The Day I Broke My Veggie Edge

In a recent post, I mentioned how delicious the hangar steak was at the Blue Spoon. A former coworker called me out, "Amanda, you eat meat now!?" I used to work at Austin's Fine Wine and Foods, where I dealt with some pretty gross, bloody, stinky meat. I'd slice the roast beef and there would be blood everywhere. I'd heat the corned beef and sauerkraut sandwiches with thousand island dressing on pumpernickel bread and want to DIE it smelled so bad. Now, I eat steak, burgers, bacon, bacon burgers, chicken on the bone, pork chops, buffalo wings, hot dogs...
(Abby, by the way, if you're reading this, Scott totally was sleeping with Missy and now Tim is my neighbor.)

For a while, it was back and forth, until deciding yes, I will be a vegetarian, (who occasionally ate fish for protein.) I only relapsed once in those years, at Mandy's birthday party. I was drinking, and must've been eye-balling Emily's chicken fingers because she offered me a bite, and I took it! But overall, I was proud of myself for resisting the temptation, and there are some delicious meat-free meals to be had out there, and a lot of scarily similar meat-tasting products. The whole thing went downhill once Josh came along. He himself is a former vegetarian, and he was meat-free for a lot longer than I was. Although I can't exactly remember the first meal we shared "out," I think it might have been when he got his first story aired on national radio. We went to Sebago Brewing Company and he ordered himself a Grey Goose martini and a burger. The first of MANY burgers I'd watch him eat. My mouth would water each and every time. Finally, one night I was on the phone with my carnivorous friend Andrea. I was planning on mac and cheese for dinner, supplemented with green peas. She says, "Nono, hot dogs in mac and cheese." That was it. I replied, "That sounds delicious... screw it. If I want a hot dog, I'm going to have a hot dog. I gotta go. I'm calling Josh and we're going to get a burger.
" That was it. We went to the Great Lost Bear, who I heard had one of the best burgers in town. (Their wings are awesome, too.) The bacon I ordered with breakfast the next weekend didn't sit quite so well in my stomach. Maybe it was my body telling me I wasn't getting enough protein, maybe it was peer pressure, but the rest is history.