The Meat Lover's Meatless Cookbook

I first crossed paths with Kim O'Donnel soon after she moved for Seattle, when she was writing for the Washington Post. She ordered a quesadilla at a farmers' market, regretted it when she saw that it had beets, enjoyed it anyway, and wrote a post about the experience for her Mighty Appetite blog. I became her symbol of the fact that beets weren't that terrible after all and she became my high-profile-reformed-beet-hater poster child.

Kim has been instrumental in popularizing the Meatless Monday movement, a campaign to accesibly promote plant based eating to folks who wouldn't be caught dead calling themselves vegetarian. When I heard that she was working on a meatless cookbook targeted towards meat eaters I mentioned that I struggle daily at my market booth with prejudices against meatless food. She responded that the solution was simply to make the meatless food tasty enough that even meat eaters could enjoy it.

I wasn't convinced. If it were that simple then I wouldn't keep encountering those market shoppers who feel the need to exclaim every time they walk past my booth, "I'm a carnivore!" Meat eating has countless layers of meaning. Its appeal is not simply a matter of flavor.

The Meat Lover's Meatless Cookbook approaches the issue brilliantly, by blatantly celebrating the joys of eating meat while simultaneously offering an alternative. The introduction has a wonderful baby picture of the author covered in grease and enjoying a t-bone. For all practical purposes, she's winking at the reader and saying, "This is great stuff. Now let's move on. At least one day a week."

Oh, and the recipes are fabulous too.

New Boots and the Pineapple Express

My business hasn't missed a day at the Ballard Farmers' Market since 2004, unless you count the one day in 2008 when my employee took the company van home without asking and then couldn't get it off his street because of the ice and snow.

This past Sunday I woke up with the rain pounding on my roof and seriously considered calling in and saying I just couldn't. The weather report said to stay home if you possibly could. (What kind of weather report tells shoppers to stay home on a Sunday two weeks before Christmas? Positively unAmerican.) I decided to head to the kitchen and take it from there. I'd bought a pair of serious, warm boots when I was in Vermont last month for precisely this type of occasion.

A very soggy and cranky cat ran up to me as soon as I got the key in the kitchen door. I guess he'd been caught out in the elements all night. I didn't let him in, but I didn't latch the door either so if he'd been persistent enough he could have taken shelter.

I spoke to my employee who was doing the Broadway Farmers' Market that day and we decided to proceed, if only for the market managers who work so hard to make it all happen. The last thing they need is to come down in torrential rain and not have any vendors.

I put on the raincoat that I keep at the kitchen and began hauling things outside. Before I knew it the van was fully loaded. I headed over to Ballard. The rain seemed to be letting up on the way, but it started dumping again as soon as I pulled up next to my booth space. I took my time trying to get the tarp on the top of the booth as taut as possible so the water wouldn't collect, but it was a lost cause. I was knocking off buckets of water with the broom even before I'd finished unloading.

In the end, it wasn't such a bad day. The rain mostly let up by early afternoon, although few customers turned out. But I felt full of love for the customers who did show. At the risk of sounding creepy, I expressed that to one couple. They responded that if we vendors could turn out, they figured they could too.

That's my favorite thing about doing markets in horrible weather. The experience brings folks closer together as we each do our part to create something larger than ourselves.