Today we have a family thing. Ever month we get together, play games, eat, and generally spend time with each other. We’re talking aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, friends… whoever wants to come. Often we have themes (you should have seen us on Pirate Night running through town in costumes and eye patches armed with digital cameras and treasures maps on a scavenger hunt). We usually take turns with planning the menu. This month’s menu is soup and salad. I love soup. When I first became a vegetarian I really, really missed. Instead of going out to eat and getting s teaming bowl of french onion (that usually includes beef broth), I learned to make my own veg-friendly version that makes your mouth water and the whole house smell of it. I also found and adapted other recipes, like my new family favorite of corn chowder (my mother has actually requested it for tonight’s little get together).

One of the myths of vegetarian is that you have to give up the things that you grew up with and foods that you love because of the traditional use of meat products. I was lucky enough in some ways that I had grown up in the kitchen and had learned to cook as my mother and grandmother’s side. (I come from a family of fantastic cooks.) There are a lot of rich, hearty German cooking traditions. I did have to relearn to cook in many ways, but in away that I never had to give up many of the lessons I learned that can never come from books or classes. And slowly over the years my family has given way to a lot of thoughts and barriers that once separated us over food. Every year for Thanksgiving I make my homemade mushroom stuffing and mushroom gravy. (This year I may even take on a tofurky or stuffed/baked pumpkin.) No longer am I the only one who eats and now it has joined the list of family traditions made, requested, and expected every year. Salads are made without bacon topping. My grandma keeps veggie burgers in the freezer for Grandpa. I eat almost all the things the rest of my family does, just minus the meat and gelatin.

Vegetarian cooking is not a hindrance, but an exciting venture into cooking. If you don’t feel like cooking everything homemade (which I don’t do all the time), there are alternatives in a lot of grocery stores (around here we have Kroger which often has a really nice selection of natural, organic, and vegetarian foods). Going veg doesn’t have to mean giving up the food you love.