in lieu of turkey

Later today my yin and I will be making the trek south to share a Thanksgiving meal with our cousins in Homestead.  Rather than ranting about the holiday like I did last year, I've decided to take a more measured approach.... by making tofu.

make tofu, not war

This will be just one of the many new experiences I've had over the past weeks (new job, new phone, new wardrobe), and by virtually ant metric, it should be one of the least important.  Nonetheless, I must admit to a certain amount of trepidation.  Sometimes knowledge serves to ease anxiety, but when it comes to food, sometimes the processes involved in their production are enough to turn one's stomach.  In fact, you can read about how turkeys get made here.

i

m

age

(thankfully)

miss

in

g

With regard to the tofu, though, I'm less concerned about the blood and feathers and murder than I am the cheesecloth.  For starters, I don't know what cheesecloth is, much less what, if anything, it has to do with cheese.  I think maybe I saw it once as a kid, somewhere in my mother's kitchen.  Although not a particularly accomplished chef, my mom has been known to get on various culinary kicks, and she sometimes talks about making yogurt back in the Seventies and early Eighties.

These sorts of second-hand reminiscences are odd because they have a way of inserting themselves into one's memory so neatly that it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish the things we've been told a million times from the things we actually remember.  Of course sometimes I wonder if that's all memory ever is – the things we tell ourselves often enough to become real. The past gradually accrues a certain mass, an unmistakable pull akin to gravity, both in its invisibility and its undeniability. 

But this is beside the point.

The point is that I've been looking forward to today for weeks now, ever since our cousin told us she planned to prepare tuna tartare. It's been well over a year since I've had fish, and in the past couple of months I've felt my body craving more protein.   All the tempeh and beans and tofu in the world still fall short when it comes to protein density, and tuna is far and away my favorite seafood. So, I suppose I'' break with my vegetarianism later today and indulge in a hefty helping of animal protein and mercury.

But first, I plan to make that tofu, and instagr.am the whole experience with my fancy new phone. With any luck, I'll be able to eat what we make...