Wednesday: Pesto Perfection

Last night we followed up the great meals of Monday and Tuesday with another delicious one, this time prepared by Lil Beaumont with help from our two dads:

Stepdad Rick's pesto on spaghetti, with grilled asparagus, and salad featuring Real Dad's balsamic vinaigrette/dijon mustard/agave nectar** simple dressing.



As you can see on the left, a handful of the asparagus are wrapped and skewered in something pink--yep, that's some nice hot cappicola! Which I'm sure tasted great, though I wouldn't know it since I consumed only the "naked" asparagus below. Really. 



And there we are. Sprinkle a little parmesan on top and add some fresh italian bread with butter and pepper and you've got a table of "yum".

Deep Thoughts With Jack Handey...
The constant satisfaction I've experienced in eating this week sans meat serves as a reminder of the great difference (to me) between being vegan and being vegetarian. 

During last year's Hyperliving week of veganism (almost exactly one year ago, actually), I felt like every meal I consumed was some kind of grand compromise: a tactile exercise is maximizing potential flavor quotients while working on more or less "stone soup" principles... As if each meal were a mile marker on a journey toward the freedom of eventually being able to eat animal products again. 

For me, vegetarianism is nothing like that--it's simply an absence of a group of products from an otherwise normal diet. Other than occasionally going, "Oh, guess I can't eat that cappy", I feel like life is only minimally impacted. I'm sure in any kind of long haul I would miss bacon and burgers, but no where nearthe sense of loss, sadness, and emptiness I would feel over eliminating pizza, cheese, yogurt/ice cream/shakes and so forth. Or at least, so I think.

Anyway, onward march.

NOTE:
** Normally you would use maple syrup rather than agave, which would make this dressing that much better, but I killed the last of the maple at the end of my fast.