Oh, y’all. I am in the middle of one of those weeks. Every day this week, I’ve been all, “Man, it’s one of those days!” Yesterday morning, for example, began with me accidentally (of course accidentally, sheesh) kneeling in a big dog turd and then tracking it all over the bath mat. Of course I was already dressed in my work clothes at the time so I had to find some new pants to wear and all my clothes were dirty and damn, what an annoying start to the day.
Don’t blame me; I’m just a sweet wheelchair dog!
(Regular readers will recall that my handicapped dog has to be helped with his “business” and uses the toilet, hence the presence of the otherwise location-inappropriate dog turd.)
(This is just a rare, gross thing that happened. It normally winds up in the toilet. There is not usually dog poop on my bathroom floor.)
(Look, I don’t even want to talk about it any more, so quit asking questions.)
Another thing that happened, in case that wasn’t nasty enough for you, was that I blew my nose into my sleeve while out on a run. I did this on purpose. Clearly, I need to learn how to do a snot rocket.
To get to the point (what, are you disappointed that I am out of disgusting stories?), I am grouching my way through the week and I would like to cheer myself up. I am in the mood for something nice and fun. What about you? Feel like doing something nice and fun? I thought you might.
Here’s what: a contest! I have some stuff to give away and I will send it to you if you are the winner. I have come into possession of two copies of Veganomicon, the fantastic vegan cookbook by Isa and Terry. I only happen to need one of these copies, so my extra copy can be yours for the taking. Do you want this book? I think you do. It’s a beloved classic in the vegan and vegetarian circles, but I’m sure there are tons of recipes even the staunchest omnivore would appreciate. In fact, I have fed this vegan food to omnivores several times, always with good results. So even if you are not vegetarian, you might want to win this contest.
Even if you already own this book, you still might want to win this contest. For one thing, you could give the book to a friend. For another thing, I’m also going to include some other items, to be determined based on who wins (basically, I will decide what else to include based on what I think you might like).
Want to enter? Just leave a comment here by Monday night, midnight central time. I’ll choose a winner via random number generator and then I’ll contact the winner to arrange shipping the book & other goodies. If you’re stumped on what to say in your comment, you might want to tell me what food you’re craving at the moment (I could really go for an enormous bean burrito, myself. Lots of guacamole, please).
Yes. This will be fun! I’m in a better mood already.
Raveling Out 
Ooh, I have almost pulled the trigger on buying this book SO MANY TIMES, I would love to win a copy! And I am currently craving a very specific tofu banh mi sandwich available only in San Jose, California. Impractical.
The one type of food that’s almost impossible to find in the Netherlands is Mexican food. Many places try and fail. The biggest problem is that the Dutch simply cannot, under any circumstances, handle spice. The entire country’s collective palate craves food that is as uninspired and as bland as possible (but, preferably, free from horse meat).
Needless to say, my lady friend and I were ecstatic when we learned that a Mexican restaurant owned and operated by actual Mexicans opened in our neighborhood. Unfortunately, these dudes know they’re the only real game in town, if not the entire country. The prices on their menu would cause a riot in most parts of the US. They’d be out of business in no less than five minutes in Texas. We paid absolutely stupid amounts of money for a few margaritas, some nachos and a few tacos. the other night .
We’ve also been experimenting with vegan and vegetarian dishes. She whipped together a tasty squash soup the other night. We’ll probably never make a full jump to other side but it nice to shake things up every once in a while (because, yeah, the whole horse thing…).
Of course as a livestock farmer I’m not going to go vegan without a major lifestyle change, but in the summer we eat a LOT of various veggies and in general I wish we ate more veg sides (by volume) and had more variety in dishes. We are super seasonal so for the asparagus season we just eat grilled asparagus like every day. Then it becomes green beans and/or zucchini season and we eat grilled zucchini and/or green beans every day. It’s delicious, and easy, but variety would be welcome.
And now I’m craving some summer veg. Think I’ve got some homegrown frozen green beans somewhere …
Ooh, that would be lovely, since I’m on week 2 of a Who Knows How Long stint of experimental vegetarianism.
I don’t know how to blow snot rockets either! They wind up all in my hands and dribbling down my face! Ugh. So gross. So, like you, I always just blow my nose on my shirt sleeve or pull up the bottom and blow it there.
We’re winners.
Current food craving? Macaroni cheese (it’s been raining for two days) and/or sweet potato brownies (sounds odd, tastes delicious). Neither of which are traditionally vegan 😉
My set of cookbooks is woefully spare. I rely on a Moosewood book for most vegetarian stuff. This looks like it would be verrry helpful.
I’m currently craving… nothing. But I am looking for a good vegan brownie recipe. So, let’s go with that. I also love a good cookbook, which reminds me – I need to get my Smitten Kitchen cookbook out again. That cookbook is filled with gold!
Oof, I’m sorry to hear about the dog turd! That is completely disgusting and a surefire way to put yourself in a grouchy mood. But a cookbook giveaway is super fun! And that’s very generous of you to give it to a blog reader–good karma points for Kate, coming right up.
(I kinda feel like I should disqualify myself from your giveaway because I have SO MANY COOKBOOKS. But…but…but…I heart cookbooks and think it makes more sense to buy another book case than give up the books. Am I right?)