I’ve been a busy bee lately, with my classes’ first big essay going on and some committee work I’ve been doing, so I feel like I’ve barely been keeping up with writing here. Please allow me to recap some of the recent excitement:

First of all, W. and I decided we needed a night of tequila drinking in our lives. He is a real tequila connoisseur (definitely not something I can claim about myself), whereas I have been laboring under the illusion that I do not care for tequila after having sampled, oh, maybe only one kind of it. I needed to try some of the good stuff, with someone who actually knows what that means.

Of course, along with tequila we needed tacos, and along with tacos we needed friends. So tacos and tequila night took place. W. made puerco pibil, a slow-cooked pork butt with amazing seasoning — and then he made my seitan with the same seasoning so I could enjoy the deliciousness, too. I made some guacamole, which basically everyone said they loved, but I think they must all be fools (FOOLS, I TELL YOU) because half way through the night I realized I had forgotten the second-most crucial ingredient: cilantro. I am an idiot.

My sadly cilantro-free guacamole did not ruin the party, however, and much fun was had. Of course! There was tequila! I also have to admit that I tasted a bite of the pibil and it was quite tasty indeed — but not so much better than my seitan that I felt I was missing out. I never really feel as if I am missing out as a vegetarian, you know?

This week was of course Valentine’s Day, and however cynical your feelings about this alleged holiday might be, I am going to tell you that I was quite excited by it. It is the first time since 2002 that I haven’t been single on the day, so of course I was looking forward to it!

We decided we didn’t want to deal with the crowds and the overpriced “special” menus, so we decided to do our own thing for dinner (W. said he’d surprise me), and planned to keep it low key and exchange cards but not gifts. This is exactly my kind of thing: I just adore cards, postcards, letters, et cetera (and he gave me three cards, one of which was hand-made) — moreover, I am a terrible gift giver, so there was no chance to expose my faults in that regard.

In addition to tacos, W. and I have recently found ourselves obsessed with Indian food and have been getting dinner from our one local Indian restaurant pretty frequently. We’ve also been indulging in all of the Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern India episodes and even watched the entire Story of India BBC miniseries. Conveniently at the same time I was teaching Indian epics in class. India overload? Definitely not! Not only is the restaurant great and the food delicious and vegetarian friendly, but it was also the location of our first date. (Aw.)

So anyway, W. brought over takeout from there for dinner and he even remembered the dish I had mentioned wanting to try when we were watching one of the travel shows. (I always appreciate it when someone remembers the little things like this that I say.)

So we had a very cozy night in, finishing with some pink champagne (because you know how I feel about champagne) and these red velvet cake truffles I had spent the morning making.

Notes on that:

1) I have decided to call them “cake truffles” instead of “cake poppers” or “cake balls” because “poppers” sounds, to me, like a deep-fried bar food. And, well, “balls.”

2) I at first got very frustrated with the whole process of dipping them in the candy coating, and the first half of the batch was quite messy and lumpy and stuck to the surface I had set them on, breaking apart when I tried to lift them off. The second half of the batch went much better as I tried to improve my technique. Miss Zoot has a good tutorial on her site, which I followed, but it just took a lot of practice. This is easily a frustrating task!

3) To top that off, I kept licking the candy coating and eating bits of the broken truffles, and by the time I was finished I had made myself feel really sick. The melted candy is SUPER sweet, and really should only be eaten as a thin coating and not as a big blob stuck to your dipping fork. Heed my advice!

Nonetheless, the red velvet cake truffles turned out well in the end and were appreciated! The recipe makes about 50-60 and I was able to give some away not only to my boyfriend but also to my sweet upstairs neighbors and to my friends S & P and B & her mom. LOTS of cake truffles. I still have a dozen or so at home!

So anyway. I guess this post turned out to be about tacos, tequila, and truffles. I was going to tell you a little story about typing, but maybe I can do that tomorrow. I also really need to tell you about a certain adventure I had with Oliver the dog and the upstairs neighbor mom. Damn. I am behind on blogging! More soon then! How are y’all doing?

Lazy weekend mornings are something I have been enjoying very much over the last several months. W and I like to sleep in as late as we want, then take time to make coffee “the hard way,” in a French press or a chemex pot and eat breakfast while lounging on the couch with the dogs. These breakfasts have included eggs for a while now, something I had not eaten in years of avoiding animal products and being a mostly strict vegan.

I have never exactly toed the party line on every issue: I have always eaten honey, and am not often inclined to ask at restaurants if, for example, their bread contains eggs. I question whether there is, in fact, a true “party line” at all. I think most people have to find what works best for them as individuals. Nonetheless, soi-disant vegans do not eat eggs, and I had not straight up eaten a fried egg in maybe three years.

When I had eggs again for the first time, they were eggs delivered straight from one of our local CSA farms to W’s office (they receive egg deliveries pretty regularly — I don’t know how that arrangement came about but I’m not complaining). It’s a small, ethical, organic farm right here in our county, which made it something I felt much more comfortable about than I would grocery-store eggs. That morning, we also had a fresh loaf of sourdough bread from the farmers’ market, and W made eggs in a basket. To this day, that is one of my Most Memorable Meals. Everything about it was perfect.

Since then, I have often requested eggs in a basket, which I did this morning and the chef kindly obliged. It’s a little indulgent, to eat eggs when I clearly don’t have to. I get by without animal products most of the time, right? But the whole lazy weekend ritual is pretty indulgent in and of itself.

I see this as a sort of luxury food. I don’t bake with eggs, for example. Why bother when I have tons of vegan recipes and there’s nothing noticeably different (to me, anyway) between vegan cookies or cupcakes and their non-vegan varieties? Just because I am having eggs on a Saturday morning, I am not going to start putting them into my cookies.

I had added organic Greek yogurt to my diet about a year ago, when I was having problems incorporating protein into my on-campus lunches and was simultaneously experiencing some slow-to-resolve running injuries. I’m not sure that it’s made a huge difference in the injury issue, but it has kept me on track nutritionally even when I’m stuck eating lunch in my office. (Bags of pretzels and granola bars were not doing the trick, and hummus and veggies really wasn’t, either.) I still keep all of my dairy-free products in the house, though, like Earth Balance, Tofutti “cream cheese,” soy milk, and so on. Given the choice, I will take the vegan option almost every time, but if I am eating some local, organic, eggs from one of our CSA farms on the weekend, I am not going to sweat it.

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I am also not going to sweat it if I occasionally add a Bloody Mary or two to the long, lazy breakfast. Especially if I’ve just finished a long run. But please hold the Worcestershire sauce — I’m not interested in drinking any anchovies with my cocktail, thanks!

I have always said that I eat the way I do because it works for me and is sustainable, both in terms of nutrition and the environment. That was true when I completely avoided eggs and dairy and I hope it is still true now.