A Meeting of the Passions

You know when two things you really love come together in one heavenly moment? I had one of those moments this morning. The sheer brilliance of Handel's Messiah and a Sonic banana milkshake. At the same time. There are no words. I almost had an out-of-body experience right there in my car.

It helped make up for the unfortunately eventful morning I had. About which I will say nothing else.

I made the yummiest soup the other night. Not healthy, but yummy. And easy. It's the kind of dish that impresses people because they think you worked hard on it when you really didn't. On the next really cold day, try this:

Tomato-Tortellini Soup

2 14-oz. cans reduced-sodium chicken broth, or if you're veggie like me, vegetable broth

1 9-oz. package refrigerated tortellini (again, since I'm veggie, I used the cheese kind. You might prefer the chicken kind.)

1/2 an 8-oz. tub cream cheese spread with chive and onion

1 10 3/4- or 11-oz. condensed tomato or tomato bisque soup (you have a choice here, but use the bisque! It increases this recipe's yumminess like you wouldn't believe)

Snipped fresh chives (optional) (I didn't have these on hand, so I didn't use them. But they add color to the soup and would get you points on plating, if you were on Iron Chef America.)

In a medium saucepan, bring broth to boiling. Add tortellini, reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for five minutes. In a bowl whisk 1/3 cup of the hot broth into the cream cheese spread until smooth. Return all to saucepan along with tomato soup; heat through. Sprinkle with chives before serving. Makes 4 servings.

Tales of the Crypt

Last night, our house church went to Mt. Holly Cemetery in Little Rock for "Tales of the Crypt." It's an annual production put on by students at Little Rock's Parkview Arts & Science Magnet High School. Mt. Holly Cemetery is the final resting place of a number of Arkansas notables, including 11 Arkansas governors and several Confederate Army generals. For "Tales of the Crypt," the audience walks in groups to different graves, where students act out a short dialogue about the historical figure they are portraying. Last night, we heard from the wife of James Dibrell, who started the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; William B. Worthen, who started the bank that eventually became the Bank of America; and several others. The actors are all in period costumes and perform at the actual grave of the person they are portraying. That photo up there is of Mount Holly Cemetery in the daytime. Pretty creepy, huh? And we got to walk around it in the dark! It was a lot of fun and very educational. Julia wanted to see David O. Dodd, the young Confederate martyr who reportedly haunts a house not far from our church, but he was on a different part of the tour. We'll try to catch him next year.

In non-Halloween news, I've invented a new sandwich. I want to announce it to the world so I can get full credit. It's a grilled cheese with pepper jack cheese and banana peppers. SO YUM. And vegetarian, to boot! (For those of you keeping score at home, I've been meat-free for over two years now.) I'll never eat a boring old regular grilled cheese again.

Almost there...

Much excitement in the Nall house because the Hannah Montana show is tomorrow. One nice thing about going to a concert that appeals to the pre-teen crowd is that the show starts at 4 p.m. So no late night to go along with our permanently damaged hearing!

(Speaking of which, I am picking up ear plugs on the way to the show.)

I'm on the verge of finishing up a long string of deadlines, so I checked out some books to read:

"How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" by Mark Bittman. It's silly that, more than a year into my vegetarianism, I haven't bought a veggie cookbook. Several months ago, I pulled one of the shelf at Barnes & Noble and flipped open to a recipe for "Carrot Paste." It kinda freaked me out so I put it back on the shelf. But "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" looks promising. I'll try out some recipes and let you know how it goes.

And a murder mystery that takes place in a snooty New York state neighborhood. Not the most original idea, but after all the writing I've done in the last couple of weeks, I'm ready to not have to think very much.

Edited my post to add this: Evel Knievel is dead!

On Becoming Veggie

Oh, come on. Not ONE comment on my Ziggy sex post? Oh, well. On to other things.

One of my blog friends named Sarah (and I have a lot of them) asked me to blog about how I announced my vegetarianism and how I deal with people criticizing my decision. Sarah asked me about this a HONKIN' LONG TIME AGO and I'm just getting to it. So here it is.

I didn't go veggie until we moved to Arkansas. I've never liked meat all that much and had fantasized about giving it up altogether but I figured it would be too hard since I live with carnivores. I was reading online one day about going veggie and I decided it wouldn't really be that hard after all. A couple of days later, I was sitting in Burger King eating a salad with big chunks of chicken in it. I thought, "This is the last time I'm eating this stuff." And it was. Upon more reading, I've discovered the health benefits of not eating meat. You can cut your cancer risk by as much as 60 percent, and you also lower your chances of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. All those things run in my family, so I'm just trying to be smart.

What's funny about giving up meat is this. All of a sudden, people who have previously taken no interest whatsoever in your dietary habits are suddenly very concerned that you are not getting enough protein, iron, grease, etc. because you have given up meat. I did have to deal with this somewhat. But what has helped me a lot is that there are several other veggie people at our church, so I just kind of got lumped in with them. "Oh, you're one of THEM now..." So at church functions, the wonderful cooks who know about me and the other couple of veggie people will invariably have a couple of Bocas or other veggie alternatives stashed in the kitchen for us. We have never asked for special treatment, so this consideration is always very much appreciated.

Then there are the people who just want to harass you about not eating meat. We have a teen in our youth group who does this. He's always calling me a vegan (which I'm not) and rolling his eyes and making comments like I'm the biggest idiot alive for not wanting to eat dead animals. (Never mind that giving up meat is actually healthy, and this person is pouring soda into his body every time I see him, and I think he's going to be on insulin by age 40, and I've never pointed this out to him. But I might soon.)

And there's a guy who brings it up every time we are eating together. I went vegetarian "just to get attention," he says. First of all, I am the youngest in my family. Believe me, I can get attention without having to give up an entire food group. Second, I never, NEVER bring up my veggie-ism with this guy. (I really don't bring it up with anyone.) He always does. So if my vegetarianism ever gets me attention when he's around, it's because of him and not me. But I digress.

Here is my basic rule for vegetarians and their friends. This is important, so you might want to take notes. My rule is this: Don't be a jerk. Seriously. If you go veggie and your friend doesn't, do not EVER say, as that person is lifting a cheeseburger to his mouth, "Do you know what that animal went through before it died???" And friends of vegetarians, you also don't get to be jerks. Your veggie friends did not give up meat as a personal attack against you. To be honest, our eating choices are actually private matters and not your business.

The bottom line is that meat-eaters and veggie-eaters can all co-exist in peace. We can go out to Olive Garden without me gagging over your veal parmiagana and you snickering over my veggie lasagna. Let's be friends and leave each others' food alone.

Cow huggers unite

A while back, Sarah, a fellow non-meat-eater, asked me how I let the world know that I went veggie and how I have handled people's reactions to my decision. I've been gathering my thoughts on this and I'll blog about it soon.

Well, we are all done traveling for the summer and school starts in just a few weeks. I've had a ton of work lately, which is always fun with both kids are home every day. Our last tiny little trip is this Saturday. We are going to Magic Springs, a theme park about 40 minutes from here, to play around and then hear Third Day in concert. I don't like much Christian music, to be honest, but I really, really like Third Day. And I sort of love Mac Powell, their lead singer.

Here's a quote from Jenna when we were coming home from Texas last week. She took her shoes off and said, "Hey! I found my feet!"

Speaking of Texas, I got to spend some time on Friday with Dr. Charlie Marler and his wife, Peggy. "Doc" was the chairman of the Journalism-Mass Communication Dept. while I was at ACU and he is still a hero to me. Any time my name appears in a byline in some publication, his name should be right next to it because he is the reason my writing is worthy to be printed. Some professors teach you how to do something, but professors like Doc teach you how to become something. He was never satisfied if his students were good at writing; he wanted us to be better than good. He taught us the power of words and to uphold truth above all else. Yes, they do actually teach that in journalism school.

Fast Food Fun

Chad was leaving for a youth trip yesterday after church and asked me to go get lunch for the four of us and bring it back to the church so he could work on loading up the van. Here's the conversation I had in the drive-through at Sonic:

SONIC PERSON: Welcome to Sonic. How may I help you?

ME: I need a #1 with a Dr Pepper...

SP: Do you want cheddar peppers or anything else?

ME: No... (meaning I didn't want the cheddar peppers, and I started to give the rest of the order)

SP: Your total is $4.32, drive through please.

ME: Wait -- I need to finish ordering.

SP: (Five minutes of silence)

I backed the car up and pulled up again hoping to trigger whatever it is that tells them someone is in the drive-through.

SP: Welcome to Sonic. How may I help you?

ME: I need to finish ordering.

SP: Oh. What did you order?

So I was finally able to order everything. Then I sat in the drive-through for another ten minutes and there was still a car ahead of me. I didn't have all the time in the world because Chad was on a schedule. So I drove out of the line and went to the Wendy's next door.

WENDY'S PERSON: Welcome to Wendy's. How may I help you?

ME: I need a #1 with a Dr Pepper...

WP: Your total is $4.32. Drive through, please.

Somehow the fast-food gods intervened and I was able to get back to the church with food for all four of us (including a salad for me. The #1 was for Chad, for those of you tracking my veggie progress.) But I gotta tell ya, one of the things I have enjoyed about becoming vegetarian is that I don't have to deal with fast-food establishments very much any more. There isn't much for veggie people at those places except for fries and desserts, and I might as well get something healthy from somewhere else.

I now know that ordering at a drive-through requires the not so easy skill of getting your entire order out in one breath quickly -- before they total you out, tell you to drive through and shut down the line of communication between them and your car. So I've been practicing. Here goes:

"I-NEED-A-#1-WITH-A-DR-PEPPER-AND-TWO-HOT-DOGS-WITH-NOTHING-ON-THEM-BECAUSE-I-HAVE-STRANGE-CHILDREN-WHO-DO-NOT-BELIEVE-IN-CONDIMENTS-AND-I-NEED-A-DEAD-ANIMAL-SALAD-WITH-NO-DEAD-ANIMALS-ON-IT-BECAUSE-I-AM-A-VEGETARIAN-HIPPIE-FREAK-AND-A-COOKIE-DOUGH-BLAST-THAT'S-IT-THANKS."