Kreecher Comforts

Oxford is known for a lot of things, and most of them I’ve celebrated emphatically in my first term abroad. However, fresh, healthy vegan food is not one of them, and I’ve been learning why. The monotony of limp salads and the endless stream of soggy french fries tested my endurance and my tolerance for a culture positively lacking in any degree of culinary heritage whatsoever. But, in the end, I wasn’t there to eat, and was too busy pouring over Kant and Aristotle to give a damn, so I contently heaved handfuls of dry cereal into my mouth for days at a time as I worked. I figured, if I could be contently vegan in Cairo for a week last Spring, I can be vegan here too.

Nevertheless, it’s become an unconscious ritual for me to cook this exact same dinner every time I come home to my parents form college, whether AU or OU, so I did just that when I got back at the end of Michaelmas. Something feels particularly ‘healing’ about it--probably because it’s a giant pile of nutrient-dense foods--but at the risk of getting waaaay too MacVegan right now, there’s something…well, spiritually healthy about it as well. Maybe because I make it myself, which is therapeutic, or maybe because it’s the first hot food I eat in weeks at the end of a semester, or maybe nutritive food simply IS spiritually nurturing food. Whatever it is, this combo makes me feel ‘at home’ in a significant way. *End the new-age MacVegan Berkeley talk*

So it’s this:
1) Toasted Quinoa (A high-protein South American grain. It always looks ass ugly when you photograph it, and I can never understand why. Oh, well.)
2) Smokey Red Wine Lentils with Celery
3) Baby Romaine with Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil
4) Roasted Butternut Squash with Black Pepper
5) Red Wine

Sorry about the awkward camera angle here—my sister is the photographer of the family. I just used my computer’s camera.