100 Recipes #4 Fail

People always assume I’m a vegetarian because I teach yoga.  But I’m not.  I was a vegetarian for many years (maybe 10?) but when I was a vegetarian my diet was pretty crappy.

Yeah, I didn’t eat meat, but I also didn’t eat well.  My diet had a lot of dairy. Cheese mainly.  Cheese dishes gave me my protein (this was way before the days of the “fake meat” Morningstar Farms products), and I like cheese, so I exploited it.

Then dairy began to give me gastro fits.  And then my diet really became a mess.  So I began to introduce fish and lean meat (chicken) and suddenly my headaches went away, my energy went through the roof, and I felt much better in my gastrointestinal tract.  In short, I felt balanced.

I still continue to eat some meat.  Not everyday, but occasionally.  And I make sure that the meat is what I like to call “happy meat,”meaning, that the animal did not suffer in a CAFO-type facility.  I eat only organic, free-range, grass-fed meat.  I buy it at the Growers Market or from Pag-Omar.

Last Growers Market, I bought some lamb.  There was a recipe in the Wegman’s magazine for Slow-Cooked Lamb and Beans and I made it yesterday.  It cooked in the crockpot all day while I hiked the Lynn C. Keller trail.

I ask you: Is there anything better than coming home from a day in the woods to a kitchen that smells all warm and delicious and dinner is already made?

But I have to tell you. The whole time I was eating this lamb?  I was thinking:

I am eating…..a lamb.

Mary had a little lamb.

Shari Lewis’ Lambchop.

No more. I can’t eat lamb.  Even if it was a “happy” lamb.  I can’t eat baby animals.

So technically I have another recipe to add to my 100 Recipes list, but I’m not going to be listing the ingredients and directions here.  If you want it, go buy the Fall 2009 Wegman’s magazine.  But just remember:

Mary had a little lamb

Its fleece was white as snow….