RE: Oh my Valentine. — FoodiesUnite

Yes, it's sometimes incredibly hard to find what's best for her. But I came to the conclusion that it's best to be as coherent as possible, and don't do something against my gut feeling. For example, Lily was a little sick on Sunday. According to the agreement, I should've picked her up at 8am. But forcing that when she's sick felt wrong, so I first wrote the mother asking for how Lily was doing. The mother didn't reply, only when I told her that I could arrange an appointment for the next day she wrote that Lily as fine and didn't need a doctor. So that's when I wanted to pick her up. But her mom got Lily to send some voice mails saying that she wanted to stay and play with a friend that lives there, too. So I went to talk to her in person, which her mom first refused - but since I had my friends with me, she brought Lily out, and we hugged and talked for a second. I asked her if she wanted to stay a little longer and play, and that I could pick her up later without problem. So we (Lily and I) arranged for 3pm. And that worked.

Going strictly by the book might've blown back on me. So it was a lot better to go with the flow, insist, but also have Lily speak her mind.

And yes, vegan food is incredibly creative. I learned that when I went vegan, a whole new world of flavors opened up to me. Before that, the meat I ate was kind of always the same. Now that I have a few real chefs around me, I do see an amazing creativity with meat, too. But plants are still king.

The more sane you are with Lily, the saner she will be as an adult. We all carry baggage from our parents - minimizing that by showing her an example of how to approach life in a calm and rational manner whilst still being able to express emotion healthily will stand her in good stead.

Coming from Germany, I imagine your experience of meat would have been rather traditional? Or am I stereotyping? Likely haha. I didn't even eat meat til I was 29 and that was in England where at the time we could choose wild meat, road kill and local farm meat so it felt more ethical. Even then I struggled with it. It was a new world of cooking for me, and how it worked. I find this actually helped how I cooked plant based meals!

In Australia it's less hard I think - we have such good produce here, so fresh. We aren't getting beans from some greenhouse in the Netherlands or importing them from Kenya. Meat for us is once a fortnight or so, and it's usually local, from free range farms, so I feel less squeamish about it. I think it depends where you are on the killing animal spectrum. When I put it like that I feel morally bereft for eating meat at all.

I can't wait til my vegetable garden grows and finds balance. Much easier that way.