Day 15: Back home from a (not quite) vegan vacation
I’ve been crazy busy with traveling and work the last couple of days, which is why you haven’t heard from me.
Being vegan at home was challenging, but also interesting. My sister made a lovely vegan cherry cake for me, that was great! Danke nochmal! 🙂 A similar recipe can be found here .
This isn’t it (camera broken still), but it tasted as great as that one looks. Image taken from here . 
My mum, on the other hand, seemed to have a bit of a harder time understanding.
I told her that I am vegan at the moment and tried to explain what that implied, and the food I won’t eat. After some negotiation about lunch (she really wanted to make something for me, as in the good old times), we decided to just have some vegetables, spinach and potatoes. Sounded good to me. We agreed that she’d cook dinner, while I unpack, do some laundry, have a shower.
When I was done, I quickly sneaked into the kitchen to see how dinner was doing. On the kitchen counter, right next to the oven, I saw an open pack of butter. For a second, I thought about speaking up, complaining. But no – I didn’t say anything. When I came back to eat, the butter was gone. I think that in this situation, it is better to overlook the incident. The only thing I could have done, anyway, is to not eat any of the dinner – but since she was cooking purely for me, that surely isn’t a good idea. I don’t see my family all that often any more, so I think there is no point in having a fight about a little butter. Do challenge my point though, fellow vegans: what would you have done in the situation?
Lastly, my cookbook should arrive today – Yay! Hopefully, I shall be able to start cooking again soon (The last couple of days I’ve just been living off the AMAZING German bread I brought from home. Nom nom nom… No better thing. Truly the only food I have been missing since leaving Germany.)
vegansmarties 
I probably would have done what you did and just sucked it up and not said anything. it gets easier as time goes by because your family and friends start to really understand what veganism is and i think you become more comfortable being assertive. at least that’s how it was for me. Yum German bread! 😉
That’s reassuring to hear. And I hope you’re right about it getting better… 🙂
Thanks for your post on 40newthingsin40days. My view is the same as Annabel’s. If people are making the effort you appreciate that. I think when I was vegan I tried hard, particularly with my parents to be thankful for the soya milk they bought in, and overlooked the veggy but not vegan marge.
I agree as well, especially since it seems like your mom was doing the best she could. My mom makes spaghetti every single time we go for dinner (which is once or twice a week!). She just doesn’t know what else to cook without meat. So I don’t complain and just thank her for the meal. I’ve been getting her interested in some new plant-based meals but it takes time and as long as she’s not trying to force feed me a steak I’m thankful 🙂
Haha, I feel like our mums might be related. Exactly! Spaghetti was the other option, next to potatoes and spinach, that we discussed 😉 I agree – being thankful while slowly trying to push to a vegan direction is the way to go 😉