for a second i wanted to be a vegetarian.

actually, more like 45 minutes, or an hour, or however long the chef's demonstration took last night. he tore away at the huge section of cow carcass laying on the counter as he so gently described how male cows are castrated so that they can grow even bigger than nature would allow them. this section alone weighed about 90 pounds he said, and i thought about my friends that were close to the same weight. no wonder why i didn't see the vegan guy anywhere around that day. an entire semester on the cutting, fabricating, and manipulation of animals, and who could blame him for being absent?
as the chef described different parts of the cow, all i could think of is how i would achieve vegetarianism (is that a word?). at first people would think i was crazy, but i would convince them that i wasn't with the horrifying facts about meat. i can't even describe how i felt as he literally sawed through bones that were at least 2 inches in diameter. i never understood what a bone duster was for until then. i tried to tell myself this was just like anatomy class in high school, but i realized that even being in front of those cadavers did not make me as uneasy as this hunk of cow did. "this is where the cows head would be if he had one... MOOOO!!!" i held a sad expression on my face as the chef pretended there were some imaginary cow head attached to the carcass.

some time during the semester we will be working with veal. i have never eaten veal before, not because of choice, but just because the opportunity never presented itself to me. during the lecture the chef only said two or three sentences about veal, but just the idea of it and i started to get sad. a baby cow kept in captivity just for the sake of a tender steak?

what the hell was wrong with me? this is my job, or at least, it will be. i began to think about the dilemma i had before i decided to go into this industry. did i really want a job based entirely on gluttony? one of the seven deadly sins? when we began to cook though, it all came together. nothing seemed as bad as it did before, and even though this piece of meat was once a living being, it seems as if it does more as food than it would just grazing in the grass lazily. i continued to make my beef stew, enough to serve 5 or 6 people. now that we were rid of the carcass i could easily convince myself of the greatness that is meat.

no, i would not be vegetarian... meat tastes too good. for now, though, i'll probably still stay away from veal...