Apparently this is my fault.

Scott: It's too bad you just ordered that half hog and quarter beef. I don't want to eat meat anymore.

Me: WHAT?

Scott: Two days ago I ate those fajitas with meat, then yesterday I had salad with the leftover fajita meat on top, and now I've eaten just the leftover salad in a tortilla without the meat, and the salad is SO much better than the meat. YOU made me read the food books. YOU've been cooking me veggie meals. I don't even really care about what the books say. It just TASTES so much better not eating meat.

I've seen this coming for a month or so. My first clue was when he had a bbq lunch with a bunch of co-workers a while back. He said they all had huge piles of meat on their plates and looking at what they were eating made him feel queasy. Then, a couple weeks ago I brought him his formerly favorite sandwich -- smoked bbq brisket with coleslaw from Whole Foods. He finished it, but it was a HUGE chore and he did not feel well afterward.

Despite the clues, despite Scott begging me to make shrimp fajitas instead of flank steak, seared ahi instead of New York strips, salmon burgers instead of bison burgers...despite it all, I put down a deposit on a quarter grass-fed beef and a half hog. Both are from small local ranches, both are raised on pasture and both eat what they are supposed to eat instead of just corn and soybeans. Both will be humanely processed and ready for delivery in October, by which time I have a feeling Scott will be a confirmed vegetarian. So, what am I going to do with something like two hundred pounds of meat???

We're about a week away from our veggie month. For the month of August, our family (along with Scott's sister Liz and her husband, Michael) will be going totally veggie. No fish, no meat, no chicken. We will NOT be going vegan, so we will still be eating dairy (mostly raw and organic dairy) and eggs from pastured chickens. This veggie month should give Scott a pretty good idea of whether or not he's really turned into a vegetarian. I think it will be a little tough on the kids, so I may throw some fish in for them here and there. They love tuna salad and fish sticks and salmon. Scott also loves fish, so the veggie month will be a sacrifice for him in at least one way. Plus he won't get to eat Chipotle's carnitas (pork) burritos, which are his favorite. Although, he now says he can't handle eating one more than once every three weeks.

What's crazy about this is that Scott used to be your typical Midwestern meat and potatoes man. When we started dating nine years ago, he ate almost no vegetables...unless you count the sauerkraut he ate on his DAILY Johnsonville pork brats. Or the pickles he put on his pulled pork bbq sandwiches. Or the occasional tub of mayonnaise-saturated potato salad. (Note to Scott's mom...I know this is not your fault. I know he ate veggies straight from the garden when he lived at home, but bachelor life and his George Foreman Grill corrupted him.)

When we started dating I made dinner for him regularly. He ate normal food, not just processed food. And he ate salad. And broccoli. And corn. And he had lots of gas, at least for the first week. He seemed to adapt okay, though, and veggies became a normal part of his diet. But, he still needed meat. And lots of it. Until about three months ago.

We all change, right? I used to watch football religiously and followed the Niners in the off season. I used to watch SportsCenter every day, sometimes multiple times per day. Now I blog instead. And I try to keep my house semi-organized and some of my children's clothes clean. Scott used to drink Keystone. Now he drinks hefty, local brews. He used to try to keep his car clean. Now he tries to keep the toilets clean instead. He used to play football. Now he does pilates. We've changed, we've grown together. Some of the changes have been good, some have taken a little getting used to. This change, this shift to partial vegetarian...I think it's going to take some getting used to.

Funny food blog.

I am always on the lookout for great new recipes, especially vegetarian ones. I found a link to this recipe for Korean Glass Noodles today while checking out my favorite food blog, Simply Recipes. As much as I enjoy food blogs, what I like even more are funny food blogs. While this Korean Glass Noodles recipe looks super double yummy (umm...excuse me, Callie...stop typing my blog), what I love about the post is the preface. It is freakin' hilarious. Maybe I think it's funny because I also get reports of weird keywords drawing people to my blog, so I can relate to the post. Inside, though, I think I'm just jealous because while I get really strange keyword reports from my blog, I would never be able to frame my keyword reports with such humor.

So, check out the recipe but be sure to read what comes before the recipe. Very funny.

Yum.

In our past two CSA boxes we received a few stalks of rhubarb, something I'd never cooked with and I don't think I'd ever eaten. I know rhubarb grows wild near lots of old houses and lots of you probably think it's no big deal to have fresh rhubarb around. Some of you probably have it coming out your ears and don't want anything to do with baking it. For us, though, a few stalks of rhubarb turned out to be quite a treat. I was looking forward to getting my hands on some after seeing an episode of Oprah last year where Cindy Crawford talked about the strawberry-rhubarb pie she makes every week for her husband, Rande. He apparently eats it as a midnight snack a few times a week. Rough life.

My first reaction when I saw Cindy's recipe was, "There is no way I can make that pie crust. It will taste like cardboard." The recipe calls for flour, a bit of salt, 2/3 cup of vegetable oil, and six tablespoons of cold milk. Seriously? No butter? I'd never made, no wait, never HEARD OF, a pie crust without butter or lard (or, in my 1980's processed-food-is-better youth, Crisco). But, I thought, if Cindy does it, I'll try it. Because, really, who wouldn't trust Cindy Crawford? So, I tried it. And I promptly threw away the first batch of crust. Oops. I didn't read the recipe well enough and didn't realize I was making a two-crust pie (duh), so I rolled the bottom crust out, thinking it was a bit too thick but trusting Cindy, put it in the pie pan, made the filling, and then realized I needed a top crust. I know from experience that you can't re-roll pie crust. Then it DOES taste like cardboard no matter what's in it.

So, I tossed the first crust and started over again. This was becoming a very long process and I was starting to wonder whether Cindy actually makes the pie every week or if she has hired help who does it for her. Or maybe hired help who folds her laundry and cleans her toilets while Cindy bakes pies for her husband who is playing in the surf on the beach in their Malibu backyard. Again, tough life.

The rest of the process went without a hitch and the result was DElicious. So good, in fact, that I made another pie the following week with our second ration of rhubarb. Unfortunately, there was no rhubarb in our CSA box this week, so I guess I'm done with pie making until the cherries, plums, peaches, and apples come in. Right now, we're drowning in cilantro, lettuce, green onions, and spinach and all of our digestive systems have been reset to accept copious amounts of salad. Well, except for Callie -- she's recently stopped eating anything green (even anything with flecks of green in it). Great timing, darling. Brynn, on the other hand, will eat almost anything I put in front of her, especially when bribed with pie or ice cream.

Oh, we also got some turnips this week...something else I've never used. If you've got any ideas for what I should do with that, I'm all ears.

Here's Cindy's recipe, in case you want to try it for yourself.