{"id":21,"date":"2013-03-06T21:12:31","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T21:12:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/bologs\/vng\/i-pledge-my-allegiance-to-seitan\/"},"modified":"2013-03-06T21:12:31","modified_gmt":"2013-03-06T21:12:31","slug":"i-pledge-my-allegiance-to-seitan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/i-pledge-my-allegiance-to-seitan\/","title":{"rendered":"I pledge my allegiance to SEITAN!"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the last three days I’ve had vegetarian lunches. It wasn’t deliberate, and I’m not trying to make a political point (even though deep down I agree with the vegans arguments – don’t judge me for this please) it’s just that the vegetarian options seemed more appealing. There are two main reasons for this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Tofu when used in well-made, spicy, asian food acts as a flavour-absorbing medium and can provide a variety of textures. From fluffy sauce sponge to an almost hard-cheese like substance. A really rather good veggie Chinese restaurant in Center City<\/a> has a dish called “Kung Pao Dried Tofu w. peanuts”. It’s very hot and utterly delicious.<\/li>\n
  2. Seitan. According to Wikipedia it’s actually called “Wheat gluten”, which sounds disgusting. But it feels and tastes like chicken. So much so that I would now order it over chicken in a restaurant because it tastes better…and also because eating birds goes against the grain a little now that we have such good friends who are birds.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Today for lunch, a friend and I went to a vegan restaurant in Center City<\/a>. Voluntarily! It actually seemed appealing! The most peculiar aspect of the experience was that it was delicious without caveat. It wasn’t just “really good considering it’s vegan” either – it was something I find myself craving afterwards . There was a cauliflower and truffle-oil soup to start and it would have been worth a trip across the country for that alone; perfect consistency, spiced powerfully and subtly, and the truffle oil was in perfect proportion.
    \nBut then came the buffalo “chicken” sandwich. Imagine a massive, delicious buffalo chicken sandwich in a huge Italian roll, but with…well just imagine that. It was like that. But apparently it was vegan.
    \nYesterday I mentioned contemplating becoming vegetarian to a friend and he gave me some sage advice: don’t tell people, just do what you can. If you tell people you’re vegetarian and one day cave in and have a bacon sandwich you will feel like you have failed and just give up. You also look like a massive twat to the people you’ve castigated for not following your lead during your veggie years.
    \nIt reminded me of something I’d heard on Radio 4 (or possibly NPR) where some writers were discussing tips on their chosen profession; one of the writers suggested not telling anyone you know that you are writing a book . People always ask how you’re getting on – and frequently it’s difficult to write at all. So unless your book is about to hit Waterstones on the following Monday – you will sound like a delusional saddo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    For the last three days I’ve had vegetarian lunches. It wasn’t deliberate, and I’m not trying to make a political point (even though deep down I agree with the vegans arguments – don’t judge me for this please) it’s just that the vegetarian options seemed more appealing. There are two main reasons for this: Tofu […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}