So after a couple of years of going meatless I decide to become what people usually call a pescatarian. I was living in Portland, Maine at the time and it's a tough place to live if you don't eat fish. Its just so fresh and plentiful, in addition to the fact that Portland is one of the best places to live if you like to go out to eat. Most of the restaurants downtown and in the Old Port are small and locally owned. I have been to major cities that cannot match Portland in the quality and quantity of good restaurants, breweries, coffee roasters and bakeries. I worked in some of those restaurants and it was in those restaurants that I learned to appreciate foods I didn't care for previously. The one thing Portland was lacking though was decent Mexican food (or any ethnic food that wasn't Italian), but seeing as the state of Maine is 96.5% white that should come as no shock.
I moved to Boston a few years later and in Boston I was exposed to a wider variety of ethnic foods. My neighborhood in East Somerville had this place called Taco Loco that was actually owned by El Salvadorians and my guilty pleasure there were these things called pupusas which are sort of like corn turnovers with cheese in the middle served with this stuff that was a combination of salsa and sauerkraut. Simple but amazing. I also worked for an Icelandic bakery and coffeehouse and discovered that the best way to stay thin eating croissants and scones every day is to run up and down a flight of stairs 50 times during a shift. I also started eating Indian food. I'm a bit of a spice wimp which I will get into later and I took some experimenting before I figured out what I liked.
It was also while in Boston that I was introduced to Trader Joe's. To this day I do about 80% of my grocery shopping there. I can spend way too much money if I make the mistake of going there on an empty stomach. I spend too much there even if I'm not hungry but it does less damage to my bank account than Whole Foods. If I ever decide to move again having a Trader Joe's nearby will be one of the requirements along with a decent public transportation system.
I moved to Chicago in 2001 and lasted about 6 months before I started eating red meat again. Being a pescatarian in Chicago is rather disappointing when you've spent the rest of your life living within a mile of the ocean. I started out with chicken but chicken gets tiresome very quickly. I was in Milwaukee with my boyfriend at the time and he was eating a burger from Kopp's Custard. Not sure what came over me but I asked him for a bite. I wound up eating about a quarter of his burger. The next week we went out to a Colombian Steak place and it was delicious. After almost 14 years I was officially off the meat wagon.
Do I regret being a vegetarian? No. I would not have the appreciation for fruit and vegetables that I have today if I hadn't given up eating meat. Do I regret going back to eating meat? No. I don't think we need to eat meat all the time, but having a high quality piece of meat on occasion is enjoyable.
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