Yes! I have heard abouuut it BRU!

I chant the lyrics to the Wimpy Epic Burger ad while driving; I sing along to it when it plays on the CLEO radio [every hour on the hour]; I think about it when I’m in the shower, and it’s often the first tune banging in my head when I wake up in the morning.

Has anyone noticed how the camera has recently moved slightly up on the TV ad version, so we can’t see those lovely, gyrating pelvic-thrust movements anymore? That was the best part of the ad, and now it’s censored.


Perhaps on 1 July, when all my vegetarianism is over, I’ll see what all the fuss about it, and sink my teeth into something supposedly, epic. Maybe then the advert will stop haunting me, and I’ll stop seeing the main cheerleader’s threatening face in my dreams!

Apart from that annoying reminder of my diet, I did manage to have an amazing veggie dinner this week at Babylon Again, a Greek restaurant at Bright Water Commons in Randburg. Look, the centre becomes a graveyard after 9pm, so go early to avoid feeling like you need to leave before the zombies come out to eat you.

I had a divine haloumi vegetarian wrap, while my less-than-impressed uncle, my date for evening, noshed on his lamb curry.  Traditional Greek food makes up most of Babylon Again’s menu, but they also have sushi if you’re feeling particularly cosmopolitan. You can book out the upstairs section for private parties, where after dinner you get to throw your tekkie and smash some plates!

Visit their website at http://www.babylonagain.co.za/ and  check out their menu here http://www.babylonagain.co.za/mainmenu.htm

No oxtail pooitjie kos at Olive Grove Bungalows.

I took last week Friday off, hence my lacking blog that day, to go with a group of friends to Olive Grove Bungalows – a charming cabin-like lodge in Hartbeespoort.

If you want to feel like you’ve left the city, but haven’t had to trek three hours to get out, then I suggest you take the 45-minute [or so] drive to this gorgeous spot. Set along the Magalies River, this forest-come-bushveld retreat is the ideal place for nearby R’n’R. An ample-sized reed-clad house, and the forest and river bungalows for the more private couples, make up this breath-taking lodge. Check it out at http://www.domegos.co.za/11375/Olivegrove+Bungalows.

Main House

River Bungalow

Forest Bungalow

Back to the actual holiday. I was aware for the week leading up to it that two of my best friends would be making an oxtail pooitjie kos. I’ve tasted their sumptuous, traditional meal before – only it was a year ago during a holiday in Dullstroom when I was allowed to eat meat. How oblivious I was then to the struggle I would face 12 months later.

So at about one in the afternoon, the little pooitjie pot bubbled away outside on an enormous concrete fire place. Every so often a whiff of cooking meat and onions caught the draft and danced suggestively past my nose. Kind of like in those TV adverts, set in the morning sunlight, where the beautiful Parisian woman is lured to her apartment’s open window by the smell of the hunky guy’s coffee brewing in the apartment below. Only, I was hardly the Parisian model, it was midday, bloody cold, and I was already halfway drunk.

I will admit, the smell of the slowly cooking meat was at first gastronomically beautiful, but once I saw the chunks of it served on the others’ plates, I became somewhat put off. I won’t say “revolted” or “converted to vegetarianism for life” or “vegan, here we come”… just, put off. There was something about the layer of hard, yellow fat that had formed the next day with the remnants of oxtail in the porcelain casserole dish, which made me feel quite grateful for not giving in to its temptation. Because though that sickly layer wasn’t visible the night before when everyone but me tucked into the meal, it sure was there all along. It was just camouflaged as succulent, brown gravy.

So, I’m proud to say that although my friend put great effort into trying to force-feed me oxtail pooitjie, I rejected it, and noshed on my salad, corn fritters and other bunny foods instead!

Make your pizza stop looking at me!

 My first week of vegetarianism has varied between feeling like a toddler who’s recently had her dummy taken away, to a somewhat self-righteous, transformed human being. “Urgh, dead animal. You’re eating that?”

There have been some not-so-easy moments though. For example, going to Piza e Vino in Rosebank and having to resist gawking at my date’s pizza, smothered in barbeque sauce and grilled chicken pieces, in fear that I might smash half of it into my meat-deprived mouth in guiltless devour, while he looks away, only for a second. “Pull yourself towards yourself, woman!”
I couldn’t help stealing a couple of sneaky, sideways glances at the tempting chicken pizza, not unlike the shifty ones prepubescent boys take on any woman over the age of 17, showing a little leg and/or boob. The boys and I think the same – “I will eat your juicy flesh one day! But for now, I’ll only wish, because you are a beautiful delight that I’m not allowed to touch”.
Another new edition to the veggie week is exploring the part of me that is obsessed with food. I talk about every meal I’ve eaten with fellow vegetarian-for-a-month CLEO designer Morgane, and let her feed me fork fills of her delish Woolworths-bought warm couscous salads and minestrone soups. We sample each other’s food daily. It’s not weird. We’re in a vegetarian relationship.

But I must tell you what I did land up eating at Piza e Vino – in my opinion, the trendiest Italian restaurant this side of Jo’burg, and who’s slogan invites you in to undress your taste buds. My veggie pizza, called ‘In the Zone’, consisted of Danish feta cheese, marinated cherry tomatoes, ricotta and pesto, topped with a mound of fresh rocket. I ate the whole thing – something I’m discovering you can do more of when you eliminate meat.

Visit their website www.pizaevino.co.za 

This is what I ate for breakfast yesterday: Egg on low GI health toast (the egg was neither scrambled nor fried, because I have this extremely clever technique of cooking eggs in the CLEO microwave) with pesto salsa on the side, topped with rocket. Gourmet.

I’m not eating anything with eyes

Somewhere between watching an eye-opening report on Oprah on the importance of knowing where your food comes from and how I gets onto your plate, and sitting down at the CLEO office table for lunch, I made the decision that I wanted to seriously see if I could go vegetarian for a while. But I had to give myself a time frame to do this in, a beginning and an end to it, so that it wouldn’t seem like I was embarking on some kind of diet [or something]. Which I absolutely am not.

So, egged on by my fellow CLEO girls and motivated by weekly vegetarian blog updates, I decided that for the month of June, I will not eat anything that could breathe. Anything with eyes. Anything that could walk, fly or swim. You get the point.
I am NOT going vegan though. I think that would be too much of a shock to my system. Plus, eggs and cheese don’t make noise, and certainly can’t run away, so they’re all mine.

I’ve always been a bit of a bunny hugger, but not quite to the point where I’d gladly give up a juicy, cheeseburger. So this challenge might be somewhat, er, challenging. But it’s something I’ve always thought about giving a bash.

When you Google the benefits of being a vegetarian, millions of sites come up, so there have to be some serious accolades to it. 
Some of those include:
·         The environment. Cows release huge amounts of methane gas, i.e. fartage, into the atmosphere (think 100 million tons of it!), so by not supporting animal agriculture, I’ll be directly reducing that amount.
·         Chemical- and hormone-free food (plants aren’t injected with growth hormones, antibiotics and harmful preserving chemicals).
·         Lower risk of cancer and type two diabetes.
·         Improved digestion (because my body won’t be spending so much time breaking down rotting meat, eek!).
·         Higher energy levels.
·         Being thinner than you meat eaters, so there!

So, wish me luck on my meat-free month, and I’ll keep you posted with delicious veggie recipes and vegetarian tales next week.