Basically, you line up the exact things you need to get going-like clubs, shoes, and a book that offers A-to-Z instruction-and then you obsess on learning, ignoring everything else in the world until you achieve some level of proficiency.Īs it happens, the decision to step up my vegetarian game dovetailed nicely with the fact that, during the pandemic, my main form of relaxation has been vegetable gardening, so I was already following a natural path. To get started on the hunt for new recipes, I drew on a DIY instructional method that I developed when I was a teenager and decided to start playing golf. The roundup of dishes I’ve been cooking for my family members was already pretty veg heavy, but when I looked at my recipe collection, I realized it was short on what I would call main events-entrées that take the place of the animal protein that most of us are accustomed to seeing on our plates. I started learning to cook right out of college, when I lived in a group house with other young people who were always semi-broke, so we ate a lot of beans, lentils, rice, potatoes, and noodles. This does not mean that, up until now, I didn’t know how to buy and cook vegetables. A day’s harvest from the author’s hydroponic garden Photo: Alex Heard I’ve done this with southern food, New Orleans–style seafood, southwestern food, Italian food, and baking and grilling in general, and I decided that my choice this time would be- ta-da-vegetarian food. In response to such challenges, I decided to shake things up with a move I’ve tried in the past: pick a cuisine I want to learn about and dive in. ![]() But she’s gotten more finicky as she’s aged, and now mostly subsists on crackers, biscuits, cheese spread, and soup. My mother-in-law, also in her mid-nineties, is a native of Louisiana who used to be a first-rate cook and hostess. Limiting! These restrictions also rule out many prepared foods, which often contain onion powder or garlic powder (or both). My father-in-law, who’s in his mid-nineties, is a healthy eater-almost every day he powers down a lumberjack-size breakfast of granola, yogurt, mango, and strawberries-but he has a sensitive stomach and can’t touch the following: garlic, onion, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, beans, corn, beets, bell peppers, peas, red chile, apples, pears, pickles, and chocolate. ![]() My wife, Susan, is a vegetarian who’s trying to go vegan-a decision that, if it holds, will remove two staples that I’ve relied on for her, eggs and cheese. I hit a wall partly because these three can be a little picky, which restricts what I can make. After more than three and a half years of doing this, I recently ran into a familiar problem: I got bored with the food I was cranking out. When she was sent home, I started cooking dinner every night for her, my father-in-law, and my wife, a routine I’ve kept up ever since. In October 2017, my mother-in-law was hospitalized for a week.
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