Stomachs on legs are proud to present

(photos by Mina von Sneakerberg)

The night before last we cooked a vegan dinner for my dear friend Mina von Sneakerberg who manages Strange Life Records
, and her boyfriend Danny who was also playing a gig here last night. We had roasted fennel, celeriac, squash and tomato; plus grilled polenta with a raw chilli-parsley-garlic salsa, rocket/rucola and smashed cannelini beans heated with garlic crushed into salt.

Mina told us about some famous vegans/vegetarians like Kimora Lee Simmons (we also discussed Kimora's bad decorating skills) and Prince (apparently he is also now a Jehovas Witness and goes around knocking on doors with his bodyguards). I was surprised to hear that Andre 3000 is vegan (Skew It On the Bar-B, well, that's probably about hydroponic weed anyhow). Did some web searching today and found a few more vegan musicians, like the drummer from Trans Am, and Yoko Ono (that one comes as less of a surprise). I'm actually surprised there weren't more vegan musicians listed. After taking cooking lessons from Peter Chaplin, who was a personal macrobiotic chef for Madonna and Chrissie Hynde, I was under the impression that it was de rigeur for decades now.

I was vegetarian for six years; followed by a bloody phase in my early 20s when I vaguely subscribed to the notion that because my blood type was O-negative I was genetically predisposed to be suited to a high animal protein diet. Nowadays I'm a confused mixture of both: some days I delight in mixed game pie, other days meat just seems unnecessary. And you don't have to be vegetarian to get excited about eating tofu. I enjoy six-minute eggs but prefer the taste of soy milk to regular milk. At the end of the day I'm a bundle of contradictions, but basically I will eat all things in moderation except stomach or raw horsemeat.

I definitely enjoyed the vegan meal on Thursday more than last night's dinner, which we cooked for Ina, Harry & Denis: chicken roasted with waxy potatoes, porcini mushrooms, rosemary and Vermentino. But maybe Erik's right and it just would have benefitted from another 15 minutes in the oven!

Anyway, today he sent me a link to the sound engineer forum which he frequents (www.gearslutz.com): apparently they too have passionate views to do with veganism VS meat-in-moderation.

Some quotes from the forum thread "Happy Turkey Free Thanksgiving":

"No meat, no wheat, no milk (“milk is for babies” Arnold Schwarzenegger)"

"You would not survive on a Rhino diet!"

"Gorillas eat insects"

"I'm not a celebrity, but I play high energy drums (talk about needing stamina/endurance and strength!) in a band with a 21 and 22 year old. I'm 40." (a meat eater)

"I'm 45 and was on the national cycling team with the future Olympic road champion and a future Giro winner. I've left these guys sitting by the roadside when I was driving the pace. People at the Olympic level of competition are vegetarian at about the same rate as the general population and it does not have a substantial effect on performance one way or the other."

"Defiant of 30 cigarettes a day: I have no deficiency signs (annual check-up), got the last cold/flu several years ago, high blood cholesterol & high blood pressure= unknown symptoms, have a body shape like Adonis without sports, can bang six hours without a break"
(a vegan)

"My hearing goes to 23KHZ and I don't think it has anything to do with my diet. Statistical averages rarely represent an actual person. For the most part we are individuals with freakish deviations from the statistical average."

"I'm veggy only for 15 years, but I do kill baby bunnies for my boa snake."