She’s Vegan, He’s Not
My husband gets home from work, and peers over my shoulder as I stir a bright-orange glob in a pan over the stove. “What’s for dinner?” he asks, curiously.
“Vegan mac’n’cheese!” I exclaim.
“I’ll pass.” He sneers.
He didn’t partake in my sampling of a new vegan recipe. What’s not to love of about pureed butternut squash and nutritional yeast served over macaroni? I’ll admit it didn’t taste like your average mac’n’cheese, but still good and a whole lot healthier.
My husband was less enthused. Later that evening, he opened a blue box of “real” mac’n’cheese and gobbled it up.
We met more than a decade ago. I was a vegetarian. He knew what he was getting into. (I gently remind him of this all the time.) I ate organic dairy products, but never any meat of any kind. I cooked with cheese and baked with eggs.
Always having been sensitive to animal rights; I toyed with the idea of converting to a strictly vegan diet for years, but I didn’t quite have the gusto to do itâÂ?¦. until I got my hands on the book: “Skinny Bitch“.
It wasn’t too challenging when I was simply meat-free and my husband was not. He’s become quite good at finding restaurants with vegetarian options. When I was pregnant with our son, he never once suggested I eat meat. But, when I became a vegan, our whole world turned upside-down. Suddenly, I was conjuring up strange things in the kitchen, growing kale, and special-ordering at even the most vegetarian-friendly restaurants.
“I did NOT sign up for this.” My husband often throws at me.
He does not share my passion for preserving the lives of innocent animals. He grew up in New York, with a big Italian family. While I wouldn’t say he’s a meat-and-potatoes-kind-of-guy, he does love his cheeseburgers and chicken wings. When we go out to eat, he orders “garbage plates“. Garbage. Plates. (If you don’t know what that is, you’ve probably never been to Rochester, NY.)
So, we do our best to accommodate each other. I try to keep it simple, and aim to please with plant-based dinners. He schedules private time in the kitchen, when he prepares and cooks his own meaty-meals. Yes – he has a knife and a cutting board that I will never use.
He’s learned to love kale chips. I hold my disgusted-tongue when he eats a plate of “garbage”.
Occasionally, we have friendly discussions about pink slime or the animals’ quality of life on dairy farms. We respectfully agree to disagree.
I’ve accepted that I can’t change him. (Even though, that’s what women do best.) And he’s conceded that I will never serve roasted chicken-breast for dinner. (Admitting defeat is what men do best, right?) We love each other and we’ve made this work somehow. No doubt, it’s made our relationship stronger. We chose to spend our lives together, no matter how kooky it gets in the kitchen.
While I keep hoping that one day he’ll come to his senses and adopt a vegan diet like mine; he hopes that one day I might go back to eating meat and cheese. We both know that will never happenâÂ?¦ but, we can dream.
