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Articles and Information
The Good Stuff
by Tammie Ortlieb
Picture your typical Amish restaurant. Checked tablecloths. Wood plank floors. Jars of homemade apple butter on every table. The kind with the little snippet of gingham fastened with ribbon where the lid usually sits. A gift shop stocked with items of such craftsmanship it would put Martha Stewart to shame. And immediately on entering from the rocker lined porch your nose picks up the scent of chicken, mostly coated in a golden, crispy, flour-based batter.
Not only can you order all you can eat, family-style fried chicken here, but you can also enjoy your vegetables with chicken in them. Even more, you can enjoy them, too, with ham, beef, or that "back home" basic-bacon. You might choose from mashed potatoes drenched in chicken broth, green beans stocked with ham, or black-eyed peas with hunks of something lardish floating among them. It is possible in such a place to FEEL like you've eaten meat even if your fork has never touched the substance.
It was in just such a dining establishment that my family and I found ourselves one boring summer night. Know that my family is possibly the most blended family in America's Heartland. Last count we had two omnivores, two ovo-lacto vegetarians, one vegan, and me-the world's biggest vegan wannabe. Our adventure all began after much discussion about nothing to do. My husband conjures up the idea to have dinner somewhere out of state. We hop in the car, drive just past the Michigan border and end up in Shipshewana, Indiana. Amish country.
One look at the menu and we knew we were in trouble. Where was the vegetarian section? Even the side dishes screamed of meat. If not meat, then cream sauces, butter bases, and the all too frequent egg wash. My veggie kids and I had little hope of finding enough food to fill our plates, much less our rumbling tummies. My husband, the meat-eater, and my omnivorous son, on the other hand, searched the menu choices with nice contented smiles planted on their faces.
Understand that meat is not banned from our home. My husband will bring it into the house when he does the grocery shopping. If he wants to eat it, he will cook it. And we don't have it on the table every night. We choose to place our love for each other over our love for animals or even the planet. Not that there isn't a little political speech making happening on occasion. The plant eaters among us have learned to tolerate and co-exist very nicely.
Sometimes, and I am confessing here, we co-exist not very nicely. I remember one trek to a $3.99 breakfast buffet in which my meat-eating son, John, walks back to the table with a loaded plate. On it were pepperoni slices, four strips of bacon, five sausage links, and a couple pieces of ham. That was it. No applesauce. No sliver of melon. Not even a teeny little carrot. The mother in me felt a wee bit of guilt for depriving him of his beloved steak for so long. The vegetarian in me could only see a twelve-year-old's arteries with signs reading "Sorry, closed for the day, no blood flow allowed."
Likewise John's older sister, vegan and teenager all at the same time, has learned to live among yogurt cups, ice cream bars, and mozzarella sticks. She knows that I will buy mostly egg- and dairy-free breads, cereals, and treats so as to allow for little label reading at the pantry door. When her brothers and sister are scooping up some French vanilla for banana splits, she pulls the Soy Dream out of the freezer. But life in such a blended family can occasionally get a little complicated.
The other day, my eight-year-old holds up a slice of yellow cheese with a pained look on her face. "Is this real or is it fake?" she calls to me as I fold another load of laundry. "Who knows," I yell back, "just eat it." Now for an egg and dairy eating vegetarian kid who a couple of years ago stood in front of her entire first grade class and gave a lecture on Mad Cow disease and the terrors of meat, accidentally eating a piece of vegan cheese should not be a big deal. But somehow that day, it was.
And so you see the dilemma that was ours that night as we plowed our way through scores of meat broths, bacon bits, butter pats, and egg noodles.
When our plates arrived, they couldn't have been more white, bland or starchy. But, hey, they were full and each contained the appropriate meat, egg, and/or dairy free foods. The plant-eaters among us gave each other a pitying look, then reluctantly dug in. Across the table, my husband and son, John, however, devoured the likes of gravy soaked potatoes, hot buttered rolls and noodle soup, and of course the infamous crispy chicken.
While it wasn't the greatest meal, I was enjoying the fact that my family and I were spending time together. This is no small feat for an out-of-town-a-lot dad, a third grader, two teens, a tweener and me. No friends, no Nintendo, no TV or Ipod with which to compete. It really didn't matter what was on the plate. The waiter had carved us out some special-ness in the midst of chaos. He had laid it right on our waffle weave placemats with a little buttered corn and cranberry sauce on the side. Oh, yeah, now this is good stuff. Could somebody please pass the apple butter?
Tammie Ortlieb is a freelance writer with a Masters Degree in Developmental Psychology. Her work has appeared in VegNews, Veggie Life, Vegetarian Baby and Child Online Magazine, and Mothering.com. She resides in southwest Michigan with her omnivorous husband, three terrific teenagers- two veg, one wannabe-, and a you-tell-em-like-it-is-sister future green revolutionist fabulous fourth grader.
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