the little guilty pleasures of life...

Personally, I don't know another person being a vegetarian, except my friend Tunde, who has adopted this lifestyle once she saw how good it was for me. Before she was "converted", I never personally knew another vegetarian, except the people whose blogs and sites I follow and read for the past few years.
I tried to be a vegetarian two yeas back, but due to the wrong attitude, I couldn't make it. The impulse to become one does not come from sheer will, but from a need, the need to not harm other being by what you are putting on your plate. Two years back, my mouth watered whenever I saw a ham in a store, right now I feel shivers down my spine once I see a part of an animal, and I have to say I don't see it as food. I just wasn't prepared to give my old life up, but for a while now, I have seen I can, and don't even feel obligated to do it.
Well, what I'm actually trying to say to all the people out there who understand and realize that the ethical thing to do is give meat up is that you have to be mentally prepared and able to give it up, apart from wanting to do it. You'll know you've reached that state, believe me, you'll feel it.....
The food industry doesn't make it easier for us, because it is one thing to see a leg of an animal on the shelf, and almost another to see just slices of meat in a casserole; it's like the animal is no longer an animal, just simply food, the initial image can not easily be evoked once all you can see is some slices of meat.
But since this post should be about guilty pleasures, I will confess that mine are good wine and better cheese. I am not a dairy product lover, but we all know how good a wine goes with the right cheese, green, blue, brie, etc... so I will admit to the fact that these types of cheese I enjoy once in a while....

...and my palate is delighted.
Not trying to excuse myself, but merely to explain my choice in eating cheese, I will state that I am not a purist, not by far, and I am not a fancy eater, not even close to that; but I do enjoy some good food once in a while. As cheese is not killing any animal, I indulge myself in it, and please do not tell me about the fact that you're depriving an innocent cow calf of it's mother's milk, as cows produce milk even after the calf has been weaned. So no harm done there, right?at least from my point of view. And as long as I am not eating it every day; even my body won't suffer from my enjoyment of a good evening dinner of grapes, nuts, cheese and wine.

 One thing that I do admit and will have to correct and really give up is fish. I rarely eat anything other than tuna, but even that is wrong, and I have begun making research in the area of marine animals, so that I will be able to accept that even fish have a life (and I don't mean mammals like whales and dolphins!), but even clams and shrimps. I'm still working in this area, so that I will reach the same state as with usual meat from pigs, cows, or even chickens. I might even buy a fish tank...which I would really enjoy, btw!

So I am admitting, as everyone can see, my really guilty pleasure, of enjoying fish meat, sometimes a little tuna in my salads:

but some other times, various sea fruit in my pasta sauce... but like I've said, I'm working on it!

Another controversial subject would be eggs. Should we eat them? I mean, we know that these eggs will produce chicks only in a certain period of the year, but our chicken are laying eggs all year long, so it's not quite killing, right? Well, I am not a big fan of eggs, and never was, but I do eat some once in a while, in different ways. The one way I like least is boiled eggs, but if I need an energy boost, and if I have nothing more interesting to add to my salads, I choose this variant, even though not very often:

One last guilty pleasure, or at least I don't  remember any other besides these ones, is this:

...a cold cold beer once in a while, watching a good movie, or sharing it with friends at our clubhaus, especially during the off season, when we cannot ride our motorcycles. Now that summer is here, beers on our nights out will be scarce, since we like riding much better, and if we do drink one, it's alcohol free. I never ever ever would drink and drive, not my beautiful motorcycle, or even a car, I find it completely irresponsible and criminal to do so, and I encourage all my friends to leave their keys if they had one...

These would be my pleasures and vices, and I am not ashamed to admit them, I do believe that my personality is the sum of these little defects and vices, sprinkled with a dab of crazy, a lot of daring and just a little bit of self trust, stirred up with an inquisitive mind and a love for all that's beautiful and out of the ordinary. You could call me anything but plain, that if I will let you know me better....:)

Selfishness is what makes us who we are and I am not selfless, not one bit, so this post wasn't meant to show how humble I am; but it was shaped to explain a little bit of what it takes to be a vegetarian and a strange bird in a world saturated with stereotypes.

I hope we will all find our own path, be it raw or not, be it easy or not, but we should all make it a hell of a ride!