Meatless Mondays

It's Monday, and the Texan and I are going meatless.

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After reading this article in the latest issue of my UCLA Alumni magazine, I was inspired to go totally meatless a minimum of one day a week. There was only one problem: I knew I had to get the Texan to try it. Otherwise, each Monday I'd be nibbling on tofu and salad greens while he chowed down on a steak, my martyrdom to the planet spilling over onto the table between us. But how was I going to convince a guy to go meatless who owns a t-shirt from a barbecue joint in Texas that says, "Vegetarian: The Indian word for Terrible Hunter"?

I decided to take the direct approach. One evening when I knew we were going out to an area with a large bookstore, I told him I had a proposition for him that involved reading a short article. I figured this would help my cause because a) he is an avid reader, and b) he loves facts. When he finished, I planned to just come out and say that I wanted to do Meatless Mondays and I wanted him to do it with me, please. I sat him on the sofa, handed him the article, and had this conversation:

Me: (silently rehearsing elevator speech)
Texan, finishing article: "You know, we should probably eat less meat. We could do Meatless Mondays or something like that."

Me: (silently) Wait, what?
(out loud) "Yeah, that's what I was thinking. We can stop at the bookstore tonight and look at vegetarian cookbooks."

Texan: (silently) That's EXACTLY how I wanted to spend my evening: perusing tofu and bulgher wheat recipes.
(out loud):  "Great! Let's go!"

As luck would have it, we found not one but two cookbooks we both liked, one of which is appropriately titled The Meat-Free Monday Cookbook and offers three seasonally appropriate meals for each week of the year.

Over dinner that night, we had this conversation:

Texan: "You know, it's really just one day a week. We can totally do it."

Me: "Yeah, and we already eat vegetarian breakfasts, so it's just two more meals that day that have to be veg."

Texan: "But if we like it and find recipes we like, we could make it two nights a week. Or even three."

Me: (silently) The fuck?
(out loud) "That'd be cool. I have to admit, though, I was surprised when you suggested doing Meatless Mondays."

Texan, waving hands evangelist-style: "As I read the article, I was worried you had, like, seen the light and wanted to go totally vegan or something. So that's why I suggested Meatless Mondays before you could say anything: I figured one day a week was better than seven."

Ah, there's my carnivore.

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Tonight's meal? Homemade tamales, salad, and maybe some vegan chocolate cake for dessert.