Exploits of a Vegan Wannabe

Sandy and I attended a funeral today (Thursday) that was  over an hour away from the house. We new that we would be faced with a luncheon that would most likely be  out of our vegan control. In addition to that, we would be gone the entire day, spending a great deal of it in the car.  So, I packed a cooler full of things we love and could eat on the fly; dried apricots, Triscuits and nuts, in case we were presented with an all meaty lunch option. I felt really good about setting ourselves up for success, even under time constraints and an unexpected commitment.

The luncheon was at a very nice chop house so I was psyched at the prospect of not having to sneak out to the car to eat Triscuits.  The attendees arrived well before the family and were enjoying a cocktail hour and chatting. This is when I established who our waitress was and told her in a hushed tone that we would need vegan entrees, without meat or dairy.  I wanted to give her ample time to alert the chef before the large orders for our party were underway.

She seemed irritated or scared like I had asked her for a live chicken.  So, I thanked her graciously for taking care of our request and didn’t give it a second thought. This was a really nice restaurant, surely they could eek out a mixed greens salad on a moments notice.

Once the entire party  had arrived, same said waitress gave a mini speech welcoming us all to their restaurant and introducing the rest of the wait staff that would be serving us. She then says,” Because we have two vegans here (she looks right at Sandy and myself, pointing us out with her scornful tone) the chef is now offering a vegetable stir fry with rice. The actual menu is chicken salad….yadda yadda yadda. Your meals also come with homemade Minestrone soup (She looks right at me) but I don”t know if you can have that because there might be meat in the broth…I don’t know.”

I wanted to crawl inside of my purse. Was that absolutely necessary? I spoke to her in private before anyone else was even there and she called me out like I had stolen the hand lotion out of the ladies room.

So, I ordered more wine and released the need to feel humiliated. There was no reason for me to be ashamed of the awesome choices I am now making for my body and my health. Here is the funny part, throughout the room we began to hear…”I’ll have the vegetarian stir fry, I’ll have the vegetarian stir fry, I’ll have what their having.” Complete vindication and success. Lead by example not expectation. Change the world one meal at a time.

Have a delicious day and be proud of your choices.

Tags: 30 day challenge, compassionate eating, ordering out, trying vegan, trying vegetarian, vegan, vegan challenge, vegan experience