As Kate so aptly puts it, this plumber leaks half and half.  Or raw milk, as the case may be.  It is Day 2 and I am drinking coffee with milk.  Forgive me Lord, for I know not what I do…or rather why I couldn’t manage to drink up all my delicious delicious bacteria-ridden milk before I set sail on this sea of the fast.

Here’s the problem: a few years ago I got pretty good at making substitutions.  I had my vegan waffles and my tofu vegetable stir-fry and my soy ice cream and soy milk on cheerios and all that.  I know how to be vegan.  But it involves two things I’ve come to more or less loath: soy and vegetable oil.

Obviously, I prefer the flavor of my cow’s milk and my butter and my free-roaming chicken eggs (not to mention the cows and the chickens themselves), but I can eat the other stuff.  I won’t turn up my nose at some soy milk or a muffin made with hydrogenated vegetable oils.   But I have recently become against them on principle.  Especially the vegetable oils.  Oh Lord, the oils.  So, do I give up my principles for Lent?  Or do I give up my favorite food group, baked goods?  Or do I invest heavily in coconut oil?  There must be a way to be 1) Lenten 2) healthy and 3) bake without 4) eating people.

(Follow my reasoning here: margarine = people; therefore, margarine = animal product; therefore, good Orthodox Christians do not eat margarine, especially during Lent.)

Now that I’ve lost most of you, I’m off to replenish my store of honey for the tea-drinking season ahead.

But please, tell me what to eat.  Man cannot live on tea alone.

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