Even people who understand why vegetarians would avoid meat because it involves killing animals often wonder why vegans also avoid eggs and dairy, which don’t require killing the animals.
The sad truth is that the “factory farm” style production of any animal product involves an almost incomprehensible level of cruelty to the animals while they are alive. And then their lives end in the slaughterhouse anyway.

More than 95 percent of the eggs sold in the United States are laid by hens crowded into battery cages so small that they cannot even stretch their wings. According to Compassion Over Killing’s report on ”Animal Suffering in the Egg Industry” these cages give each hen an average of 59 square inches of living space — an area little larger than half a sheet of typing paper. I could go on, but there are many Web sites that tell the story better than I can.

For example United Poultry Concerns has a wealth of information on Battery Hens. Its page on the “Life of one Battery Hen” begins with a touching poem that I will use as an ending:

“Sound of a Battery Hen”

You can tell me: if you come by the
North door, I am in the twelfth cage
On the left-hand side of the third row
From the floor; and in that cage
I am usually the middle one of eight or six or three.
But even without directions, you’d
Discover me. We have the same pale
Comb, clipped yellow beak and white or auburn
Feathers, but as the door opens and you
Hear above the electric fan a kind of
One-word wail, I am the one
Who sounds loudest in my head.

We started with a mezze platter, which changes daily but always includes hummus and pitas. We also got stuffed grape leaves (I’m not usually a big fan, but these were excellent), pasta salad and a Persian potato dish that was unusual and yummy, with flavors of the Middle East.

And the sweet iced tea! We all agreed that it was some of the best we’ve ever had, infused with jasmine and cardamom for an exotic, refreshing treat that the waiter kept having to refill and refill and refill for us.

All three of us ended up ordering the same entree, Fesen-Joon, which the menu described as “A Persian classic. Sweet and sour flavors of pomegranate juice, ground walnuts and herbs blended with grilled tempeh, served with basmati-saffron rice [you could substitute brown rice, which I did] and a side of shirazi [a tomato-cucumber salad].” It was a bit of a shame that we didn’t each try different things so we could share, but we all agreed that the Fesen-Joon was so fabulous, if only one of us had gotten it, the others would have had excruciating food envy. It was rich and filling, and the flavors of the walnuts and pomegranate shone through.

There are other delicious-sounding items on the menu—Bud-m-Joon ("eggplant paradise with tomato, split peas, saffron, sauteed onions, hint of cinnamon and other spices"), a vegetable kabob and soy chicken cutlets in a mild coconut curry and mushroom sauce—but I’m not sure I could NOT order the Fesen-Joon the next time I visit. It was that good and different.

There are also sandwiches and wraps available for lunch, and the menu clearly marks which items are vegan or have vegan options available. Sage is at the Timberlyne Shopping Center on Weaver Dairy Road.

Although the complete ratings are available only in the magazine or to subscribers online, an overview of what Consumer Reports found is available online here.

The top pick is Morningstar Farms Garden Veggie Patties. However, vegans should note that this burger contains egg whites. Happily, my usual vegan burger, Boca’s Original, ranked among the 10 “very good” burgers

So, yeah, we’re not exactly on the same wave-length when it comes to food, to put it mildly. Yet I still find myself somewhat amused by his persistent bad attitude, chain-smoking crankiness and penchant for oh-so-witty insults. (He once told a contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef that his lobster had “the consistency of doll head.") Of course, this amusement is no doubt helped because I only see him occasionally on television. I’m sure continued exposure would wear away my amused tolerance quite quickly.

A new vegan blog has sprung up in response to Bourdain’s remarks about vegans: Hezbollah Tofu. Its purpose, besides snarking about Bourdain, is to veganize the very unvegan recipes from his Les Halles Cookbook, then sell the compiled recipes and donate the profits to vegan outreach organizations and farm sanctuaries in Bourdain’s name. They’ve already tackled some of the mainstays of French cooking, such as french onion soup and creme brulee. No starting out with the easy stuff!

In addition to pointing out the problem, FARM makes the solution easy by providing starter kits and other information that make it simple and healthy to go veg. Most vegetarian groups make such information readily available. But, puzzlingly, many environmental groups do not. PETA takes a humorous approach to this by urging people to “Offset Al Gore’s Eco-Unfriendly Diet” by taking a pledge: “I want to eat better, feel better, and help offset the damage that Al Gore is doing to the environment by eating meat. By signing my name, I pledge to explore a vegetarian diet for at least 30 days, which will prevent more than 270 pounds of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere.”

The actual Earth Day is Tuesday. If you’d like to do something special to mark the day, Earth911.org has a list of suggestions, as does Durham’s city page. You can also get an evironmental tip of the day via e-mail from the EPA.

This handy site lets you search for Earth Day events within 5 to 250 miles of your home. (The link will show you events within 100 miles of Winston-Salem—hover over the bottom for links to subsequent pages.)

Earth Day also marks the day when Whole Foods is aiming to rid all its checkout lanes of plastic bags.

*If you’re looking for a more vegetarian-focused event, Vegetarian Summerfest, the North American Vegetarian Society’s annual conference, will be held June 18-22 in Johnstown, Penn. It will feature lots of speakers and educational sessions. You can find out more at the conference’s Web site.

Until Skybus abruptly folded its wings, Tim, Cass and I planned to go to Rhode Island. There were other places on the itinerary, too. But my literary idol H.P. “I am Providence” Lovecraft identified so strongly with his hometown and state that it was all Rhode Island to my mind….

And Rhode Island loves its coffee milk, so much that in 1993 it made it the official state drink.

Just what is coffee milk? Quahog.org has the answer: “Coffee milk is simply milk mixed with coffee syrup.” This excellent Web site on all things Rhode Island also has a detailed history of coffee milk, suggestions for mail-order sources of coffee syrup, and a recipe for people who want to make their own coffee syrup at home. All it takes is coffee, water and sugar. Put your coffee syrup in soymilk, and it’s suitable for vegans.

But the coffee-milk connection lay dormant in my mind until another friend, Craig, asked about coffee-flavored Silk soymilk. Craig is a connoisseur of coffee drinks, such as Mr. Brown’s Iced Coffee from Taiwan. The coffee-flavored Silk turns out to be quite pleasant – it’s smooth and tasty, and it seems to pack a bit of caffeine, too.

Finally, consider the “coffee cabinet.” As What’s Cooking America explains, “When ice cream is added, Coffee Milk is called a ‘Coffee Cabinet’ or ‘Coffee Cab.’ In other words, a ‘cabinet’ is a local term for a ‘frappe’ which is a regional term for an ice cream milk shake. It is though to be called a ‘cabinet’ because it unknown originator kept his blender in a kitchen cabinet. Also mixers were often stored in square wooden cabinets.”

So, though we may not make it to Little Rhody anytime soon, let’s raise a toast (of coffee milk, of course) to its culinary quirks.

Robin Robertson’s Guacamole

1 c. fresh or frozen shelled edamame, cooked
1 small ripe avocado, pitted and peeled
1 4 oz. can chopped green chiles drained (I omitted this)
2 t. fresh lime juice
1 T. finely chopped onion
1 t. chopped garlic
1/8 t. ground cumin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Chopped cilantro (I added this to the recipe)

In a food processor or blender, combine the edamame, avocado, chiles and lime juice. Process until smooth. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse to blend in, leaving some texture. Serve with raw vegetables for dipping.

The author, biologist Bridget Stutchbury, makes the point that pesticide use in Latin America has increased fivefold since the 1980s, to feed the growing demand in North America and Europe for fresh produce during the winter. In too many cases, migratory birds are the victims - “A single application of a highly toxic pesticide to a field can kill seven to 25 songbirds per acre.” Declining populations of many birds may be linked to the use of pesticides in their winter homes.

But happily, there are steps consumers can take to make their shopping list more bird-friendly. Buying only organic coffee and bananas are important moves. And, “When it comes to nontraditional Latin American crops like melons, green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers and strawberries, it can be difficult to find any that are organically grown. We should buy these foods only if they are not imported from Latin America.”

In this story, first published in September 1914, about a month after the Battle of Mons, an outnumbered English force faces advancing German forces. Suddenly, one of the English soldiers remembers “a queer vegetarian restaurant in London where he had once or twice eaten eccentric dishes of cutlets made of lentils and nuts that pretended to be steak. On all the plates in this restaurant there was printed a figure of St. George in blue, with the motto, Adsit Anglis Sanctus Geogius - May St. George be a present help to the English. This soldier happened to know Latin and other useless things, and now, as he fired at his man in the grey advancing mass - 300 yards away - he uttered the pious vegetarian motto.”

This “vegetarian motto” summons St. George and a host of ghostly bowmen, who leave 10,000 German soldiers dead, with no wounds upon them. In the conclusion, the very last line of story re-emphasizes the vegetarian theme:

“In Germany, a country ruled by scientific principles, the Great General Staff decided that the contemptible English must have employed shells containing an unknown gas of a poisonous nature, as no wounds were discernible on the bodies of the dead German soldiers. But the man who knew what nuts tasted like when they called themselves steak knew also that St. George had brought his Agincourt Bowmen to help the English.”

This story became wildly popular, and many people began to believe it truth rather than fiction. The bowmen eventually morphed into angels - the Angels of Mons - and the vegetarian theme dropped out. It’s difficult to know what literary significance to attach to this. But we could put a good spin on it: Faux meat (nuts pretending to be steak) saves the British, the British win the war and save the world, therefore …

The list got me thinking about vegetarian characters on TV shows, and I realized I could think of only a couple. Lisa from “The Simpsons” is the one that first sprung to mind. Angela on “The Office” is another (she’s also a huge cat lover). But beyond those, I couldn’t think of any currently on the air. Phoebe was a vegetarian on “Friends.” In the Australian Outback season of “Survivor,” Kimmie being a vegetarian caused drama in the camp and also during one of their unfortunate gross-food challenges. (She wouldn’t eat the first item she was supposed to because it was a mammal, so the other team chose her to represent her team during the tie-breaker—but she rejoiced when the item to eat turned out to be a worm, which she determined was OK to eat, so she won the challenge for her team. I know that a lot of vegetarians still wouldn’t have eaten a worm.)

I wish there were more prominent vegetarian characters on television. I think that would help a lot in showing vegetarianism as a more mainstream lifestyle choice. I believe that when people are exposed to something on TV on a weekly basis, it can help educate them and make them more comfortable with it in real life—as long as it’s portrayed positively or neutrally and not as an object of ridicule.

I don’t watch most shows that are out there, so I’m sure there are probably some vegetarian TV characters I’m unaware of. Do you know any that I haven’t mentioned? Do you think TV does a good job of portraying vegetarianism? Or is it still portrayed as a “radical” lifestyle choice?

The book that inspired all this is Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz. I had been eyeing it for years - it was published in 2003 - and finally picked it up last week. Katz has an inspiring zeal for his subject. As he says in the introduction: “For me, fermentation is a health regimen, a gourmet art, a multicultural adventure, a form of activism, and a spiritual path, all rolled into one.” You can get a taste of Katz’s style on his Web site, at www.wildfermentation.com

All the recipes in the book are vegetarian, and most are vegan or can easily be made vegan. Katz is no longer a vegetarian, and there are some brief discussions of fermented meat and fish. Overall, though, the book is quite suitable for vegetarians. And the information and outlook presented in the book are interesting enough that it would be worth reading even if you never intend to ferment anything. But, wouldn’t you at least want to nurture a little sourdough starter, over there in the corner? It wouldn’t take up much room….

Phase One of the South Beach Diet, which lasts two weeks unless you decide to stay on it longer, calls for the elimination of all carbs and starches (even fruit). Some carbs are added back in for Phase Two, and yet more for Phase Three. That Phase One is going to be a challenge for me, because I do love my sweets and all carbs, really. I’ve been looking up recipes using beans and tofu.

I’m curious if any you vegetarian readers have tried the South Beach Diet. Did you have problems following it? Were you able to get enough vegetarian variety without carbs in Phase One? Did you get good results?

At least a few giants of world literature have been vegetarians - playwright George Bernard Shaw, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and novelists Leo Tolstoy and Isaac Bashevis Singer come to mind quickly. There are no doubt more - readers, please let me know if you have any favorites (authors or specific books with a vegetarian theme) that I didn’t think to mention.

Of the four on the top of my head, I am least familiar with Singer, a Nobel Prize winning author. An article from Satya magazine, still available online here, has enlightening discussion of the importance that vegetarianism had for Singer, and recommends: “If you are unfamiliar with Singer’s fiction, pick up Enemies: A Love Story, The Penitent, and Meshugah, all of which are vegetarian-themed novels.” This is advice I intend to follow.

Unfortunately, Satya itself ceased publication last year, but you can read all the back issues - back to 1994 - online at http://www.satyamag.com/backissues.html T hat’s another bit of reading I’ll be doing as time allows....