As promised, here’s a passage from my in-process Diary of a Curmudgeon II book. And the topic is particularly pithy on this gloriously glutinous Thanksgiving holiday. It brings to mind the Everybody Loves Raymond episode where Marie cooked a tofu turkey. Enjoy!
June 21, 2023
After another bad review run in with another disgruntled vegan, Australian celebrity chef John Mountain declared that he’s banning them from his Perth Fyre restaurant for good. As he so eloquently put it, “Fuck vegans – I’m done with them!”
Ban them? I think vegans should be hunted for sport! Though it wouldn’t be much of a challenge because they’d drop dead from fatigue just five minutes into it.
Then the ungrateful lunatics – and all vegans are nuts, perhaps because they eat so many – had the nerve to claim Mountain was engaging in the most heinous form of culinary discrimination.
Right! So, the next time I’m anywhere near a vegan restaurant, I’m going to burst through the front doors and demand the thickest, juiciest porterhouse steak anyone’s ever seen. When they inevitably turn me down, I’m gonna raise the kind of ruckus that will mean bringing every last Illinois anti-discrimination government agency down on them. And there are dozens of ‘em in this sad progressive state and they’d probably be stupid enough to proceed with the complaint.
Vegans want you to believe theirs is a noble cause as demonstrated by their frightening propensity to drone on about how they’re saving the planet. But the truth is their singular goal in life is to bore you to death with the most minute details of their absurd diet.
Have you ever had to endure a vegan’s tragic attempt to place an order in any kind of restaurant? It would be far simpler to hammer out the details of an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. The interminable process goes something like this:
I’ll have the veggie burrito, but only if the tortilla isn’t made with milk, eggs, or butter. Could you substitute guacamole for the sour cream and cheese, but only if the avocados are organic? Do you have any vegan cheese? Oh! And the utensils used to prepare the burrito can’t have touched meat, dairy, chicken, fish, or eggs. You don’t use lard as a cooking medium, do you? I’d prefer sunflower seed oil if you have it, or better yet, could you steam the vegetables, instead?
Would you substitute green pepper for the red pepper because red peppers give me hives. Oh! I almost forgot, could you replace the eggplant with zucchini because I don’t like eggplant, and would you please put the salsa on the side? Wait a minute – do you have pico de gallo? Are your black beans made from scratch, or do you use the canned variety because I don’t like the canned variety. Do you have oat milk or better yet, almond milk…
And they’re only halfway through the ordering process, which means no jury on the planet would convict that server for slicing the vegan’s throat with a dirty serrated steak knife.
For reference purposes, the fastest way to shut a vegan up is to inform them that, in regard to their beloved almond milk, it takes a whopping 405 gallons of water to grow just one pound of those nuts in California where persistent drought reigns supreme.
These are the same children who’s “best friend” parents indulged them at every turn, they got participation trophies in every sport, they regularly require their safe spaces and trigger warnings, they speak with that stilted semi-valley girl accent, and they’ve been conditioned to believe the entire planet is there to cater to their every whim.
And I’m not exaggerating, either, because my wife has a former roommate who’s even worse about ordering food than the insanity I just offered. I wouldn’t go to a restaurant with her if my life depended on it because I’m convinced the waiter would spit in all of our food.
So, even though I don’t drink it, I’m going to raise a large glass of full-fat cow’s milk in honor of Mr. Mountain, a man who finally found the courage to beat back the insipid vegan horde.
He might just be my new favorite curmudgeon.
