Well, I was vegan for a day. One full day I was 100%, no holds-barred, vegan vegetarian. No animal products whatsoever. The day after that I had an egg. Then the day after that I had a 20-something ounce steak. HUGE hunk of tenderloin, free from the hotel. It was really good. And now I’m no longer vegan. Once it hits your lips…
Aside from meat cravings, I backed down from veganism once again out of fear. Fear that I’ll become anemic, protein-starved, and deficient in other essential vitamins, fats, and minerals that are best found in animal products. I really got my hopes up this time that I’d be able to carry out an eating style more earth-friendly…but I’d rather win a bike race. Not saying it isn’t possible to win one without meat, but I think the odds are better with it.
Steak and eggs aside, I’ve been crushing the vegetables. I got a shipment of hard neck garlic from home and quickly baked a large batch in the oven. Baking garlic is the best way to assure you eat at least seven or eight cloves a day (and by the way, an average hard neck garlic clove is about the size of an entire bulb of normal garlic). And eating seven or eight cloves a day is a great way to stay super regular. A nice recipe for a thick, green soup that I’ve eaten the past couple nights is:
Entire thing of Swiss or rainbow chard.
Large amount of fancy style cabbage
Half thing of Kale
1/2 cup of split peas
1-5 cloves of hard neck garlic depending on how bad you want to stink
Some coconut milk
One egg
Salt
Pepper
It’s very simple to make. First, you cut up and boil the chard in some salt water. Only boil it for a minute or so. And don’t use very much water. Just enough to boil the other vegetables and a bit extra water to add into the peas. Some of the vegetable’s vitamins are lost in the water so I like to save all the water by adding it into the soup. Or just drinking it.
Next step: Blend the chard in a blender.
Next step: Chop up the kale and cabbage and garlic. Boil them in the water for like five or eight minutes or something. Longer than the chard.
Next step: Blend the cabbage and kale and garlic in the blender.
Next step: You should do this step first actually–start cooking the split peas since it will take an hour.
Next step: Mix everything together in one pot on the stove (cooking the egg).
Next step: Have monstrous, loose, green poops and nasty garlic/cabbage farts for the next 24 hours.
I’ve also been devouring salads almost as gigantic as Spencer’s appetizer. If it doesn’t need to be eaten out of a pot it doesn’t deserve to be eaten:
Olives from the hotel:
Hard neck garlic and chocolates (pre-vegan). After eating the entire 1-pound box in a sitting, I had to ride downtown and find a homeless man to unload the other box of chocolates on before I finished them off too. I have very limited self-control.
I got a new chain the other day and it turns out that all four of my cassettes are too worn to be used with a new chain. Chain slippage all around. I thought about putting the old chain back on with my oldest and most favorite old cassette, both married in a perfect harmonious metallic groovage of wear and tear, but I ended up just tossing it and the old chain and getting a new cassette. 12×28 baby. I like ride mah bike slow up dem hills cause I got reeeal meaty thiiiiighs mmm-hmmmm yes siryy. The guy at Performance (yeah that’s where I went, you got a problem with that?) spent about an hour and a half working on trying to get my power tap wheel to not be a piece of shit, and he got a long way on it too. It wobbles a lot less than before. But he said what it really needed was some love back at Saris, since the bearings are gone and the free-hub body is once again shot. I think that wheel has spent more time at Saris than it has on the road. Lazy hunk a junk.
My cold has been defeated. I’ve been riding, albeit not as much as I’d like. It’s now Friday and I’m finally feeling good once more and got in a good three and a half hours of Boulder’s finest hills. Next week it’s on, full gas. Time to suffer. Give me all you got Samual Jackson.
(PS it actually isn’t Friday yet)
I think these squirrels were fighting or something.
KENNETT PETERSON 
I don’t think you ever will make it as a Vegan because of all the pictures you take of your fancy meals. Half your joy in eating the meals you make is in the creating of them. My husband and I took ballroom dancing lessons for 9 years, great exercise, and the only thing I didn’t like was an Italian partner because they had usually had garlic in some form for dinner and smelled of it when they sweated. Happy eating. Grandma C
I’d say half my joy comes from thinking about what I’m going to make, half comes from making it, half comes from eating it, and half comes from bragging about it. Today someone at work at the hotel said they smelled garlic. Luckily we were in the kitchen so I blamed it on the food. I’d just eaten two massive cloves with some potatoes and hot sauce. Garlic leaks from my sweat glands.
Dude, Kennett, how have I not been reading your blog lately. I love it hahahahaha