How My Brain Works

On any given day, this is how my brain works:

1. Come inside from yard work. Realize I'm hungry. Pull out leftovers from Cracker Barrel last night to reheat for lunch.

2. The green beans reminds me of the little disclaimer on the Cracker Barrel menu: *We want to make sure you know that some of our offerings, like Turnip Greens, Green Beans, Corn Muffins, Hashbrown Casserole and Pinto Beans, are made the old-fashioned way using meat seasonings and are not strictly vegetarian.

3. The disclaimer reminds me of how much my vegetarian cousins loved our grandmother's vegetables. Memaw grew many of her own vegetables in her garden, and they always had a great flavor. Years later one of my cousins asked her how she cooked them and Memaw mentioned that she always used meat drippings to flavor her vegetables. Shocked, my cousin asked how could she do that when she knew two of her grand-daughters were vegetarian and had been vegetarians for years. Supposedly my grandmother replied that of course she knew they were vegetarians, but it's not like there was any real meat in the vegetables.

4. I mull over the differences between incomplete and complete proteins in the diet, and how some vegetarians eat fish, eggs, and dairy products, while other only eat eggs and dairy, and the rest (the vegans) refrain from anything but plants.

5. I think about how much extra protein there might be in a "vegan" dish if you weren't too careful in picking all the little green worms off your organic broccoli. Or how often you might eat some fruit fly eggs and larvae without knowing it.

6. And that makes me think about figs and how the fruit is pollinated by fig wasps, just something to consider the next time you eat a Fig Newton.

7. The microwave timer goes off and and I eat my lunch.

PS--My grandmother never saw the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), but she certainly could have related to Andrea Martin's character Aunt Voula.

Aunt Voula: What do you mean he don't eat no meat?
[the entire room stops, in shock]
Aunt Voula: Oh, that's okay. I make lamb.