Meat-tastic Maven

While Geekster is shuffling his way through the crawlspace to figure out where the cold water pipe for the washer hookup is broken, Gutsy and Intrepid have adopted toddler Spawnling into their Harry-Potter-meets-ninja-training-school game upstairs in their bedrooms.


I should feel guilty that I'm sitting at my computer, but I don't. What else am I supposed to do? Well, other than clean up and possibly plan dinner.


Urge to feel guilty is slowly rising.

Slight problem with the dinner making thing: Geekster has recently decided to take up his old hobby of vegetarianism again. Why is this a problem? Because my children sort of don't really kinda like most vegetables. It makes planning meals a bitch.

**(Resuming this post now that dinner is long over with and I have some actual computer time again)**

Planning meals is already a bitch, ok? If I were organized and used my crock pot more often this wouldn't be as much of a problem, but I'm lazy and forgetful. I cook at the last possible minute by throwing ingredients at a cutting board and hoping the multiple perishable explosions will create something along the lines of cosmic perfection, like the Big Bang theory. Milky Way Casserole or what have you.

My secret ingredient to curb the yawn factor of these less-than-wonderful meals? Meat. Tasty, tender meat. Flu-drenched chicken, mad cowed beef, slop-fed pork... There's always something slaughtered waiting in the butcher's aisle to make my disaster somewhat less disastrous. Now Geekster had to get all green on me and want to save the planet, one veggie burger at a time. No more guilt over what Bessy's last thought was before she was turned into last night's roast. He's going meatless, baby.

But you know what? I'm not.

Oh, sure. I see his points and I admire them and I respect them. I just love bacon too much to completely give it up. Besides, he has two meals per day where he only has to worry about what he's going to eat. I have hungry gremlins for all three meals. Hungry gremlins with a hate-on for faux hotdogs and lentils. I keep trying and they keep ending up in the dog. There's only so much tofu a 10 pound canine can eat in her lifetime before she starts pooping sprouts.

Also, I appear to have low iron. Now is not the time for me to give up meat. Now is the time for me to eat more meat. A juicy steak, for example, prepared for me on one of my weekly child-free outings to a steakhouse, where I can ask for my regular and enjoy laughs with my girlfriends after a lengthly shop-a-thon.

Oh, sorry. Daydreaming a bit.

I've decided that if I am to survive his sudden return to the meatless masses (he was a vegetarian when we met) then we must reach some type of compromise. After several pouting and whining sessions, I received the following allowances:

  • I can cook guilt-free meaty meals whenever I choose. He will eat the side dishes and make himself something protein-rich in replacement of the Roasted Babe.
  • He will eat eggs and PCB-filled fish.
  • I will sometimes make the kids a meaty meal (as I did tonight) and us a meat-free meal (well, we had veggie omelettes)
  • Whenever possible, he will cook because he's much better at it and then I can watch Oprah. I say 'watch' because there's no way I'll be able to hear her over the fighting/screaming/chaos that inevitably goes on at dinnertime.
I accept those compromises and am really enjoying a lot of the food we're making. Although I somehow don't think cooking squash with butter and maple syrup will make my heart any happier.

There's always pilates.