms...learning how to feed ourselves...learning to make sure we pack underwear when we go on choir tours (What? I know you guys totally all have super sweet "no-underwear-vacation" stories in your back pockets. I'm just the only one brave enough to share mine). But, I realize that I haven't said much about the life choices I've made that aren't exactly "mainstream."
That's partially because I don't really consider myself an "alternative" gal. I come from a place where the closest we get to buying into new-wave trends is offering gluten-free and whole-wheat wafer options at communion on Sundays. Hell, I still feel a little overwhelmed when people try to hug me during "share the peace" at East Coast church services. And yet, here I am in Baltimore ("Oh. Baltimore. So, on a scale of 'Hairspray' to 'The Wire," exactly how murdery is the block where you live?"-- most middle aged people, on Baltimore) I work as a professional volunteer, with housemates who do things like meditate and abstain from eating animal products and have dreadlocks. I suppose, though I may still feel pretty ordinary, my baseline for what exactly is "normal" has become a little skewed. Some non-Minnesota weird has definitely rubbed off on me.
Beforehand, LVC tried very hard to convince me that their program would expose me to all different kinds of people. They asked phone interview questions that sounded like set-ups for racist Jokes ("You're living in a house with one Lutheran, one Bhuddhist, one Wiccan who believes that every rock has a spirit and a name, and one person who centers herself through martial Arts..."). But I thought, "nice try, LVC. I've read your statistics. Four out of Five of your members members are white Lutheran girls taking a "year off" after being awarded liberal arts degrees somewhere in the Midwest. LVC is about as diverse as a Barenakid Ladies concert." I envisioned me and my future housemates swapping jell-o salad recipes and sharing our favorite parts of Luther's small catechism for spirituality nights. In reality, my experience was more like Real World: The Intentional Simplicity season. I was the token Minnesota Lutheran living with a free spirited Californian, a German Catholic, an East Coast vegan, and a girl who centered herself spiritually through hunting wild game. Suffice it to say, we challenged (and inspired) each other way beyond fighting over who's mom had the best tater-tot hot-dish recipe.
Together, we learned a lot about intentional and sustainable living. Thanks to them and to my new, even more diverse group of housemates this year, I've developed some new habits. But, I don't want to give you the impression that, the next time you see me, I'll be sporting a neck tattoo of the recycling arrows and asking you to call me "Blue Urban Sky." I've changed in my own cautious Minnesota way.
I feel like there's a lot of stuff on the internet written by super impassioned millenial hippies trying to convert people to their dumpster-diving, humanure-using ways (please, if you don't already know what "humanure" is, don't look it up. Trust me. It will only upset you). There is also a lot stuff from apathetic anti-idealists who like to break up the monotony of editing software manuals by posting aloof-yet-scathing vlog entries about how stupid impassioned millennial hippies are. There isn't a whole lot written from people at my point in the journey, which is somewhere between the two extremes, leaning towards the former. To be fair, that's probably because essays about how "meh, alright" things are don't tend to make for very compelling reading. Or, it could be because no one's ever thought to write those essays before. I might be a visionary who is about usher the whole internet away from the "hot or not" model and into a new era of the "pretty good or don't much care for it" model.
Either way, I'm going to go ahead and start giving you my conservative perspectives on the alternative habits I've been exposed to, whether you want to hear them or not. (See? I am one step ahead of you, apathetic anti-idealists. I preemptively don't care that you don't care. We are now swirling in a vortex of apathy.)
This week: Restricted diets
On the very first day of LVC orientation, my new housemates and I made small talk with safe questions like, "where are you from?" and what "kind of food do you like to eat?" I think I might have asked whether anyone was vegetarian. Across the table, I saw my new housemate Morgan grow suddenly quiet.
After a moment she burst, "guys, I have to tell you something."
I didn't have time get past "transgender" and "convicted larcenist" on my mental list of secrets Morgan might divulge because, without missing a beat, Alison asked, "are you a vegan?"
"Yes!" Morgan cried, "yes, I'm a vegan."
My housemates all nodded acceptingly. I did too, but inside I was thinking, "crap. Now how am I going to make these people like me." Because we all know that my friend-making tool kit is stocked with about thirty recipes for cupcakes, laughing disproportionately hard at jokes that are only moderately funny...and not much else.
Where I come from, vegans are in the same exotic category as cabs you don't have to call 24 hours in advance, Belgian nannies and "fusion" restaurants where you sit on the floor and eat without utensils. That is to say, I assumed they existed because I'd heard about them on TV, but I didn't think I'd ever end up getting personal with any of them. Growing up, I only ever had one vegetarian friend. She was also a Unitarian and had five cats -- so she was an outlier. Or, as I called her at the time, "my weird friend". (Potato, potahto.) I'd only even seen one real live vegan. She sang with me in choir. All I remember about her was that she had a blue streak in her hair which, in Minnesota, gave her a quirky/edginess rating of like a seven-and-a-half. (Converted into East Coast units, that's about the equivalent of having a-symmetrical bangs and French Bulldog named Charlotte Bronte.)
I didn't know much about the real logistics of Veganism. My housemates didn't either, so it's a good thing we were willing students with a patient teacher. We prodded Morgan with all our stupid questions, including but not limited to: "Almond butter doesn't have, like actual butter in it, does it?" "So you're vegan...but you can eat shrimp, right?" and, "Is it true that drinking too much soy milk will make dudes grow boobs?" (The answers to questions a, b, and c, by the way, are: "no," "no for the third time" and, "sigh. no" in that order.)
We also poured through Morgan's vegan cookbooks. I initially approached them with caution since, as a rule, I don't trust words that contain inappropriate Zs (See: "skillz," and "lolz."). They usually flag a reality-dodge. When they show up in the supermarket they're trying to say, "this product has a touch of whimzy." But, what they're really saying is, "if we use an actual food-related word to describe this stuff, we'll get sued by the FDA" (See: vegan/Kraft Company favorite "cheez.") Eventually though, I let my guard down enough to try a recipe for brownie banana pudding cake out of Vegan with a Vengence. After that there was no turning back.
In our studies, we quickly learned a few important lessons. First, we learned that there are many "normal" things vegans can eat besides lettuce. Many of our favorite soups, pastas, stir fry's and salads from home were already vegan or almost vegan to begin with. Second, we learned that some non-normal vegan foods are very tasty. Sure, there are some things I've tasted on my tour of the Garden of Vegan that I haven't quite been able to stomach. For instance, Tempeh still tastes like fermented birdseed to me. And seitan kinda has a chickeny texture...If, you know, chicken had a texture less like meat and more like a half-dried up glue stick. But, chili-glazed tofu is legitimately delicious. And Cashew cheez is actually pretty good. I've even come around to dusting my popcorn with a substance that looks like flaked fish food and is suspiciously vaguely called "nutritional yeast" (or, if you're my housemate Alison, "magic vegan dust").
All in all, living in community with a vegan turned out to be educational, rewarding, and a lot easier than I thought it would be. And that's good because, as it turns out, last year was just a warm up. When my new housemate Ryan told me he didn't eat gluten, I didn't blink an eye. I was feeling pretty cocky after last year's vegantation. (that's "vegan orientation."...What, are those non-threateningly alternative looking ladies on the cover of How it all Vegan the only ones who can use vegan non-words?) Soon though, he also stopped eating dairy, along with another housemate. Most recently Ryan has gone off soy as well. At this point, I feel like I'm in some sort of cooking video game where I have to level up every time things start to get too easy.
It's cool, though. I love to cook for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest is that I like to make people happy. (Fine, or "like me." Again! Potato, potahto! Get off my back!) On any given day people with major dietary restrictions are crossing their fingers that they can find something to eat that won't make them sick. So, it's especially gratifying to make things for just for them that are edible AND delicious. I'm willing to keep learning.
Also, once I figure out how to make lasagna free of the eight most common allergens, I'll be able to run for president.
Stay tuned for Vol. 2 soon! I thought about going on to the next subject in this entry, but I've been testing your patience with the length of these posts for a while. Hopefully the next one will be prompt and brief!
posted by Caitlin at 11:08 AM
1 comments
