Sometime in February this year, Candice came home from work and said "I think I'm going vegan."  I rolled my eyes in a "yeah right," dismissive fashion.  She HATES when I roll my eyes so I immediately lost what little leverage I might have carried forward in the ensuing conversation.  "Why don't we just try it for a week?", "Why are you so against it?", and (my favorite) "Why don't you want to support me?" were just a couple choice moments in our back-and-forth.

I resisted sternly based on the fact that we consumed an extremely small amount of animal products in the first place.  I've been what's called a pescatarian (vegetarian + fish/seafood eater) since the age of 14 when I came home from an extended vacation in Humboldt Co, degenerate capital of the US.  When Candice and I got back together in 2003(?), she was a self-proclaimed "meat and potatoes" girl...digging on the steak and fries.  A couple years ago she switched her diet to match mine for reasons I can't recall.  Now she'd done a complete 180 and aimed to eliminate ALL animal products from her diet.  And she was serious.

Now, as I enjoy doing the majority of the cooking in the house, this notion presented some significant challenges.  I wasn't about to begin cooking two separate sets of meals on a nightly basis (as my saintly mother did for me as a teenager and college kid).  How was I going to make this work?  Well, I diverted my negativity and reluctance into something more positive and productive.  I tried to view it in the light of a culinary challenge and once I did that, it was mostly smooth sailing.  Next thing I know, I'm whipping up tostada pizzas, creamy corn chowder, gyros, vegan sausages, coconut curry tofu, enchilada casserole, and on and on and on.  Even our pug Benny enjoys the occasional vegan scraps in his bowl.  You can find a handful of recipes in the Food section here on my site.

And things are good.  Can immediately dropped several pounds (she busts her ass in the gym though, too).  I can't say I truly "feel" differently but my digestive system **ahem** responded positively.  And most importantly, we've chosen a significantly more compassionate and healthy approach to sustaining ourselves.

So, am I a vegan?  No, I am not a vegan.  If you've heard me discuss veganism in the last couple months, you've heard me express my opposition to labels as they relate to my diet.  I still eat dairy yogurt (though that may stop as I'm exploring and creating an increasing number of animal free breakfast options lately).  On the seldom occasion we go out to eat, I may end up eating food containing animal products (egg, cheese, butter, etc) but I'll avoid it if an appealing vegan option is available on the menu.

Looking back on it, I think (and Candice may disagree) some of the strongest influences in her new found "nutrition position" were Facebook posts by her friend Ari who is a vegan and (per Candice) a "big time" animal rights activist.  Every so often I'd catch her on the desktop PC reading an article describing, or even worse, a video depicting the horrific treatment of animals in food production processes.  All of these and other inputs built up over time and she finally reached an ethical breaking point.  It's all for the better, I must say.

Do I think people should more carefully consider what they eat and drink and the consequences of how those things are created and produced?  Absolutely.  That said, I'll never be one that's up in your grill, criticizing you for what you put in your body.  That's for you to decide.  Or for your wife to decide on your behalf.

On Sunday afternoon, Candice and I hosted a fun little gathering over at Heckel Manor. It was a combination of affairs all rolled in to one.

One of our friends Amiri is starting a catering company with two friends he met in culinary school. The outfit is cleverly named Tastebudds. Candice volunteered me to design, develop, and launch their website (which I am happy to do anyway, I enjoy my fun web projects - see forwardtheater.com but please excuse the current issues with Twitter's API...grumble).

On an almost completely unrelated note, Candice also participates in a book club; and when I use the terms "participate" and “club,” I mean there are four people and they meet once annually. In a good year.  Amiri happens to be one of the four "participants" of said “club.” So for shits and grins, they decided to parlay the following:

• A trial run in-home catering event for Tastebudds serving
• brunch for a poorly organized, weakly disciplined book club with the added benefit of
• introducing Can and Danny, the other two partners in Tastebudds as well as
• rewarding me for my volunteer web work with some delectable cuisine of which I would
• take photos to eventually be showcased on tastebuddscatering.com

Got it? Me neither.

Folks started showing up around 11am and drinks were served. Julius Meinl coffee for the weak, and Candice's locally famous Bloody Marys for the strong. Shortly thereafter a whirlwind of culinary excellence came to fruition in our kitchen and a variety of scrumptious treats came out. Deconstructed BLTs (minus the B for the veg-heads), shrimp cocktail, herbed breakfast potato egg scramble, home style grits, and an assortment of desserts. Off the chart tastiness. After dessert, the book clubbers began their discussion on Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray", and the rest of us sloughed off to the living room to watch the Illini hoops team get run out of their own gym by the Badgers (causing me to utter the phrase “I should have gone to Wisconsin” for the second time this young year).  After the hardwood beatdown, the boys plated three different dishes and I went bananas with super macro mode on the ill-equipped Canon S5 IS.

It all made for a wonderfully unique Sunday experience. You can find the photographic evidence here on my Flickr page.

I need to get something off my chest.  It's been bothering me for nearly three years, and the only ones fortunate enough to hear about it are my wife and the occasional offender.  You think the swine flue is bad, this is truly an epidemic.  It's more irritating than children running around swinging open umbrellas with reckless abandon. It's more dangerous than juggling samurai swords.  It's...it's...

Sidewalk Cycling

I am reluctant to call these people cyclists because real, honorable cyclists know they are not to ride on sidewalks. For reasons unknown to me, there seem to be a far greater number of violators here in Lincoln Square than I remember in the Wrigleyville and greater Lakeview area.  The crux of my grievance here is not the basic legality or illegality of sidewalk cycling, but the risk exposed to myself and my dog as pedestrians.  On a several occasions while out on a walk, we've turned the corner from a side street sidewalk onto a Montrose Ave sidewalk and nearly been clipped by one of the bastards.  Because I am conflict averse, I either keep my mouth shut, mutter to myself in anger, or complain to my wife (if she happens to be with me).  But once in a blue moon, I lose control and yell out, "GET YOUR BIKE IN THE STREET!"  This, of course, does nothing to alter the situation and the violator just peddles on in ignorance.

Now, I understand there may be scenarios in which sidewalk cycling should be allowable.  I don't think a four year old on training wheels, for instance, should be practicing his/her skills in the three foot lane between moving motor traffic and parked cars.  I get that.  No problem here.  But this is an exception, not the rule.  So as a gesture of good citizenship (i.e. controlled rage), I took it upon myself to draft a proposed set of sidewalk cycling rules for my neighborhood:

• If you can grow facial hair (male or female), you must ride your bicycle on the street
• If you are smoking cigarettes (purchased legally or underage), you must ride your bicycle on the street
• If you are a male and wearing fake diamond stud earrings, you must ride your bicycle on the street
• If you can hold a cup of coffee in one hand and smoke a cigarette in the other while riding your bicycle, you must ride your bicycle on the street so Darwin can take care of the rest
• If your "bicycle" is in any way motorized, you must ride it on the street
• If you are on your way to/from work, you must ride your bicycle on the street

Think these are worthy of submitting to the alderman?  Me too.  Luckily (?) we're now in the winter months during which this becomes less of a problem.  But before you know it, spring will once again arrive and the violating S-o-Bs will be back out in full force.  And when they emerge, I will be ready...armed with this...uhhhh, blog post.

Yesterday was my 31st birthday.  This year, like in years past, Candice sent me to the spa as my birthday treat.  But it’s not just any spa I visit…it’s Sir Spa, a men’s only spa in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago.  This place is top notch and I absolutely love it.  It’s home to the best masseuse I’ve ever had…a dude named Peter.  Peter is a former professional soccer player and he destroys my body in all the right ways.  Last year I had a 90 minute Sports Massage (similar to a deep tissue, but with more stretching) that was just incredible.  Oh the pain…the sweet sweet pain.

Yesterday, my services included:

• Signature Massage (basically a Swedish style full body, 60 minutes)

• Hot Towel Face Treatment (60 minute facial with professional consultation/evaluation)

• Detox Mud Wrap (they paint your naked body with a mud cleanser, wrap you up in layers of plastic sheets and blankets, crank up the table heater, sweat you out for 25 minutes, then wipe you down with hot towels)

The mud wrap was interesting and unique, but I’m not sure I’d do it again.  The massage and facial were dynamite.  And as always, the facility was terrific.  The locker and steam rooms are on the small side, but the waterfall shower and available grooming products are nice touches.  I thoroughly enjoy my time there.

Sir Spa appears to lean towards the gay side of things, but if you aren’t comfortable with that, you probably shouldn’t be stripping naked and getting rubbed with man hands in the first place.

It’s been an exceptionally busy spring for me thus far, if you can call this season “Spring” in Chicago. Over a month since I last phoned home to a true blog post. Just unbelievable. The month of March saw me criss-crossing the country with a trip to Humboldt County, California to visit my family - sandwiched between training seminars in New York and Las Vegas. The weeks were quite reminiscent of my Ernst & Young days when I would wake up, look out the hotel room window, and momentarily forget where the hell I was. In the coming months, my life and schedule should be closer to normal, at least by my standards.

So as I sit here resuming my blogging ineptitude, I thought there would be no finer way to return to the blog than with a big-ass SHOUTOUT. In this edition of SHOUTOUT, I feature “My Jewel Card.”

Many years ago, I came up with a quasi-business plan related to creating a mega-network of frequent shopper rewards. While the plan was soft on strategy and empty on profitability, one thing was clear…it would reduce the need for consumers to carry around dozens of different rewards cards in their wallets and purses. One card, one network, thousands of ways to earn and spend your points. Genius!

Prior to “going minimal” and purchasing a super-slim wallet, I carried around individual cards for the following (at a minimum): Jewel-Osco, Dominicks, CVS, Subway, Starbucks, United Airlines, American Airlines, Marriott, Hilton, and Avis. Not to mention all the one-off little restaurants who offered frequent buyer cards and rewards (e.g. Zoup in Detroit…still the best soup joint I’ve patronized). It all amounts to total lunacy. Anyway, as I mentioned, I decided to stop the madness, purchase a much smaller wallet, and carry with me only the necessities. So what made the cut? Drivers License, CTA card, credit cards, and my Jewel-Osco preferred card. That’s it. This reason alone warrants a SHOUTOUT, but the card possesses another attribute of remarkableness (real word)…

Its age.

This is the first and only Jewel Preferred Savings card I’ve ever possessed. Just look at the thing! Though my memory tells me this card was born around the year 1993 (I gotta think I had this during my sophomore year in High School), one would need sophisticated carbon dating technology to validate its true age. This thing is so old, it split in two identically shaped pieces two years ago. Embarrassed by the state of my card, I once waited in line at the Customer Service counter for five minutes with the intent of obtaining a replacement. But I got fed up with the wait and fled the queue with my shame on my face and a broken Jewel card still in hand.

And then during one fateful shopping trip, I whipped out the card to redeem my savings, the cashier took it, shook her head in disbelief, and proceeded to mend it by applying orange Jewel stickers (the ones they place on purchased items that do not fit inside a bag) on three edges of the card. A moment of brilliance! Why she didn’t go for four remains one of life’s great mysteries.  Was she really worried about covering up my printed name?

Now instead of bringing embarrassment, the card brings me great pride. And for that, it undeniably receives a big-ass SHOUTOUT!