It Was a Loooooong Two Hours

So, off I went to my mother's to wish her a Happy Mother's Day.  And herein begins my rant.  When I asked what was for supper (and before you all go off on me and say I should have cooked my mother's supper, let me just say she was taken out by another of her children to a lovely non-vegan restaurant for brunch and she was only preparing supper because that's what she likes to do on a Sunday - invites people over and cooks for them.  She's a lovely woman, really.)  Supper, I was told, was going to consist of cold plates:  chicken, ham, pasta salad, potato salad, etc.

Apparently, I was supposed to eat the salads because they didn't contain meat.  I'm trying very hard to eat a vegan diet (i.e. foods that won't kill me) and salads made with mayonnaise and cheese and other un-vegan-like foods are not very appealing to me at the moment.  Sadly, no one seemed to understand that.  There were remarks such as "You'll have to bring your own food from now on",  "You must eat a very regimented diet", and "You can't expect us to change".  See that picture of me to the right?  Now picture that head beating itself off a wall.

I don't expect anyone to change for me.  Not a soul.  But, seriously, I could do without the comments.  I have brought my own supper to my mother's before and, with the exception of my fifteen-year-old niece, no one has tried the food I brought.  But they do supply comments to the point where my plate of food becomes the centre of attention (and when there's a minimum of ten people at supper, that's a lot of talking and pointing and negativity).  Can't we just eat and talk like before and not discuss my eating habits?

For the record, it's not that hard to make a regular dish a vegan dish - where the recipe says butter, use vegan butter; for milk, use soy or almond milk; for cheese, use vegan cheese; there's even several varieties of unmeat out there that one would be hard pressed to tell from the real thing.  I haven't strayed that far from my usual diet, I just "healthied" it up.

Okay, rant over.  (I still love you, family.)  :-)