Woo-eeeee is it hot outside!? And it's not even July yet! I don't know if this is an indication of global warming or what, but I remember thinking 83 degrees was almost too hot for a pool day when I was a kid. Maybe that was how hot our summers were 10 years ago, or maybe I was a sissy (very likely), but either way this is just crazy. I have literally started dreaming of rain and have been waking up disappointed when I open my bedroom doors to the bright sun. My disappointment, however, is NO WHERE CLOSE to the emotions that stir up after one of my meat eating dreams! I have had SO MANY! Maybe once a night, I wake up panicking after I dream of eating a cheeseburger or something. I don't know if this is my body craving meat or some deep fear that I will get drunk, eat some, and start back at square one, but I am always pretty excited when I realize it's a dream. Yep, my subconscious clearly fears cheap ground beef.

Regardless, I am still holding strong!! I went to MadMex with my brother yesterday and just sat there like a good little girl DYING as he ate 14 wings in front of me. I won't lie, they smelled absolutely amazing. No vegetables smell like that, ever. I think my brother could legit feel my tension as I leaned over, snatched his celery, and ferociously rubbed it through the sauce and blue cheese. Not the same, won't ever be the same, but whatevs.

It's worth the mention though that MadMex has hella vegetarian options! Anything on their menu with a little baby cactus next to it means fair game for people like me, and they even do vegan substitutions if you want to take it that far. Wednesday (yes, I cruised MadMex twice this week, SUMMER BABY!) I had some of the happy hippy quesadilla and it was delicious, spicy but delicious. It just gave me an excuse to suck down my big ass marg a little faster :) Now that I am aware of it, I think it's awesome how many restaurants not only have vegetarian options, but numerous ones that are clearly indicated too! As a condition to going back for my second Bikram class (ended up going 3 times during our introductory week, so pretty proud!), I wanted to go to Coca Cafe in Lawrenceville for breakfast, and I LOVED all the options there! I immediately knew that I was going to get the goat cheese and fresh berry french toast which was absolutely amazing and, with the amount of maple syrup I put on it, probably evened out the 800+ calories burned in Bikram the night before. I was too busy dying over my food and drinking way to much coffee to snap a picture but I promise it looked exactly like this. I tried their soy sausage which I will admit is no where close to the real thing, but it was cool that it was available none the less.

http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/wjLgM9Ybe5shoUPRrGMmsQ?select=ZFEY7SGVln4mmEX_jEdeGA#VPl1KiY2onQHhJlIYy1Jag

WAIT on the topic of breakfast meats, I feel like I need to make a disclosure here. In my first post, I raved about my love for bacon. Really, it's the best thing ever and I will never debate that with anyone. I guess I gushed a little too much because I gave people the impression that I am a bacon-eating vegetarian (I now have a pack of bacon in my fridge, it is testin me). This isn't so bad, to be honest I was a bacon eating vegetarian for a couple weeks months ago and it was great, but nah no bacon for me anymore! Unless it's local of course, which the farm I support does sell at its booth on Wednesdays, but unfortunately for 8 dollars a pound. Perhaps I should get a job before splurgin on something like that.

I may have walked away from their booth without their bacon, but I did pick up my farm share this week! So many different things than last week so I get to try out more recipes! In my bag this week were the craziest looking summer squashes, zucchini, red cabbage (meeeeeeh I have still have half of the white cabbage from last week, even after whippin up some Pittsburgh Haluski), broccoli, and the biggest bushel of basil I have ever seen! Lucky for me, this completed the list of ingredients I needed to make this pasta dish I have been wanting to try forever! I found the recipe in Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes From London's Ottolenghi, which is the neatest cookbook (with absolutely stunning pictures) that I found on Anthropologie's website! Huge trick to saving money and finding neat reads: Go to their website, House and Home, Books, and request all the books they are selling from the library! Just not all at once, I did that out of excitement and ended up carrying 11 books home one afternoon. But ya, anyways this book and especially this pasta were delicious! After watching my brother devour his 7-chickens-worth dinner, we hiked back and prepared this beauty.

Pasta and Fried Zucchini Pasta

2/3 c sunflower oil
3 medium zucchinis

1 1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3/4 c frozen edamame
2 c shredded basil leaves
1/4 c shredded parsley
1/3 c olive oil
salt and pepper
PASTA
lemon zest approx 1 lemon
1 1/2 tbsp capers
7 oz torn mozzarella

Heat sunflower/ olive oil whatever you got over medium high heat in medium saucepan. Fry zucchini slices in small batches, being careful not to overcrowd. Cook 3 minutes or until golden brown, just flipping once. Once cooked, place into bowl and pour the vinegar on top. Stir around

Cook your edamame however yours cooks!

Combine half of the basil, all of the parsley, and the olive oil in a food processor, adding some salt and pepper. Blitz to a smooth sauce.

Cook your pasta to al dente, you shouldn't need directions on that!

Pour zucchini over pasta (including the juices), add the edamame, basil sauce, lemon zest, capers, and moz. Stir together, sprinkle some salt and pepper and add in the rest of the shredded basil!

So easy, so delicious!

But yes, despite this heat, I have been having an AMAZING week! I went to the movies in the park, kayaking on the river (15 dollars an hour with kayakpittsburgh, unless you are a VO member or can persuade the dude who's working that you are :) ), hiked through Schenley Park at dusk where apparently all the lightening bugs hang out, and basically spent as much time as I could enjoying my city. I have a family reunion Saturday at my grandparent's so will be heading home for the weekend. With my parents, and especially seeing my grandparents, this will be the biggest challenge for me yet! Honestly, Look at what my grandma had waiting for me last time I stopped by. Can you tell an italian grandmother that you have stopped eating meat? We will see!!

Last meal at Grandma's, oh lord

Beautiful Pittsburgh Weekend!

Hey guys! Hopefully you all have had an amazing weekend, whether it was in Pittsburgh enjoying the finally tolerable weather,  at home visiting family, in some other chic city, or if you are like some of my amazing friends, overseas!

Speaking of other countries, surprisingly one of my favorite meals in Paris was not a French dish from a chic bistro, but was cooked up by my yaya Megan for a picnic we had in Trocodero, overlooking the Eiffle Tower and the beautiful Seine (hard life, right?). The company and views would have been enough to have the most memorable night, but the sandwiches Megan made (and transported on the dirty metro on one of Madam's fancy plates) really tied it all together! Since the big WYEP Summer Music Festival was Friday night, I thought this would be the perfect occasion to try my hand at the sandwiches myself. They are called Caponata Picnic Sandwiches and may very well be the best vegetarian sandwich EVER! The ingredients were super simple, mostly found in my cabinets or fridge, or pretty cheap at Trader Joe's (except raisins, which were quite expensive and in bulk, so I traded them in for some Puffins, which if you haven't tried will surely change your life). By the time my brother and mom showed up at my apartment, the vegetables were all cooked, and ready to go! With my brother's help doing an AMAZINGG job toasting the bread (my broiler reminds me of a modern depiction of hell, so I stay clear when I can) while taking the pictures below, we hobbled down with picnic baskets and coolers in hand and spent a beautiful night in Shenley Plaza enjoying the good weather and free music.My dad mentioned how, if I was still going to medical school in Philadelphia, this would have been one of my last summer nights in Oakland, and looking around after I was SO glad that wasn't the case! Despite living here my whole life, Pittsburgh continues to entertain and surprise me.

Nothing beats fresh vegetables, garlic bread, and mozzarella cheese.

Maybe I should have given him my other camera sooner!

Like today! Although I am sure in larger cities there are constantly things to do, I am definitely impressed with all the free things little ol' Pittsburgh was offering on a Sunday! This morning I cruised some hot yoga at Moonglow Studio in the Strip District, which holds free, but still challenging, classes on Sundays this summer! Not only was it a legit session in a beautiful studio, but the instructor also mentioned how there was a festival happening on the streets below. The Strip is definitely an area of Pittsburgh I want to use more of!

After showering off at home, I met up with my mom and went to the Yart Sale at Mellon Park, where artists, schools, and vendors gather and sell ceramics, paintings, and all sorts of creations SUPER CHEAP! Usually my mom and I hit up the CCAC tent, but this time lucked out at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts tent where we got free buttons, lemonaide, and 3 for 5$ deal on all sorts of ceramics that people made and never came back to retrieve! We rescued many orphan bowls, one of which livens up my kitchen table and the other will hopefully brighten a friend's day :)

You'd think two free things in one day would be enough (cantstopwontstop), but after energizing up on some vegetable stir fry, I am about to head out to one of the free movies on Flagstaff Hill in Schenley Park. Tonight's Puss in Boots, so we will likely be surrounded by little kids up past their bedtimes, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited :)

UGH! Over 24 hours later and I am STILL recovering from my first (and please god, last)  Bikram yoga class ! My fabulous, competitive poker playing friend James is flying down to Vegas in a couple days to win some bucks at the World Series of Poker (if he gets around to making his blog before he goes, I'll def post it here!) and wanted to try out some yoga that he could do to break up the hours of sitting at the tables. We went to some hot yoga at Amazing Yoga in Shadyside earlier this week despite it being equally, if not hotter, outside and it felt great for the both of us so we decided to amp it up a bit! We should have known to run when the instructor, after asking us if this was our first time doing Bikram, told us that our main goal of the next 90 minutes was to just stay in the room. Once she started class she reiterated the importance of staying  (we COULD physically/legally leave if we wanted to, but basically it would fuck everything up if we did) and told us that the feeling of wanting to vomit, pass out, or freak out were all normal. So here we are, in a 110 degree room, surrounded by essentially naked sweaty people, attempting to just keep living. 10 minutes in, I look over and James is attempting not to faint on the floor, and probably 5 minutes later I join in, and as we laid on the floor of this burning hot room I cannot help but curse the yogi who decided 2000 years ago that this was a good idea. Neither of us could muster the strength to stand back up, so were relieved that not only did the poses switch to the floor but that every single other person in the class was also fighting the primitive urges to pass the hell out. The best part of class was when it was over, and covered in an insanely unhealthy amount of sweat, we bolted out of the studio into the most refreshing rain ever. We chatted with this super friendly dude who shared some tips of how to drop to the floor gracefully and efficiently, but essentially told us that even after practicing for 7 years, yeahh it's not going to get any better any time soon. With 9 more days of unlimited classes, I will probably only go back if forced (and promised some peanut butter and chocolate covered Trader Joe pretzels, YUM).

The severe dehydration I felt during and after class probably wasn't helped by the 7 drinks I had the night before, but WHAT AN AMAZING NIGHT I HAD! My best friend Emily, 2 of the chefs at the restaurant, a birthday girl, and I went to a Farm Fresh menu tasting at SOBA Lounge in Shadyside. A 4 course meal that you can compliment with a glass of wine with each (we all did, obvs), each course incorporated fresh produce, greens, and meats from local farms of Western Pennsylvania (they listed the farms on the menu). This is exactly the kind of dining experience that I want to support, so didn't hesitate to make the night of one my meat eating occasions. Yea, I have been making some amazing vegetarian dishes (more on this crazy tasty sandwich I made last night later), but I'll admit nothing compares to the richness of pork, and knowing that it was a special occasion made it even more delicious. Plus, I'm sure the iron and other nutrients I consumed helped the next morning! Since I was surrounded by such great company, tasty food, and cold wine I forgot to take any pictures, but trust me IT WAS AMAZING! My little brother is leaving for the middle east in a few days for a Food and Beverage internship at the Ritz Carlton at Doha, Qatar and I really wish the menu lasted a few more days so I could take him here to celebrate. The next farm menu is August 13-18th and I am telling you, skip a few nights at the bar and treat yourself to something amazing. You will not regret it!

Alright, have to run and cater a wedding this evening, but will be posting about a delicious vegetarian dish when I get home! I made Kale Chips the other day, and they turned out horribly. I think the kale has to be really fresh and solid before you make it, so if I get some in my share this week I'll give it another try.

First farm share of the season!

Hey guys! Thank you all so much for your support and kind words about my first post yesterday! It is going to be really special sharing this experience with you, and just makes me really, really excited!

So, last week, I was talking to my older brother about my decision to remove meat. As a medical student himself, he is a bit of a hypochondriac but I'll admit that it is entertaining to hear the worst case scenario of any situation. So when I told him what I wanted to do, I was bracing myself for some declaration of that I would be at risk for sudden death or eye explosion, when he drops the biggest bomb on me. "You know, your hair is going to fall out". Uh... WHAT?! Despite being runner-up for the Marsha Brady award in high school (I lost to a brunette..which I don't know...just doesn't seem fair..) my hair is kind of my thing. So yesterday I searched online for vitamins I need to take to keep any hair loss at bay. Low and behold, a couple posts mention Vitamin B12, which was ironically perfect because some chic handed me a 5 hour energy literally moments before!! If there is such thing as a Vitamin B12 jackpot, I just hit it! 8,000 percent of your daily value? Shoot, I wouldn't have to worry about my hair for 80 days! Despite her warning to drink only when I was tired (which I wasn't) and that it was already 5pm, I did have this legit concern and a competitive game of Mancala to win. 5 hours of energy and fulfillment of 4 months of vitamin requirements have never been so easy (as was kicking some Mancala ass).

Worst idea ever. Come midnight I had as much energy as Shoshanna from Girls after she accidentally smokes crack. I went cray.. From sophomore year experience, I know it is probably a good idea for me to remove my phone battery after drinking an energy drink, since my hyped up tendency is to break up with people I am not dating. Such precautions aren't as accessible with the iPhone so I put it out of reach as I sped read chapter after chapter of the third book of the Song of Ice and Fire series. If you know anything about these, which you probably do just from the TV series, you should get that this isn't exactly the best thing to read before bed. When I did dream, there was a dragon eating a direwolf that was eating me, all in fast forward. AH! I woke up today with the worst migraine I have had in years so I legit believe that after one night I got addicted to and am now withdrawing from my 5 hour. Bottom line of this story? Take a multi-vitamin instead.

Good news is that I picked up my first farm share of the season yesterday! As I mentioned, I signed up through Clarion River Organics, which is a co-op of 8-9 different farms and just so happened to have the cutest stand at the Phipps Farmer's Market. After checking out their website, I knew that they were the organization I wanted to support this season! In addition to their full shares, they also do a small share for single girls like me, which is just a smaller bag of goods that I still pick up each week. A huge pro for a college student, they also allow for you to pay your fee in 2 installments, once now and once in August, so it hasn't hurt my bank account too much! Oh, and although this doesn't apply to myself, they also give a 50% discount to anyone using the SNAP food stamps program, which I think is an awesome way for people of lower SES to have access to fresh, organic foods. Plus, they even have events throughout the year where you can visit their farms, so this is a win all around! Love them already!

My first share consisted of a huge bag of snow peas (my mom used to grow these when I was a kid, so tons of memories associated with these guys), a bag of mixed lettuce, a cabbage literally larger than my head, a bundle of kale, and some garlic scapes. Aside from basic lettuce, these are all things I would never think of picking up at the grocery store, but I have already found SO many options for cooking them!

Last night, for example, I made this amazing Kale and Egg Bake. Now, I am not a chef by any means (most of my skills, if  I have any, are in baking), so I don't even want to pretend that this is a cooking blog, or that I invented this idea myself. Instead, I place my trust in the hands of strangers with cute blog names, lots of comments, and a chic background. Head over to Runningtothekitchen's blog for the recipe! Instead of garlic I threw in some of the scapes but pretty much followed the recipe from there. (I picked up some Amish cage-free certified humane eggs last week from Oh Yeah! Icecream on S. Highland, the difference between them and the "large white eggs" from GE is def noticeable! Plus I need an excuse to go back there every week, the place is amazing.)  I had all the ingredients already, it took under 30 minutes to cook, and I got to experiment with my new goods. Not to mention, IT IS THE MOST DELICIOUS THING EVER! I can't wait to make it  for any of my friends who are willing to try!

May not look exactly like her's but still INCREDIBLE!

So, after such a positive first experience, I cannot wait to try out more things! I am at a bit of a loss with what to do with all my cabbage though, to be honest. The only experience I really have with cabbage is eating Macedonia Sarma and simple, yet deliciously refreshing, shredded cabbage salads prepared by my favorite Macedonia in her kitchen. If anyone has any ideas, please share them!

Thank you again for reading! I am planning on making Kale Chips, which are apparently in right now, sometime later today or tmw, and will hopefully be checking out a farm fresh tasting menu at SOBA in Shadyside tonight, so there are more posts to come! XX

Oh hey hey!

Hey guys, I'm Caroline! Just in case you have somehow landed here by accident and don't know who I am, let me introduce myself! I recently graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a double major in Biological Sciences and Psychology (and a minor in Chemistry, woo woo!), and am hanging out in my hometown of Pittsburgh for a couple months before starting the next adventure in my life as a medical student at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. That's all the serious stuff I would immediately respond with if asked to tell you about myself in an interview, and although those are accomplishments I am proud of, they def are not who I am! So, because I hope to be chronicling my new eating habits, adventures, and personal choices on a hopefully daily basis, let's get more intimate, eh? My name is Caroline, every morning I make coffee in my french press, I love pink, Elle Woods is my fictional hero, I like indie music, I am reading more than two books at any given time, I use too many exclamation points, I have a happiness journal, I'm learning how to whistle, I have a cactus and zen garden, I speak fluent french only when I am dreaming, (I use the oxford comma)...

... and I recently became a vegetarian! Well alright, maybe not a complete vegetarian, but the closest to it I have ever been. Now, if you know me, you are probably laughing, which is fine really because I laugh at myself quite often (unless you are Matt Baker, in which case you are probably pissed). For all who are not on the inside of this apparent joke, let me explain. I have always, and I mean ALWAYS, loved meat. Growing up, I used to go to the gym with my dad, work out, and come home and eat steak along side him (why I had a gym membership at the age of 8, I will never know). If I was on death row and got to plan my last meal (which is a serious concern of mine and something I will probably ask you within a week of hanging out, get ready new friends!), it would have always involved the summer meals with my father's steak eaten out on the back porch. This love created as a child had carried on throughout college, where I panicked when faced with the Tuesday decision of all-you-can-eat bacon and all-you-can-eat rib night (last time I chose the ribs, only because I cruised the bacon the week before). If anything, my craving for steak turned into one for daily bacon. I LOVE bacon (note: still present tense)! I don't think there is anything better than a BLT which I can eat daily for weeks on end, I baked bacon into cookies, I shamefully dipped bacon in peanut butter, I got giddy when a cute dude gave me chocolate covered bacon. Really, it is an intense love.

However, for the past couple months, things just felt a little off. I saw a couple documentaries, I really took time to taste my food, I started thinking about what I was putting into my body,  and I started to pay attention to how my body felt afterwards. This led me to a few declarations that I would no longer eat red meat, based off the way my body felt after eating it and my belief that since pigs and cows had bigger brains than chicken and turkey, this was a good moral decision. This wasn't too life changing, since I somehow convinced myself that my favorite food, bacon, wasn't included in this exclusion.

But then something happened. I have had a lot of free time, some would argue too much, and have read tons of books. I have fallen in love with anything written by Jonathan Safer Foer, and compulsively requested a book of his, Eating Animals, out of the library without even thinking of the title. Ten pages in, I truly had a feeling that it would change my life. An entertaining book written by a best selling artist, the book is about Jonathan's quest for information regarding the meat industry so he could make informed decisions about what to feed his newborn son. I do not want to be one of those annoying, righteous vegetarians that preach their purpose to everyone in listening distance, but there was so much in the book that opened my eyes, enraged me, brought me to tears, disgusted me. Please, I am not forcing but asking you to read it. Based off the facts documented in his book and the recount of his experiences, I realized that he was talking about a subject that I was passionate about. Now, if there is one characteristic I cannot stand, it would be when someone is passionate about a cause, talks about it to no end, but doesn't do anything about it! It's incredibly frustrating! So I decided to make some changes for real this time.

The first change was signing up for a CSA, which apparently stands for Community Supported Agriculture (thanks, googs). I talked to this informative guy at a farming convention a couple months ago who originally sparked my interest, so enrolled in his program Clarion River Organics. More information on the CSA and this organization in my next post I promise! Now, that was the easy part. My other change has been the conscious elimination of any meat (cow, pig, chicken, turkey) from my diet. Now this is the part where people will understandably want to argue when I refer to myself as a vegetarian: I am not against eating meat and at this point, do not think I will eliminate it from my diet entirely. Instead what I am against is factory farming, which is the method through which Americans get 99% of their meat. The full out warfare that we have created against animals, the genetic modification that has resulted in animals that cannot either live to the age of reproduction or are not capable if that age is reached, the corporate influence of these factory farm empires, the ecological damage that results, the associated health risks, the treatment of animals in these facilities, now THAT is what I am against. If this is something you are interested in knowing more, or perhaps arguing against (please no), then let's talk! I'd love to! But like I said, I hate confrontational or highly opinionated people, so will leave that serious talk for another time.

So here is my game plan. I am going to seriously attempt to remove meat from my diet. I will hold exceptions for occasions where rejecting meat would be considered impossible, culturally insulting, or unrealistically rude. After a good talk with my older brother,  I recognize that there are some nutrients in meat that us as humans need to consume, and since I am on a pretty rigorous workout routine, I know my body needs them. So,  I have decided that I will only eat meat if it is from a local farm or if I know exactly where it is coming from. Yeah, this will be difficult and quite expensive, but the CSA I signed up with sells meat, some restaurants include on their menu where they obtain their meat, and it will be an excuse to eat high quality bacon some time in the future :) So yea, there it is. If you pass me during one of the rare occasions when I am cruising some animal, this will hopefully be one of the circumstances listed above. (If you see me in McDonald's on Forbes on a weekend night after 2 am, please gently remind me of these goals).

So there it is! The main reason for the creation of this blog. Over the next couple days, weeks, months I hope to share with you all my adventures in vegetarian land: the failures, the successes, the great finds, the disappointments, etc. etc. I hope to be able to show everyone that eliminating what we believe to be such a crucial element of our diet is possible, that you can afford decent produce on a college budget, that Pittsburgh (an infamous industrial city) has farmers markets and restaurants that focus on the local aspect of dining, that what you put into your body is important, and that you can have fun and laugh throughout it all!

If you have made it throughout those rambling paragraphs, I love you and thank you for reading. I promise future posts will e shorter with more pictures (another excuse to use my big camera), and more entertaining for us all! Let's begin this adventure together, shall we?