Out of the bin of extraordinairly bad ideas, Redwood gives us our first ever $15 veggie burger. First off, veggie burgers are almost universally bad no matter how pricy they are.  Think about it - this is a food born with a split personality.  Is it supposed to be a burger?  A patty of veggies?  What is it supposed to taste like?  Is it supposed to taste like anything at all?

Secondly, if you are going to go ahead and make a $15 veggie burger, it should really taste a whole lot better than this:

The veg burger at Redwood combines white beans and wild mushrooms into a mammoth patty that apparently wants to compete, in terms of sheer volume and prestige, with the 8- to 10-ounce gourmet steakhouse burgers out there.  To its credit, the burger tastes light on traditional binders like breadcrumbs and rice. But it has other problems, like a mushiness that I can only compare to oatmeal, even when the patty is topped with house-made pickles and tomatoes.

Sorry Redwood, you’re just giving veggie burgers a bad name.  Now Spike on the other hand, he’s got it going on.  Panko encrusted, deep fried veggie burger?  Hell yes, thank you, please.

It’s like eating Quaker Oats between two brioche buns. The flavor isn’t much better.

I love the food network.  The crazy food scientists, the Secret Life of Tootsie Rolls, the fact that they just rolled out an show called ” What Would Brian Boitano Make”. I even love Emeril, with his cheesy grin and overused “Bam!”

But Emeril does not love me, and neither does the Food Network.  In fact the entire food establishment seems to scorn people like me, with maybe one exception.  See, I don’t like meat.

I know this is shocking and crazy sounding after all the bacon posting I do here.  But the bacon posting is really for you dear reader, because I am afraid that you won’t love me for my meat-less ways.  I kid, but there is a certain amount of truth here.  Non-meat eaters tend to be persona non grata around foodies.  Could you imagine if a Top Chef contestant refused to cook meat? Colicchio would laugh them off the stage. Could you imagine “Cooking Manly Man Style” Emeril Lagasse being told that he had to forego the pork belly to feed the likes of me? “Bam” would not encompass that temper tantrum.

Even Boitano invites “bacon-crazed” roller derby girls over for 4 course bacon extravanganza. It’s lonely being veggie.  The one bright spot in all of this is Mark Bittman, who actually wrote a cookbook for us of the non-meat variety.  Boston’s Vegetarian Festival has gotten so popular they’re expanding it to 2 days.  And Meat-less Mondays are gaining steam.

Yet, we are still the fringe.  I’m not saying the Food Network should take Emeril’s meat away.  But a veggie friendly show is badly needed.  Or even better yet - instituting Meat-less Mondays on the channel would be a phenomenal way to get all their shows to be a little more accepting of the non-carnivore foodies out there.

With Chris Martin, Cheryl Crow, Moby and Yoko Ono on hand, Sir Paul McCartney launched a new Meat Free Mondays initiative this week.  The campaign asks people to go without meat for one day a week to help cut greenhouse gas emissions.

If you think about it, since meat production causes more greenhouse gases than driving does, cutting meat out once a week is a more than 17%* automatic increase in your fuel efficiency.  And it saves you money.  Not a bad deal.

Of course the Farmers Union is not at all pleased with any call to consume less:

“Diet is a lifestyle matter, and individual choices must be respected, but this campaign has a rather gimmicky air to it,” the Daily Express quoted a spokesperson for the NFU as saying. “It greatly overstates the contribution that British livestock make to climate change, compared to, for example, transport where emissions have been rising rapidly in recent years,” the spokesperson added.

McCartney makes the opposite claim, that it is meat that creates more climate change, not transport.  Watch the vid.

*If you care all that much, ask me and I will send you the math.

Was doing a little research on PETA and came across this great Top 10 list they put together of the top veggie friendly ballparks across the US.  I’m more of a football fan than a baseball fan, but its still interesting to read up on some of the options available at venues that at face value appear to be red meat havens.  Check it out.

PETA is pleased to announce the Top 10 Vegetarian-Friendly Ballparks for 2009. (Be sure to check out PETA’s animal-friendly minor league counterparts too.) Click on each ballpark below to learn more about its vegetarian options. And the winners are …

1. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia Phillies)
2. AT&T Park (San Francisco Giants)
3. Coors Field (Colorado Rockies)
4. Turner Field (Atlanta Braves)
5. Minute Maid Park (Houston Astros)
6. PETCO Park (San Diego Padres)
7. Comerica Park (Detroit Tigers)
8. U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago White Sox)
9. Oriole Park at Camden Yards (Baltimore Orioles)
10. (tie) Miller Park (Milwaukee Brewers)
    (tie) Wrigley Field (Chicago Cubs)

Fortunately, these aren’t the only ballparks that have stepped up to the plate to serve delicious vegetarian options. Here’s a list of ballparks that received honorable mention and a rundown of the meat-free items on their menus!

Honorable Mention:

• Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles Dodgers): Veggie burgers, veggie dogs, California and cucumber rolls, fresh fruit skewers, roasted sweet corn, assorted salads, Healthy Kids meals (PB&J, juice box, and fruits and veggies)
• Tropicana Field (Tampa Bay Rays): Veggie burgers, bowtie and penne pasta, black beans and rice, assorted salads, vegetarian action stations with pasta, risotto, black bean cakes, and quinoa cakes (available in the Batter’s Eye)
• Busch Stadium (St. Louis Cardinals): Fire-roasted vegetable burritos with rice and beans, Asian vegetable stir-fry, garden-fresh salads, fresh vegetable plates
• PNC Park (Pittsburgh Pirates): Veggie burgers, vegetable wraps, veggie pierogies, fresh fruit smoothies
• Dolphin Stadium (Florida Marlins): Veggie burgers, made-to-order salad station, fruit cups, potato latkes, vegetables crudités
• Nationals Park (Washington Nationals): Veggie burgers, hummus and vegetables, fresh fruit salads, pear and walnut salads with lemon vinaigrette, Healthy Kids meals (PB&J, juice box, and fruits and veggies)

Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum (Oakland Athletics): Veggie dogs, chipotle black bean burgers, assorted salads, baked potatoes

Marion Nestle has a quick piece up where she references a paper out of UCLA which makes the argument that if you’re concerned about how your diet affects the environment its actually better to go the route of eating less meat than to eat locally.

This is definitely true, but there are plenty of really good reasons to go locavore in addition to eating less meat.  Eating locally is good for the local economy because it sends money to local farmers as opposed to Big Ag in some far away state or country.  Eating local is also a security issue.  Back in the early dawn of the dreaded War on Terrorism, many people pointed out that our food channels are incredibly insecure because the channels in which we get our food are very long and consolidated.

The best reason to eat locally is probably that it encourages small farms over big industrial ones.  These small farms ensure that local agriculture is more diverse in that you have many farmers many making many different decisions on what crops and techniques they use to grow their produce. Diversity is good for minimizing pests and maintaining healthier soil.

Liberal Vegetarian. I kinda like the sound of it. I’ve also referred to myself as a Pescatarian, and some call us Herbivores. But mostly I’m just someone that doesn’t eat all that much meat.

Just don’t call us crazy. The natives don’t like that.

I’m going to get out in front of this trend and predict this is going to be all the rage in the coming months.

So I don’t eat meat. Yep, I’m one of those people. There’s a certain set of folks out there, that when you tell them you don’t eat meat you automatically get The Eye Roll. You can almost hear the gears churning in the head, “what’s next, is she going to start braiding flowers for my hair and extoll the virtues of crystal-aroma-hypnotic therapy”? For some, meat is a way of life, but for me, its just not my thing.

I’m not worried about cutting some poor little feathered friend’s life short. Yeah, the environmental issues are a concern but I don’t think going cold turkey on meat consumption is the most rational of all things. I don’t think a diet heavy in meat is very good for people, but I’m big on moderation, not complete self-denial. No, the reason I don’t eat meat, is, well, I just don’t like it. That simple. No grand conspiracy.

My life of meat eating started to wind down when I began cooking for myself in college. As much as I don’t care for eating cooked meat, I really, really don’t like touching raw meat. So Bonnie P.’s clip of pig gutting over at The Epicurean was just a little gross to me. But it is an interesting thing to see a pig get split down the middle.

I was also surprised to see the butcher work on the pig in the dirt like that. Am I being a prissy city-type to have expected a somewhat more sanitary venue?